Daughter of the Gods

Chapter One

Dennis' pale eyes rolled open, the first thing they noticed (as they always did) was that there was not a single ray of daylight anywhere. To begin each new day in utter darkness was always depressing.

Damn cot.

That didn't help his disposition any, no not all. You'd think someone could manage to bring him an actual bed with an actual mattress. Every morning he woke, Dennis was reminded that he was not getting any younger. The screaming ache in his lower back told him so with a fine How-do-you-do? each time he rolled his athletic frame from the damnable folding torture chamber. Very slowly, Dennis stood up to his full height and turned his torso first to the left and then to the right, repeating the pattern slowly and with more intensity, as he tried to loosen the kinks which were most painful in his left side near the kidney area. The first pops of the day were heard and the pain began to lessen slightly. Slender fingers reached toward the ceiling as the muscles in his back howled that they did not want to cooperate with this daily ritual any longer, they wanted a bed. A B-E-D; bed! Dennis ignored the railing and bent at the waist as he reached to touch his toes, drawing in a large breath as he went.

"What I wouldn't give for a massage." He mumbled as he stood in his quarters touching his toes wearing nothing but his light blue boxers. "A hot bath and a nice long massage." Dennis let his mind wander off to some darkened candle-lit room where sweet smelling incense burned and a woman's hands kneaded his tired muscles with the most exquisitely painful touch he had ever felt. Starting at the nape of his neck, she worked the muscles there and in his aching shoulders, rolling his skin beneath her fingers as she went. Dennis could feel soft wisps of her hair against his naked flesh. In his (almost) daily fantasy, she never spoke to him nor did he see her face. Somehow he knew she was a young and pretty woman for whom, at this moment in time, there was nothing but him.

A nice little fantasy if there ever was one.

With the waking grumblings in his groin beginning, Dennis ceased his stretching routine put his black T-Shirt, (the one with Fuck Authority on it) and his military issue sweat pants (olive drab of course). Slowly he made his way from his quarters down three levels to the base work-out area. Every morning the same thing, Dennis would spend the first hour of his morning working with free weights and then going into his own cardio-vascular routine. He wasn't much for working out but around here it seemed to be a requirement and since Dennis was a civilian he did his best to fit in wherever he could. The instructor was supposed to be there to watch him and make sure he didn't hurt himself or anything like that, but like every other morning, good old Lieutenant James was still snoozing the day away, no doubt he was still wrapped in the arms of one of his inferior officers. Dennis went through his morning routine without any particular fuss. With his daily work-out completed, Dennis made his way to the mess hall. What an appropriately titled place! Not only was it a mess but the food was as well. This morning's specialty, runny scrambled eggs, half-cooked bacon and burnt toast.

Yummy.

As the food was unceremoniously dropped onto the tray with the separate compartments, Dennis glanced across the room until his eyes found what they were looking for. When he saw Dennis looking at him, Richard raised his hand and motioned for Dennis to come to his table when he was finished being served his morning gruel. Dennis took his place at the table with Richard and his other team mates. "Jesus, this looks like shit." He moaned and pushed the tray away.

"Yep," Richard agreed as he shoved a forkful of half-cooked scrambled eggs into his mouth. "Tastes like it too." Jaws moving up and down, Richard turned toward Dennis and motioned with his fork. "Nice shirt."

"Good morning to you too."

Richard smiled as he took another bite.

"Are you ready for today, Dennis?" Lee asked as she sipped her coffee. Bright blue eyes stared at Dennis over the top of her cup. "It's put up or shut up time, you know."

"I'm aware." He replied in an uneasy tone. Silently he reminded himself that while today had begun as every other day had begun for the last five years, it was not going to end that way. The silver chain around his neck began to feel tight and Dennis fingered it out of his collar, it was a nervous habit he supposed, like pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose when he was annoyed with someone.

"Do you still believe your device will work?" Crowen intoned from his side of the table.

"Yes." There was no uneasiness or lapse in his voice this time. "It will work." Not wanting to think about the project too much, god knew he'd done enough of that over the last six weeks, he turned his attention to Richard and changed the subject. "Do you think there's any possible way that I could get, you know, a bed?" Dennis rubbed the mid-section of his back with a closed fist to emphasize his point.

Richard laughed as he put down his coffee mug. "Well, ya know your maw and me," he pointed at Lee with his fork, "we sort of expected you'd move out by now. You're old enough to be away from us. We think you should get a place of your own. The cot was sort of our way of letting you know that. Why'd it take you so long to catch on?"

"Why not?" Crowen asked. "I, myself, have been thinking about asking Major General Murphy if this would be acceptable to him. Are you not tired of waking to darkness, Dr. Johnson? I am."

Dr. Dennis Johnson had not been doing so well in life when the Quantum Gateway Project approached him eight years ago wanting him to sign on in the off-chance they could get this device of theirs up and running.

Geez, had it been eight years already?

Dennis smiled a little bit to himself. No, at that time, he was a very young overly educated man who kept insisting that the world change everything they thought true because they were wrong and he was right. While, luckily for him, that did turn out to be true, in the end that didn't put a roof over his head and the world had yet to find out about the discovery of the Quantum Gateway, a miraculous device that lead not just to other worlds but other galaxies. That was quite the coo for a man like him. Dennis majored in Forensic Anthropology in UCLA and minored in Archaeology, he spoke more than a dozen languages, and was comfortable in any setting from a simple Tea Ritual to the Rituals of Death. His talents were invaluable to the team of four—two military personnel, nearly-retired, Colonel Richard Murphy and Major LeeAnn Ford, and Crowen a refugee from a planet known as Titan 4. Together they made up the flag team of the Quantum Gateway Project in a team called QG-A, short for Quantum Gateway Alpha.

With so much out there to see, do, and learn, Dennis was content to let the Quantum Gateway Control Center do that for him. The para-military operation could more than afford to house and feed him with their massive budget.

All in all, he had no reason to have a place of his own at this point in his life, not when so much of that life revolved around the Quantum Gateway and his adventures to other worlds. But; "Yes, I do miss the sun." He agreed. To this comment Crowen nodded his bald black head and gave a slight smile. "Everything I need is here. All I want is a bed. A real one. With a metal frame, wood head board, and thick fluffy mattress."

"Looks like our boy is staying home for a while longer, Paw." Lee sighed as she pushed away what was left on her own tray and took the last drink of coffee from her cup.

"Eh, that figures." Richard replied with good-natured disgust in his voice. "Fine, in that case, I'll see what I can do." He ran a hand through his head of short graying hair.

A young ensign came up to the table where the team known as QG-A sat talking and not enjoying their breakfast, he whispered something into the Colonel's ear.

"Well, that's it then." Richard rose. "General wants to see us." He turned his gaze directly to Dennis. "It's go time." Richard turned as if to leave and then turned back to look at Dennis, "Oh and ah, Dennis," he opened his palms and held them out to him, "change your shirt, huh?"

*************************

The sun was beginning to make its way past the horizon.

Another day had come and gone.

Six weeks ago QG-G had come through the Quantum Gateway, landed on this ecru planet and then been stranded here. It wasn't a bad place. It had its good points. It was warm, almost all the time; it was warm, even at night. There was fresh water to be had, though admittedly not an overabundance of it, animals to be hunted. Vegetation was low and Lt. Colonel Andrews imagined that was because of the poor quality of the soil. Almost every living thing on this planet was a carnivore, even a good majority of the plant life ate bugs, as such, the team as always very careful where they stepped when they went away from the campsite. Some of those darn bugger plants were pretty big, step on one of them and it would clamp down on your ankle with a vengeance.

For the most part they had stayed hidden here in the caves which overlooked the city they had come to call Oz. (They might have called it the Emerald City if the planet was so gosh-darn brown. Everywhere they looked their eyes were almost constantly met with one shade or brown or another from deep dark chocolate to light ecru. ) Twice a day two of the men on the team known as QG-G would take the walk from their hiding place in the caves to the Quantum Gateway. There they hang around for a few hours waiting to see if it opened and of course it never did. They would punch the symbols on the console panel and their end of the Quantum Gateway would open right on cue, they would send their signal through for someone to open the other side and no signal would be returned. Their way home was blocked at the point where the welcome to earth sign should hang.

Over the course of six weeks, in silence, they watched the people below them as they went about their daily tasks and lived out their rather normal lives. The great walled city of Oz (as QG-G had come to call it) was, by some standards, a bustling metropolis. Though they hadn't ventured into the walls of the Keep below the hillside, they had ventured outside the caves and into the smaller villages to the south and east of their present location. They weren't places like Oz, there weren't any strong holds in the villages, no grand stone Keep watching over the people in Hicksville here. But nice enough little places with honest enough people living in them.

There was one particular woman living down there in Oz who had struck all their fancies. In keeping with the theme, the men of QG-G had dubbed her "Dorothy". She looked like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz to some extent and in the right light, if you were lucky enough to catch her in a moment when she stepped out onto her balcony; she looked as though all she wanted was go back to Kansas; to go home.

This morning she had been out on her balcony. Andrews saw her through his long range binoculars. Mostly she ventured as far as the threshold between the doorway and the balcony itself but this morning she had walked straight out of her room and into the great outdoors. Almost never did they see her outside in the courtyard and then she was always escorted by a tall, broad deeply dark-skinned man whom the team had come to call the Wizard. Blood wanted to call him the Lion on account of his long braided hair; he thought it looked like a mane. The Wizard was probably more apt, from the looks of things one would be hard pressed to call the Wiz anything but the King of Oz. The Wizard's actual name was Kanan, they knew that for sure from their excursions into the villages which lay behind their hideout.

Nor did Dorothy ever venture beyond the gates which surrounded Oz. In fact, she never did so much as come near them at any time. It was only on this balcony did she appear alone from time to time. One would have had to have been blind not to notice her among all of the other inhabitants of this planet. Everyone else here had skin tone which ranged from deep rich black to a sort of burnt olive tone. All had dark hair and dark eyes.

Not her. No, her skin was the color of vanilla icing. It looked just soft and sweet. She had long locks of fire, which cascaded her from the top of her head to all the way down to her slime waist.

To pass the time the men would make up stories about her as they sat around the firelight deep in the night. For the most part they were the typical fantasies any bored man might make up regarding such a woman; a princess locked away in a tower, maybe she was a powerful sorceress who kept the Wizard informed of the doings of his enemies. Maybe she was his whore. That had been Carlisle contribution to the conversation. Andrews believed that just the mention of it had made each one of them hard at the same time. He knew his dick had stood at attention. What a fine whore she would make.

There was a rustling in the bushes outside the Cave, Carlisle was back. "Anything?"

"No, sir. Not a damn thing."

"We'll try again in 12 hours."

"Yes, sir." Carlisle took a seat beside the young Lieutenant Andrews. "She out there?"

"Nope, was earlier but she's gone now." Andrews handed over the scopes so Carlisle could get a peek. "They're doing something down there, been at it all day." Andrews stretched his back and had a look around. "Where are the rest of you?"

"Anderson's staking out something to eat, fish probably. I'm gettin' sick of fish."

"Uh. Me too." Andrews agreed. He had an increasingly sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "And Corporal Blood? Where is he?"

"And ah, well," Carlisle stuttered as he continued to stare through the long range glasses, "well, sir, Blood went off to check out Oz a little bit more."

"What?"

"I tried to stop him. I'm sure he won't get into any trouble."

"Oh, Christ. He's not going to stop until he gets up close to her is he?" Andrews rose and dusted the dirt from his fatigues. "Well, go on, go after him. Jesus, Carlisle if you or he does anything to give us away, I'll have you both shot."

"Yes, sir." Carlisle snapped a salute and ran off in search of Corporal Blood.

"And be quick about it!" The commanding officer snapped. "It'll be dark soon." Andrews wouldn't be so upset if the good, yet inexperienced, Corporal Blood had gone wandering into one of the villages. There wasn't much trouble to get into there. However, Corporal Michael Blood had been the member of the team most affected by Carlisle's fantasy that Dorothy was some type of royal concubine. Andrews had heard him beating and mumbling "Dorothy" several times in the last six months late at night while they were all tucked into their cave. For Christ sake! Couldn't he choose to get his dick wet with one of the girls in the village? Why did it have to be Dorothy?

It had taken him the better part of the afternoon but Corporal Blood had made his way down the steep hillside where the caves were tucked and onto the flatlands below. The day had been dry and dusty as was every other day since their arrival. The sun, which had shone brightly, was now going down. Soon a purple/brown sunset would dazzle over head. To his taste, and the tastes of his teammates, it was still warm. Yet even at this far distance he could see the people of this world were tightly wrapped in moderate to heavy clothing. They were all cold. Michael wondered how that could be, but obviously it was true just the same. He was perfectly warm and happy and they were cold.

A few weeks back Michael had snuck into the village to the east of their campsite and stolen clothing which was drying on someone's line. Now he took the time to remove the stolen articles of clothing from his backpack and to put them on. Surely, this was no Tommy Hilfiger design, only a simple cloth coat with a simple cloth head wrap and shirt. The coat was long enough to hide his green fatigues, his shirt he stuffed into the backpack which he then stuffed under a rock as he continued his journey toward Oz.

Looking down at himself as he walked he thought he should blend in fairly well with the locals down there. Luckily, he would not have to try and keep his face or hands covered. Being of Greek descent on his mother's side, his skin had a nice dark olive complexion and his eyes were black as coal. He shouldn't give off any sign that he did not belong in this part of town. As long as he tried not to interact with any of them too much and for criminey-sake, don't try and speak to one of them! Michael was unaware of just what language the people here did speak but it certainly wasn't good old American English.

Lieutenant Andrews would have a shit-fit if he knew that Mikey was off on his own. By now, Carlisle had probably filled Andrews in on what was happening. That didn't matter, in another hour or so he would be crossing through the gates of the courtyard. No one could catch him after he went inside. Hastening his pace, he told himself that he'd better hurry along anyway. The gates to the keep ahead of him closed at dark and they did not open again until after the first light of day once again crept through a darkened sky.

End Chapter One of Daughter of the Gods by Lisa Beth Darling

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