The Queen Inmate's Pet Ch. 01

He pondered these things for so long that Eric didn't even realize at first that at least half of the mess hall had taken notice of his arrival and turned to look at him. Inmates of every species turned their heads to the door and conversations dissipated to hushed whispers as they made remarks about him. Eric tried his best not to lose his cool, and put on his best "strong man" façade that he'd used when he made his rounds at his old prison with male human inmates. But try as he might, he felt a thousand eyes looking at him at once and he partially wished that the world would swallow him whole right then and there.

Captain Ara'lak came to his rescue. She smacked her baton against the metal wall, causing it to echo through the room. "Get back to eating your meals, you ill-bred bitches!"

At once, the mess hall became a flurry of activity once again and the inmates turned back to their meals or their conversations with each other, though Eric could tell that many of the conversations were now about him. The Captain walked up beside him and he gave her a nod which she then returned.

"I appreciate the save," Eric said with a laugh.

She waved him off. "Think nothing of it. I'd be prepared for more of the same, though. I imagine you'll be the celebrity around here for at least another week or two, if not longer. Can't say that's necessarily a good thing," she said.

Eric looked back at the open mess hall for signs of disturbance or ruckus, but luckily found none for the time being. However, at the far end of the mess hall, there was one table that was isolated and separate from the rest of the tables. It took him only a few moments to deduce that the exile was self-imposed by the inmates sitting there, as every time an "outsider" passed by that particular table, they were hastily ushered away by table's current residents. There was one female inmate in particular, an Arzuri with violet skin, who sat at the head of the table, and all other inmates who passed by seemed to avoid her, whether out of fear or reverence, Eric could not say. The rest of this alien convict's cronies also seemed to defer to her, asking her questions and receiving a simple nod from her in return.

"Captain," Eric said, getting Ara'lak's attention. "Who is that?" he asked, pointing to the inmate in question who was sitting at the isolated table.

Captain Ara'lak looked to where he was pointing let out a sigh. "That, my human friend, is the most dangerous inmate in this entire prison. Ashlan Tevros," she said, practically spitting the name. Eric looked at her confusedly, and the Captain began to elaborate. "You could write a book about Ms. Tevros, but to put it plainly, she was and still is the drug queenpin of this entire sector of the galaxy."

Eric frowned, seeing only the purple-skinned, slender woman of average height and musculature. "She doesn't look like much," he replied.

"That's the impression that most people first get. But don't let it fool you. She controlled the Hesh trade on the outside, and I have no doubt that she has managed to smuggle a lot of it into this prison as well," Ara'lak explained.

"Hesh?" Eric asked.

"A hard drug that you can only get on the black market. I believe the closest human equivalent would be the party drug, Ecstasy, though this is far more potent. Hesh puts the user into a state of euphoria and bliss, among other things. It's dangerous, though. Overuse can kill brain cells and even drive some users insane."

The Captain shook her head. "Anyway, Tevros rose from the ground up in this sector. She eliminated rivals, expanded the Hesh market to other parts of the galaxy, bribed Confederacy officials in government, the list goes on. And it didn't stop after she was sentenced to this prison. She's got so many contacts, outside the prison and inside, that her drug empire has barely faltered despite her incarceration. In fact, I have no doubt that a number of guards under my command are taking bribes from her. The thing is, I can't prove it, because she never makes any deals personally anymore. She operates the same way she did on the outside - by having her cronies get their hands dirty for her."

"So how did she end up in here?" Eric asked.

The Captain snorted. "She slipped up, made a mistake. She killed a guy, a Kromonid rival of hers, and over a dozen witnesses saw it happen. That's what was strange though; she'd always been an expert at covering her tracks. She'd supposedly killed a lot more than just one guy, but this was the only time she got caught doing it. With so many witnesses, she didn't stand a chance in the courts. She was given a life sentence, and since Arzuri have a lengthy lifespan, that means she's going to be here for a long time, unless by some miracle she gets early parole."

Eric turned to look back at the table where Tevros and her cronies in red jumpsuits were sitting. He saw four others with her - a lanky greenish/yellowish insectoid alien, a Lithope, who was currently picking idly at her food, a hulking, muscled Kromonid female who served as the table's "bodyguard," a black and golden striped Kithar who was busy tearing into the alien meat that had been served for lunch, and finally, a draconic Noor who was currently speaking to Tevros herself about something while Tevros slowly nodded back to her.

He shook his head and turned his gaze away from them for the time being to continue his rounds. He broke up a few minor scuffles when some of the inmates got particularly rowdy, but they seemed not to give him much trouble when he approached. Though it would be more accurate to say that the inmates were so enthralled by the arrival of their new human male guard that they seemed to forget what they were even fighting with each other about in the first place.

He broke up some brief infighting at one table before he heard someone approach behind him.

"Ahem."

Eric spun around and saw the very same Noor inmate from Tevros' inner circle now standing before him with her arms crossed. The draconic inmate with bronze scales looked him up and down, and Eric had to admit that he found himself doing the same, given that this was the first time he'd seen a Noor female up close, besides Warden Hecula. It was surprising to Eric that despite having reptilian features, she was all female beneath the jumpsuit, with the obvious feminine swells of breasts and subtle curves in the right places.

The man shook his head before his mind wandered down a dangerous path. Remembering his position, his hand instinctively went to the handle of his baton. He didn't want to have to strike an inmate, but he would if he was threatened.

"What do you want, inmate?" Eric asked commandingly, puffing out his chest just slightly and trying to sound intimidating. Eric was a big guy and could handle himself in a scuffle, as he had in a few situations with human lowlifes at previous prison assignments.

But in this case, the Noor did not seem impressed. A thin smile stretched across her maw.

"So, human, huh?" she asked before flicking her bifurcated tongue across her lips as reptiles do.

Eric ignored her question and pulled his baton out for good measure, taking a cautionary step toward her. "I asked what you wanted," he repeated more forcefully.

The draconic woman's grin widened but she took a step back. "Mmm now, feissssssty," she said, drawing the word out playfully like a snake. She gave a gratuitous curtsy and bow before him. "My name is Shaala, and I come on behalf of her revered majesty," she said, making a motion of her head toward Tevros, who was gazing intently at Eric from the other side of the room.

Eric snorted, knowing immediately that both this woman and Tevros were likely about to mock him in some way. "And what does 'her revered majesty' want?"

Shaala's grin widened and she cocked her head at him. "Tevros extends a message: she wants to congratulate you on your new posting and wishes you many years of a successful career here. In addition, she would like you to know that her door is always open should you wish to engage in any dealings with her for mutual benefit. She also wanted me to specifically tell you...that her cell can be found at 501 in Zeta Wing. Perhaps you might slip in one night after evening roll call and have a private meeting of an intimate nature. Even in prison, a queen does need a consort, after all."

Eric's face went red with anger. He pointed his baton at her. "Back the fuck away from me, now! And politely tell her royal highness to go fuck herself too. If you, or her, or any of her little minions try to bribe me again, I would be happy to send a couple thousand volts of electricity your way whenever I feel like it," Eric said sternly, pointing to the electromagnetic anti-riot countermeasure that had been installed into his wrist device.

Shaala did not seem too put off by his answer, like she was expecting it. She shrugged. "Sssssuit yourself, pretty boy." She turned on her heel and walked off, but not before looking over her shoulder at him and saying, "But she will remember this. Oh, yesssss," she cackled, "she will remember."

Eric watched her walk off and shook his head, refusing to let that convict or her words get under his skin. These may have been females that he was dealing with, but he had familiarity with scum like Tevros at other prisons as well; self-proclaimed rulers on the inside who think that they can control everything and everyone through power and fear. He wouldn't take her bait or succumb to either her bribes or her apparent seductions. He had morals and he was above either of those things.

The human guard shrugged it off and returned the baton to his belt before continuing his rounds. He took only one more glance in the direction of Tevros' table in the mess hall. Shaala by now had relayed his response back to Tevros, but he could see that just as Shaala had shrugged off his angry reply, so too did Tevros. She sat at her high chair and continued eating as if nothing had happened.

On one occasion, however, Tevros met Eric's gaze, and the violet-skinned convict winked at him.

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Eric started off his first week of guard duty at Ascalon without any untoward incidents. The general curiosity that the prison residents had toward him did not seem to decline at all, however. If anything, the inmates grew more and more curious about the human, and some were very vocal about wanting to get some attention from him.

More than once, he would get catcalled by inmates when he walked the cell block on patrol. Their boisterous calls ranged anywhere from, "Can I just see what that pink skin feels like?" to "Drop your pants and let me see a human's male parts, pretty boy! Give us a show!"

"Pretty Boy" seemed to be the general nickname that they'd assigned to him, and it confirmed his suspicions that not only were male guards a rarity here, but that these alien inmates obviously approved of his human looks, even if they were previously unfamiliar to many of the inmates before he came here. For most of these "women," the only time that they'd seen a human since the humans joined the intergalactic community was in the vids that they were occasionally allowed to watch in the rec room.

Of Tevros and her band of bootlicking underlings, Eric saw little. They kept to themselves at their isolated table whenever Eric made the rounds at the mess hall and they, surprisingly, were among the few inmates not to catcall him whenever he patrolled Zeta Wing. However, although he never came into direct contact with the "Queen Bitch" and her gang, more and more he noticed many looks coming from Tevros herself. In the mess hall, she would glare across at him with an expression that was impossible to read, not making any threatening or suggestive gestures, but just staring at him for the longest time. It was unnerving, but he couldn't do anything about it except ignore it. He decided not to dwell on it, assuming that her apparent interest in him would fade away over time - such was the nature of static prison life.

When Eric was on break and not making his rounds, he would send long distance vid calls back and forth with his wife, Sarah. He would return home to her over the weekends, taking a shuttle to the nearby colony world of Ithael, but he passed the time between those weekly visits by chatting with Sarah about his new duties at the prison and listening to his wife's excited stories about the various alien kids who lived on the colony who she taught lessons to. He was thankful to have had his wrist device improved to allow for seamless long-distance communication to his wife via his communicator; along with the increased salary, the improved equipment was one of the other perks of this job to balance out the discomfort of being the sole male human guard on staff.

One day, Eric was making his rounds in the middle of the day, when most of the inmates were being put to work in various details across the station. However, he received word that one of the inmates in his cell block, Zeta Wing, had refused to get out of bed since early morning roll call, apparently over some serious illness or another. One of his fellow guards radioed him on his communicator and told him to proceed to Zeta Wing to check on the inmate and call for medical attention if need be.

Eric walked through Level 5 of Zeta Wing to the steel-reinforced cell unit where the sick inmate was. The cell's door was open and unsealed. Peering inside, he could see the female inmate, a Kithar, curled up on her cot, letting out a guttural, throaty sound, like she was in a lot of pain. He hesitantly stepped into the cell, pulling out his baton just in case.

He tapped into his wrist communicator and spoke into it. "Captain? I'm at 516. The inmate is making a lot of noise and convulsing a bit. I think she's in a lot of pain. I'll check it out."

"Alright, but use caution. They sometimes try to fake these things so that they can make a grab for your weapon," Captain Ara'lak responded.

"Understood," Eric said, signing off.

He warily approached the sick Kithar at the end of cell, seeing her shaking and letting out a catlike whine from her cot. He was somewhat concerned for her, but also for himself, holding out his baton just in case.

"Inmate?" he asked, approaching the feline alien.

The high-pitched pained, whining noise got louder and the inmate kept shaking as he got closer.

"Inmate, do you need a doctor? I can have you taken to the infirmary?"

The whining continued, but then became a hacking sound, almost like a cough. To Eric's surprise, it sounded almost like a chuckle, but with the inmate's back turned to him he couldn't tell for sure.

"Why don't we take you somewhere instead?"

Eric's eyes widened, realizing for the first time how stupid he'd been not to notice that this Kithar inmate had golden and black stripes - the exact same as the Kithar that he'd seen sitting with Tevros and their gang in the mess hall week after week.

He discovered the ruse too late. Before he could react, he felt a pair of strong, muscular arms clamp themselves around his neck from behind, putting him in a firm chokehold. Working together, another pair of hands stuffed a gag into his mouth while someone else grabbed his arms, relieving him of his baton and preventing him from using his wrist device to call other guards for help. He activated the neural defense measure at the last second, but to his astonishment, it did not seem to function properly. He'd been told that it would deliver a crippling shock to nearby inmates with their surgical implants, but nothing of the sort seemed to happen.

Surrounded by red jumpsuits and with three pairs of hands working together, it was impossible for him to fight back, despite his struggles. He saw the Kithar get up from the cot - obviously well and not sick - and assist her three cohorts. Eric tried to kick her while simultaneously reaching for his side arm at his holster. He succeeded at the first, pushing the Kithar back, but failed at the second, having his side arm and holster pulled from his belt and tossed aside. All the while, the strong inmate behind him - most likely Tevros' Kromonid bodyguard judging by the sheer size and strength - kept him in a headlock that he had no hope of getting out of.

Muffled by the gag, Eric cursed at the females, but he felt his head pounding and his vision becoming blurry. He struggled for many more moments, but the fight gradually slipped out of him. The Kromonid pressed down hard on a pressure point of nerves on the back of his neck while keeping him in the firm headlock and he finally lost consciousness, slumping to the ground but being caught by two pairs of hands before he could hit the hard floor. Before he passed out he saw the Kithar inmate leaning over him along with Shaala, the Noor that he'd encountered in the mess hall. They grinned down at him with their hands (paws? claws?) on their hips.

"We'll take good care of you, Pretty Boy." He heard Shaala laugh along with her three compatriots.

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When Eric came to, he had one hell of a pounding headache. He immediately found out that his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was half sitting, half laying on a cot inside one of the prison cells with his back against the wall. His vision was still fuzzy and he couldn't tell whose cell he was in, but suspected that it was still midday and the rest of the cell block would be otherwise empty, most likely.

The second major thing that Eric realized was that he had been stripped of all his gear and all his clothing down to his underwear. His chest and torso was completely bare and he was damn near completely exposed to the frigid cold air of the cell block. Immediately, he struggled against his cuffs and gave a muffled yell for help, realizing again that he was gagged.

"Oh now, look who's awake!" A high-pitched voice exclaimed to the right of him. Shaala was there with the Kithar and the insectoid Lithope. The hulking Kromonid who'd put him into unconsciousness was there too, guarding the entrance to the cell like a sentry.

"Rise and shine, Pretty Boy. You took quite a stumble," Eric heard an unfamiliar, smooth voice from the other side of the cell.

He saw Tevros up close for the first time. Her silverish hair was braided and tied back, and her azure/violet skin was practically luminescent under the single illuminating light in the cell. Her face had a pert, natural beauty to it, though it bore a few scars from old fights that came with a life of crime. The red sleeves of her jumpsuit were rolled up and Eric noticed a trail of ritualistic tattoos inked up the length of her arm. Captain Ara'lak had explained briefly that Arzuri had a spiritual side to their culture, and in this case Tevros had chosen to mark a small tattoo on her arm for each of her sins, and she had many tattoos on her arm for her many sins.

Still, though she was not the most threatening person, human or alien, that he had ever seen, he knew what she was capable of, and he didn't relish being at her mercy. He struggled against his bondage and scanned the cell with his eyes for his equipment. He finally saw that the Kithar was brandishing his pistol and the Lithope was tweaking with his wrist device.

Seeing his struggling, Tevros smirked and made a motion of her head to her cohorts. "Shaala, Raine," Tevros said, addressing the Noor and Kithar, respectively, "take off his gag for a moment and give our patient a bit of medicine to make him feel better before we start."

The two alien females approached him and knelt down to his level on the cot. Raine procured a makeshift knife made of glass from her pocket, showing it to him.