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CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Space Cities of Saturn
SATURN! The ringed orb! The bejeweled crown of the solar system. While the evil Empire of Space maintains its control from Emperor Aytan Zardo's Plutonian Ice Castle, it is in Saturn that the majority of its true power resides. Without the killing radioactivity of JUPITER'S ZONE OF DEATH, Saturn is more easily navigable by the astro-spacers of this far off realm -- and so, its vast ICE RINGS have been colonized and filled with the mighty SPACE CITIES OF SATURN.
It is here that Emperor Aytan Zardo's yoke hangs the heaviest. It is here that MARK STYLES, ace reporter and former G.I in the United States Army, has come with his fellow would be revolutionaries to find the concealed force that stands against Zardo's tyranny: THE UNDERGROUND OF FREE PEOPLES. But can they find them before the evil SKAR TAILSCORN, sent by the Emperor himself, finds THEM!?
Meanwhile, on the dusty and dead world of MARS, JASMINE STARR'S long suffering maid CLAUDETTE T.S GRANT awakens from her long slumber...to find herself in a peril unimaginable by any earthly woman: Captive of the VAMPIRE QUEENS OF MARS!!!
The airlock door to the courier rocket opened with a sonorous squeal of semi-lubricated self-sealing stembolts, and from it emerged the distinct and unpalatable whiff of the long confined astro, the reek of bodies not quite cleaned enough by sponge and towel, and the harried tension that could only come from minds pushed to the utter brink by the onset of Space Madness. The two customs officials that stood before the doorway were of the most common stock of Saturnian -- Wolfmen, their ears perked up, their tails stilling as they gaped at the sight of Mark Styles emerging into the bustling spaceport that was their home.
Mark breathed in a slow, steady breath, dressed only in a castoff Imperial astro uniform, his hair bedraggled and his face covered with a thick bushy beard, and then breathed out the same sigh he had been holding in with the explosive force of a bolt-rocket pistol being discharged at range.
"Good. God. Almighty! That's...ohh, I thought Bastogne was hell and a half!" He turned back as, behind him, Robin Robinson, the Star Princess Zella, and C'law emerged onto the gangway.
"I don't want to see
any
of you again," Zella hissed.
"Bloody right!" Robin growled.
C'law clapped his hands down, hard, on Robin's shoulder and upon Zella's. "This is normal for astros who got crammed together that long," he said, clearly forcing the words out through his beak. "What we need to do is we need to take time away from one another."
"Right!" Zella hissed. She reached up, fiddling with her earrings. She tugged them free, then popped from each a single glittering gemstone, which she pressed into their palms. She leaned in, snarling. "Those are Plutonian Star Sapphires. They are worth fifty thousand space dollars each. Sell them. We'll meet here in a week."
"Agreed!" Robin, C'law and Mark all said, at the same time -- for at that moment, there was nothing that could disgust Mark more than the sight of each of their contemptible faces. Being trapped within the small confines of the ship -- even with the terrifying potency of the devil weed Marijuana -- had pressed Mark to strains that he had not thought possible. And so, he clutched the gemstone in his hand, then turned to face the two completely bemused wolfmen who were waiting for him to provide his docking information.
"...how long were you four
in
that thing?" the wolfman on the left asked -- and Mark tried to place his finger upon what was so very odd about the two of them. He ignored it, instead trying to laugh and wave his hand.
"Oh, uh...two...three months," he said.
"By the Mount of Mars!" one of the wolfmen exclaimed, dropping his stylus, while the other gaped.
"You're all
alive
!?" He asked. "And not completely mad!?"
"The weed helped," Mark said, shyly. "But, uh, yeah. We got pretty close to, uh...Space Madness there..." He shook his head. "I thought they were
exaggerating
."
The two wolfmen exchanged a glance -- and it was then that Mark realized what it was that was bothering him so much about the two aliens. He was used, by now, to the curious distinctions of the interstellar genders, the wars between the sexes as it were. Upon his home planet of Earth, there was a saying that men were from Mars and women were from Venus -- and yet, upon the Earth, the distinction between sexes was relatively slight compared to the radical divergences between the hawkmen, for instance, and their distaff counterparts. While C'law was tall and broad shouldered and a nigh perfect middle ground between man and hawk, with wings and feathers and fur and a beak...his species sisters were, by and large, nearly identical to human women save for a slightly more amazonian build, a tendency towards coppery hair, and the fact that they themselves also had wings that allowed them to fly through the air.
The same difference was mirrored across each example of alien that he had seen thusfar: Lizardmen were burly and broad shouldered and crocodillian in their exteriors with massive snouts and much sharp teeth, while their women were svelt human women with a few scales about the eyes, long whippy tails, stubby horns and otherwise normal female forms. Catmen were dangerous panthers and playful pumas and cheerful cheetahs, with muzzles and whiskers and the lot, while Catwomen had naught but ears and devilish dispositions. Devilmen were...well, there were no Devilmen women that he had seen in any of the photo-banks of the courier rocket's computer systems that he had spent months studying, but still!
Except here, that distinction was stood upon its head, for both wolfmen looked quite human, save for their fluffy ears and golden eyes and wagging tails.
"Well, I'm glad you survived without killing anyone," the one on the left said. "As it is, your ship will need to be registered and the fees paid...we have a money exchanger, if you require it!"
Mark sighed as he realized that his three long term co-prisoners aboard the courier rocket had just left him entirely alone to handle the onerous paperwork. "Take me to them," he said, gesturing and the two wolfmen led him away from the gangplank and through the warren like structure of the spaceport. The money changer was a little grumpy looking Ferretman, who measured out the space dollars that his single sapphire was worth, scowled at the exchange rate, then shook Mark's hand once he had made sure everything was on the level. With that complete, Mark simply had to fill out several space forms, to ensure that the courier rocket he was parking within the spaceport was all handled legally.
With that complete, he was escorted through the spaceport and out into the Space City known as Ringcity One.
