CHAPTER 1

 

With her eyes wide with dread, sheer terror was etched into the face of the beautiful girl as she ran through the jungle. The girl's dark hair streamed out behind whilst her feminine charms danced obviously and deliciously within their covering. Her full, sensuous lips were drawn back to gasp panting breaths in her headlong flight, revealing fine white teeth which would make any dentist redundant. So the deadly perils of the drop-dead gorgeous Starship Commander, Liz Hartley, are continuing.

Heart pounding, her breasts aching from their wild bouncing, Liz ran through the verdant undergrowth ahead of Harry; his breathless voice urging her to greater speed. She was sweltering in her space coveralls but they at least protected her from the scratches of the thorn bushes in her path.

From less than half a kilometre behind came the hoots and yelps of the dark-skinned pygmy tribesmen ringing ominously in her pounding ears. She faltered when she heard further screaming voices ahead of her, making her bite her full sensuous lips in anxiety. Their retreat was seemingly blocked off. Suddenly Harry's hand clutched desperately at hers, dragging her into the heart of a dense bush. She was oblivious to the wicked barbs tearing at her; she had to be, it was the least of her worries.

"Quick - only way - waiting for us the other side - hide here," Harry managed between rasping breaths, carefully tugging the bushes back after them to conceal their entrance.

Thankfully Liz collapsed, easing several of the longer and sharper of the vicious barbs from her coveralls and wincing where they had pierced the softness of her skin beneath. She blinked away tears of pain and terror, trying to catch her wits.

She was no longer a Federation Starship commander, a level-headed resourceful woman in her twenties. Rather, she was a little girl again who just wanted to hide under the bed covers, seeking reassurance from her parents until her fear subsided and was stilled. As much as she loved Harry, the Captain of her Starship, she doubted whether he could save her now. She felt a deep primeval terror loosening her bowels, turning her stomach to jelly. It was the kind of fear that dispels all reason. At that moment she would have given anything never to have become one of the most famous space officers in the Federation. Instead she wanted this nightmare to end and leave her back in her parents' country home in Maidstone, England, on her home planet of Earth.

Desperately she tried to reassert her fleeing reasoning, needing to do something positive and practical to save her sanity and maybe take back a little control. She grabbed a heal-quick scan from her pocket. Unzipping her clothing she ran the little device over the areas where she had snagged herself. Then she did the same for Harry. The heat from the instrument immediately eased most of the sharp pinpricks of pain. The tiny marks would be gone in a few minutes.

She slumped in Harry's strong arms, comforted by his presence and musky smell pressing the softness of her trembling body hard against his. His hands slipped inside her gaping coverall, soothing down the arch of her back, tracing the enticing dip of her spine and sliding under her tiny knickers to deliciously stroke the cheeks of her bottom. Incongruously, despite their desperate circumstances Liz knew that she wanted him now; something had almost taken over her mind to make her feel that way amidst their peril. She came alive in his arms and she could feel his hardness against her most intimate flesh; he wanted her too. Unconsciously she parted her endless thighs to trap the surge of his quickening desire against her moist flesh as he eased aside the now damp gusset of her panties.

"Fuck me," she breathed, her eyes wide with pleading as she slightly raised her hips.

His hands tightly gripped the perfect spheres of her bottom, his fingers brushing her secret entrance in the cleft as he positioned her. Forces beyond their control were driving them. Panting, her slim hands squeezed and encouraged the hard knob of his manhood jutting from his coveralls. She slid her cool hands under his clothing, gripping the two hard rocks of his muscled buttocks, feeling him thrust eagerly against her and her welcoming heat and wetness. She opened her mouth hungrily as his lips descended brutally and possessively over hers. Their tongues darted and entwined like minnows as she pulled him against her, into her. For a moment they could forget their dire circumstances; it was almost as if their bodies were locked together in one of the bunks of their Starship. But no, this was madness. Liz dredged up every ounce of her self-control and will.

Gritting her teeth she reluctantly broke away, easing back as Harry gasped weakly in frustration. Her breasts were heaving, her curves covered in a sheen of passion. She wanted to feel his hardness within her aching sex. However, steeling herself she hushed his protests, straightening her clothes, pushing away his unfulfilled spear now glistening with her own lust.

How could she have such carnal thoughts at a time like this? Their lives were in jeopardy. She had heard somewhere that the urge for sex and procreation was sometimes linked to the proximity of danger and death. Was that it? She pondered the cause of their sudden lapse of reason. Luckily the moment somehow passed just as a band of tiny natives swarmed by, alert for any movement in the bushes. She could have imagined how easily the tiny hunters would have discovered the thrashing and locked bodies of their quarry if they had been shaking the bush in deep passion.

She was content now just to hold Harry against her, stilling their surging hearts. Could this nightmare have been avoided? She pondered. And how could they escape it? Seeking a temporary refuge from their predicament her thoughts drifted back to the events which had pitched them into this fresh nightmare.

 

***

 

Harry was Captain of the Federation Starship Cruiser Explorer; Liz, a commander, was his second in command. They and the other hundred or so of Explorer's crew had finally escaped from pirates who had captured and tortured them on the planet Magellan. Their captors had allowed them to leave that planet in an old freighter, Colossus, but the pirates had the cruel intention of then blowing it up with them all in it. The resultant 'accident' in space would have removed all traces of the shameful and painful ordeals which the pirates had inflicted on Liz and the others in the Federation crew. However, the pirates had in turn been tricked into blowing themselves up with Explorer's self-destruct devices when attempting to themselves make use of the Federation ship.

Although sad at the loss of their Starship, Liz and the others in Explorer's crew had been initially jubilant at the demise of their cruel tormentors. They had escaped and dealt with the pirates and they were now heading home to Earth. However their hopes were dashed somewhat when their instruments told them that the hydrogen tanks of the old freighter were leaking. This setback was they guessed due either debris from Explorer's explosion or else a hidden contingency measure by the pirates to prevent their captives from having enough fuel to return to Federation space.

There were some supplies in the holds of Colossus but no ready means of repairing any external damage to the old ship without a planet-fall. As the pirates had removed any method of inter-space communication from the vessel, Liz and the others were on their own.

Their scanners had found the small lush, green planet with plentiful supplies of water to help replenish their fuel. With seemingly only a few small life forms roaming the planet and no signs of industry it appeared primitive, posing no possible threat even to their unarmed ship. The holds of Colossus had yielded a few hand-held stun guns, which they thought would be more than enough protection here.

For a few days life in their new Garden of Eden was indeed a paradise. It took all of their willpower to concentrate on repairing and replenishing the ship. Most of the crew just wanted to relax after their ordeals on Magellan. Liz found it progressively harder to motivate and convince the crew, and indeed herself, to carry out the necessary repair work.

Too late they realised there were unseen forces playing with them. It slowly dawned on them that something, some intelligence, must have lured them here like flies to a spider's web. They had been misled by the planet's lush appearance and its seemingly harmless nature. Yet the only occupants of the planet were a few pygmy natives, dressed in loincloths and carrying only spears. How could they pose any tangible threat to them as a fearless Federation crew who had survived so much on Magellan?

Nevertheless, slowly the crew disappeared. One by one they would stroll into the surrounding countryside never to return. Liz and Harry then insisted they go only in armed groups of three or four. However, the steady attrition continued whilst those crew who did remain struggled to either find their colleagues or repair the old ship. Liz assumed that they were simply wandering off to start a new life, but in her heart she knew that something else, something bad was happening, and she had a responsibility to her crew to find out what.

Yet she appreciated that somehow their will and reasoning were being sucked dry. Harry and Liz had taken a couple of other officers - Michael Haig, the Major commanding the ship's marine company, and Lieutenant Rose Pierce - together with four marines armed with stun-guns to find answers. The few timid brown-skinned natives lurking around the ship had always scurried away from them. They had, therefore, determined to capture a few of the pygmies in a bid to discover the whereabouts of the missing crew and determine exactly what was happening to them all.

But suddenly the hunters had become the hunted. An hour's walk from the old ship the marines' scanners had shown large unspecified life-forms in the distance; then their communicators stopped working. Strange Jurassic-type roars stunned Liz and the others into a frightened immobility as they saw trees in the nearby jungle crash and sway like matchsticks. Her mind told her that something big and no doubt bad was heading for them.

When the troopers investigated they disappeared as thoroughly as the other crew, apart from several blood-curdling screams, which were soon silenced. Then the terrible screeching roars were repeated but now from close-by. When the huge grey, tooth-encrusted heads of gigantic dinosaurs erupted from the forest snapping in their direction Liz guessed that her own face was as white as that of Rose's. Both women instinctively clasped each other in dread, creating a classic picture of feminine vulnerability. The ground shook from the monsters' steps as the four officers ran for their lives. Although the ship's scanners had given no indication of such creatures on the planet they couldn't deny the evidence of their own eyes. Primitive, gut-wrenching fears took over.

A few wild shots from Liz's gun had no impact on their armoured pursuers and uncharacteristically, panic threatened to engulf her. She and Harry were separated from their two companions. More of the hideous monsters, which reared over 10 meters on hind legs, had driven a wedge between them; herding them. Then the creatures seemed to fight amongst themselves, huge trees swaying wildly as they did so, leaving their insignificant human prey to run. The roars diminished.

Liz and Harry had stopped to gather their breath, searching vainly for the other two, when a large band of screaming natives emerged, brandishing spears. Frantically they fired their stun guns only to find that they had apparently failed as thoroughly as the communicators had. Liz and Harry had only managed to outdistance their tiny pursuers by virtue of their longer legs.

Liz had thus thoroughly reviewed her memories of the lead-up to their current plight and could still think of no way in which they could have avoided it. They now lay deep in the thorn bush trying to get a grip on their senses.

Her nostrils twitched, clearing her mind and dragging her firmly back to the present. Suddenly the bushes around them were engulfed in flames. Choking on smoke, heat searing her lungs and senses, she struggled with Harry from hiding, ignoring the thorns, scarcely able to see her hands before her. Under cover of a pall of smoke, they staggered towards a patch of clear blue sky in the distance.

"Harghhh!"

The cry was wrenched from her as a noose concealed on the uneven ground snapped around her shapely legs, pulling them from under her.

Fresh terror threatened to engulf her as she was unceremoniously jerked upwards by her ankles. Totally helpless, she swung sickeningly upside down from a tree alongside Harry. Her long dark hair cascaded around her face obscuring her vision. She shook it wildly, brushing it aside, her beautiful face white with shock. Her fear was then subsumed by disbelief and confusion; there was no sign of the fire - only the grinning upturned faces of the natives who now surrounded them below.

Instinctively, although it might be useless, she reached for her stun gun.

"Yaahh, ouch..." She immediately dropped it, gasping. The plastic of its butt seemed to burn her hands and she saw that Harry had done the same, also rubbing his hands in pain and shock.

Casually the natives retrieved the fallen weapons, examining them without discomfort. Liz realised that they had become victims of psychic control. Somehow their minds had been invaded, influencing and suggesting. The mind control had conjured up visions from their nightmares of monsters and fire, had encouraged and stoked their lust to unbearable limits to make them lose concentration and give themselves away. With a sickening feeling of hopelessness she realised that they had thus fled straight into a trap. She was a captive again.

Abruptly the rope securing her ankles slackened. A ground-level close-up replaced her lofty, upside-down, view as she crashed painfully to the forest floor, winding her and momentarily jarring her senses. She heard Harry gasp from above as the natives' spears silenced his helpless protests.

Ominously circling, the natives made mocking jabs with their spears, thankfully just falling short of her flinching body. Wide-eyed, Liz struggled to her feet, mouth dry with fear, hands out-flung to parry any blows. She had been trained well in the space service and was fairly good at hand to hand combat, and her adversaries were little more than half her size. But they had spears and there were many of them. Desperately she twisted and turned on the spot trying not to lose sight of any of her attackers; needing to anticipate and brace herself for whatever came next. She felt like one of the American 19th Century frontier wives she had seen on films surrounded by savage Indians. However, this was for real. A dozen of the tiny pygmies, their sun-scorched faces level with her chest, surrounded her like spiteful children. They were jubilant yet grim and determined. There was no escape. Gulping, she tried not to imagine what the first spear-thrust would feel like when it penetrated her coverall and tore into her flinching body.

The action momentarily froze, a change rippling simultaneously across each of their faces. Then they began snatching at her clothing. There were simply too many tiny hands to fight them all off and the spear thrusts ensured that she couldn't prevent them whilst they had their way.

"Please .... We mean you no harm, why are you doing this? We need your help then we'll leave here. Let us speak to your leader ... your chief."

Her desperate words had no impact on the natives, who she suspected hadn't understood or cared despite the frightened plea in her voice.

"Ow ... stop ... please," her gasping entreaties were useless as the giggling demons snatched at her coveralls, ripping and tugging.

The result was inevitable. Nervously licking her lips, Liz now stood in a circle of her tormentors wearing only the scanty black satin bra and pants she had donned in Harry's cabin that morning. They clung to her lush curves with a sensuousness she certainly didn't feel, only adding to her anxious shame. With trembling hands she covered the generous display of her jutting breasts whilst her captors eagerly sorted through the contents of her coverall pockets.

"Look, there is no need for this. We come in peace ... we mean no harm; we can pay you ...... ughhh!" Her plea was abbreviated as they grabbed her arms to pull her down to their level, stuffing a smelly rag in her mouth to bulge out her delicate cheeks. "Haah," she yelped as her wrists were twisted cruelly and bound up behind her shoulder blades, painfully thrusting out her breasts. They finally hobbled her with a rope between her ankles.

"Pluughhh," her further cries were muffled through the gag as a brown hand painfully squeezed her breasts, another slapping her bottom. She was a helpless captive in their tiny hands.

"Leave her alone, you lousy bastards."

Harry jerked still helplessly upended as the tiny fiends toyed with the beautiful woman he loved. Liz could only guess his emotions. Only that morning he had gently crept up behind her in his cabin after showering. She stood gloriously naked but for a towel before his mirror combing her long dark hair; the enticing dip of her back had beckoned him. She had shivered when he had lifted her hair to kiss the soft nape of her neck, pushing him away in mock-anger when his hands reached around to grab her boobs. When she turned to face him, full lips smiling, he had stroked her hair, holding her tightly against him. Now he hung powerless as they stroked and pinched her silken flesh, delighting in her muffled screams.

He breathed easier when Liz managed to stifle her squirming gasps, at least denying the beasts the outward pleasure of her suffering.

"Bastards ... haaarghhh!" A spear butt in his groin reduced his continuing outrage to gasps of pain. Then they finally tired of the sport with her, concentrating on him, small hands prodding, emptying his pockets as he swung helpless.

"We take to Jabba - he like the woman," one said in broken English.

Although Liz was relieved that the natives at least spoke a little of their language, the thought of her being taken - like this - to Jabba, whoever he was, brought no comfort. Then her eyes bulged above her gag as Harry was cut down, stripped to his underpants and similarly bound. She felt so vulnerable wearing only miniscule covering as they were dragged to another group of natives eating under the shade of a tree.

To both her relief and despair, Rose and Michael were with them. Both had also been stripped and trussed up like chickens. Soon she and Harry were lying with them in the dust, their ankles folded back and tied to their necks with a short length of rope. It forced her to arch her back painfully to avoid choking from the noose.

Helplessly she looked at Rose, trying to express some reassurance when her blonde friend's large green eyes widened in mute greeting above her gag. Rose wore small white bra and pants, the lace nearly transparent, through which her dark nipples and curly blonde thatch were visible, her bindings thrusting her body into a tight curve accentuating her loveliness. Although her beautiful face was creased with fear Liz was reminded just how attractive her lieutenant was. She sensed the impotence of the men lying so helplessly next to them.

The prisoners were offered no food or drink. They had to watch the natives trying on the clothes just ripped from them, eating their provisions. Tears sprang to Liz's eyes as one of the little beasts placed her locket, which Harry had given her, around his neck, giggling. Then their captors moved off. The ropes hobbling the prisoners' ankles were removed, but not those binding their wrists behind them. They were also roped together by nooses around their necks. She longed to let the remaining crew know their fate, warn them, get help perhaps? No such opportunity was afforded. Although dwarfing their jubilant captors they were led, hot and tired, further away from Colossus and any hope of rescue or safety.

The sun blazed down, the ground rough under her bare scrabbling feet. Liz longed to stop and drink from her own flask, which was slung around the shoulders of a pygmy. Even to be able to ease back to catch her breath would have been a luxury. However, the noose painfully tightened whenever her pace slackened from that set by the natives.

Liz pounded at a steady trot to an unknown destination, breath snorting through her gag and flared nostrils to burn in her aching lungs. As the journey progressed, her fatigue and fears mounted with the grinding misery. Muscles screaming in protest, her legs felt like rubber, jarring numbly over the ground as if unconnected to her body. Her generous breasts bounced painfully under the thin restraint of her skimpy bra.

Sweat formed stinging pools in her eyes, rivulets trickling down her back. She guessed her panties would be in a similar state to Rose's. Such underwear was designed to make the wearer feel good about herself, or to titillate a lover. Now the skimpy lace moulded transparently to each jiggling globe of the blonde lieutenant's curvaceous hindquarters, riding into the cleft. The bra and panties, no matter how scanty, were her last vestige of civilisation in this wilderness; her sole covering from public view. When dressing that morning, neither woman could have envisaged having to expose them under such circumstances.

Staggering but managing to get her balance before being choked further, Liz thought she must soon die. Every breath burned and the sun penetrated her aching head to scorch her mind. She hallucinated about iced drinks and deep swimming pools as she was remorselessly pulled along to an unknown fate.

Exhausted after many hours of such torment, they finally they reached a settlement of mud and straw huts in the centre of which the gasping captives were halted.

Liz sighed with relief, rubbing circulation back into her hands when they were released. But although freed from her bondage she couldn't move, for a throng of small brown figures surrounded them. Her captors' heads just about reached the level of her bra - and so did their curious hands. She squirmed this way and that, unable to escape the tiny brown hands curiously pinching her and Rose's exposed white flesh.

"Stop ... please, ow," Liz gasped as pigmy women wearing grass skirts giggled, sadistically enjoying her screech of pain as her minuscule covering was examined and snapped back painfully against her smarting flesh.

Then prodding spears herded them into tiny stockades. These had seemingly been designed for prisoners of the natives' size. The stout wooden uprights were of insufficient height for Liz to stand properly. She had to stoop, only able to stretch full length by lying on the ground. There were numerous cages each holding around a dozen prisoners; women and men segregated. Relaxing slightly, relief flooded Liz when she recognised all of her other crewmembers who had so far gone missing on this planet.

Sharing a cage with Liz and Rose were several others of her crew; amongst them two of the older members, in their thirties and forties. However, both were fit and strong and she therefore hoped they wouldn't have too many difficulties coping with the ordeal so far.

Liz helped comfort a young girl who was sobbing in a corner. Sally was amongst the youngest of the crew and this would be harder for her to bear, but they all shared the common misery. All attractive women, they were now prisoners crouching in their skimpy underwear intended for the privacy of a bedroom rather than public display. She saw Harry and Michael regarding them with tense frustration from a stockade a few metres away and waved tiredly to show she was OK.

After slaking their thirst and hunger on buckets of cool water and loaves of hard bread, rough blankets were pushed through the bars. As the night drew down its welcoming cloak they modestly squatted to perform their bodily needs in a hole they dug in far corner of their low prison before curling into an exhausted sleep.

More plain food was provided in the morning but they were otherwise ignored. The boredom was only broken when the temper of one of the more volatile crew girls snapped at several laughing pygmy youths who prodded them through the bars.

"Cut it out you bastards, fuck off," she snarled as a hand grabbed and cruelly squeezed her breast where she stooped by the bars.

Although the words were possibly lost on their captors the intent was not. More youths joined the sport until Liz and Rose managed to interpose their own bodies, shielding their colleague. Then the male crew shouted from their stockades, distracting attention from the women, causing some guards to sidle over. The laughing native youths were ordered away and thankfully lost interest.

"Keep it together until we can figure a plan," Liz snapped to her crew. "They obviously want us alive - and so far we've only lost our dignity," she glared into the still flashing eyes of the pretty woman whom the natives had picked on.

Liz was responsible for her crew and although it might have been difficult to exert authority whilst wearing only enticing underwear she would do her duty to the best of her ability. That mantle of responsibility fell heavily on Liz. In reality a part of her just wanted to just curl up and cry. However, she knew she owed it to all her crew to stay cool. She marvelled that they still listened to and obeyed her. Dressed only for a bedroom, stooped over with the others in the small and horrible stockade, she knew that she hardly cut an authority figure. She hoped that she sounded more confident than she actually felt.

In the world outside the starship and their captivity, the crew-girl who had flared up, Lindsey, was a rich woman with a millionaire husband; someone who was obviously not used to such treatment from such natives. She had apparently joined the space service for a sense of adventure. Well, Liz thought with a secretive wry smile, she was certainly getting it now.

Glancing at the skimpy covering provocatively clinging to the curves of her crew she could, in a way, almost sympathise with the native youths. She too nearly found herself patting a shapely backside here and there.

As the day wore on her heart sank in proportion to the aching of her back in their cramped confinement. Throughout the day groups of her remaining crew were led into the stockades. The natives angrily jabbed her with their spear-butts for greeting them but she gave silent smiles of encouragement to the weary dejected band as they were brought in. She guessed that the ship had been stormed, or maybe the crew had been persuaded by the natives' mind games to simply surrender. Whatever, her captured crew were unwillingly laden with 'booty.' They staggered into the compounds carrying bags of personal effects from the ship suspended under heavy yokes around their necks, including even some chairs ripped from their fixtures.

The pirates of Magellan from her previous adventure had returned many of their belongings before letting them go. Those personal articles would presumably have verified their identities to whoever found their bodies after they had been blown up whilst escaping in the old freighter. Now her treasured possessions had been taken from her for a second time. Seeing her lovely dresses draped over her tiny captors made her think of the happy times she had worn them; Liz's fists clenched in frustrated fury.