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Captain's Log: Stardate 26532.8
Having finally completed our exhaustive survey of the Volanis system, the Johannesburg is headed to Starbase 149 for a long overdue refit. The crew likewise is looking forward to some well-deserved shore leave. Personally, I plan to-
“Captain Brooks?”
The man made a gesture. "Computer, pause log." A beep sounded in response. "Yes, what is it, lieutenant?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you in your quarters, but we're picking up a distress signal."
The starship captain quirked a bushy brow. "Origin?"
"A ship, sir. Unknown design."
"Curious." He stroked his beard in contemplation for a moment before coming to a decision. "Alright, divert course. And send a message to Starbase 149 that our arrival will be delayed."
"Aye, sir."
Another series of beeps indicated the connection closing.
“So much for an uneventful return journey,” Brooks mused as he began undoing the buttons on his nightshirt, walking over to the closet where hung his still-warm uniform.
------------------------------
Some time later, Captain Brooks stood on the bridge alongside his senior officers, who had also been summoned from their quarters.
The viewscreen before them showed a long and boxy ship, one with a clear emphasis placed on functionality over aesthetic design. It hung dead in the water, per se, with an alarming scorch mark near the midsection.
“Status?” Brooks asked.
“I can’t tell. There’s something irregular with their systems,” an ensign responded, “I'm getting conflicting readings.”
The captain nodded. This was not unusual for ships in distress. "Hail them, all frequencies."
“Aye, sir.”
It took longer than usual to establish a connection, and even once it did the image was poor. Static distortions and artifacts dominated the edges of the screen, though the figure in the center was thankfully clear.
The alien was humanoid, but with some distinctive exotic traits. Most noticeable was her sky blue skin and striking grey eyes. The eyes were much larger than a human's, and without sclera, hinting at a possible aquatic or subterranean ancestral origin. Contrasting this image was her bright blonde hair, which teased at a partial human heritage. Most likely a parent, or a grandparent at the very least.
She was also female, quite evidently, or so the male crew members gathered from her undeniable figure, squeezed as it was into a form-fitting grey uniform.
Her appearance spoke volumes of the state of the emergency. What had likely been a carefully maintained hairstyle was now a wild mess of frazzled strands, and a trickle of blood ran down a scratch on her temple. Her face bore a grim complexion, where a war waged between panic and fear. Her uniform was marred with rips and charred marks, mirroring the ragged appearance of its wearer, and bore a large bloodstain from some unknown source which had turned its collar and shoulder a filthy brown.
She didn't seem to notice the viewscreen coming online as she rushed frantically between consoles, manning the entire bridge by herself.
"This is Captain Brooks of the USS Johannesburg," the captain announced himself, hoping to catch her attention. "We picked up your emergency distress signal. Are you in need of assistance?"
The alien jumped in alarm at the sudden voice. Noticing the viewscreen, she quickly scrambled to try and make herself presentable. "What? Yes! Yes, we are in dire need of help."
"Could you identify yourself and explain your situation? Your ship is not showing up in our database."
The alien took a few deep breaths and composed herself. "Yes, right. My name is Drellip Mindu, Head Warden of the Ankalla Containment Facility and, due to recent circumstances, now acting Captain of the prison transport ship Parramatta."
Captain Brooks shifted his gaze to a crew member who had quickly tapped the name into her console. Ensign Gabor shot the captain a concerned glance as she shook her head. “There’s a ship by that designation in our records, but it doesn’t match this.”
Warden Mindu snorted derisively. “I'm not surprised. This antique's been patched and repaired so many times I doubt a single bulkhead's original anymore." She grumbled under her breath, something that vaguely sounded like a slur against cheapskate bureaucrats.
"That aside, here’s the situation. As of about ten hours ago, our ship has become plagued with dangerous malfunctions. Systems have been going haywire and every repair we attempt seems to lock us out of something else. It's been a fight just to keep comms and life support online."
"We could send a repair crew-"
"I’d advise against that," she cautioned. "The situation is becoming more dangerous by the minute. Something overloaded on deck three and exploded, causing a hull breach. We sealed it off but…” she paused as the words seemed to catch in her throat, “We lost all hands on that level, including the former captain. All of our engineers are focusing on isolating the warp core so it doesn't breach."
Captain Brooks tensed. The situation was dire, dire indeed. If a core breach was truly imminent, then there was only one solution. “We’ll have to evacuate your ship then. What is your current compliment?”
The warden paused, unsure. She stepped back to consult one of the flashing consoles. “Subtracting those lost in the breach… about 180 prisoners, thirty ship’s crewmen, and ninety guards, staff, and general crew.” She looked up. “Roughly. We don’t have an exact count of those lost.”
Captain Brooks grimaced. It would be a tight fit. They weren’t any sort of grand high-capacity ship, only a mere science and research vessel. He turned to one of his senior crew. “Options?”
“Not great, sir. We can take five at a time with our transporter, but the problem lies in housing. If it were regular passengers or crew, we could have our staff combine their quarters until we could drop them off. But prisoners need supervision, confinement, divided quarters...”
“What about the cargo bay?” a second officer added, “We could pack most of them in there.”
Denial came from a third officer. “It’s full to capacity with samples from Volanis.”
“If I could interject, sorry,” the neglected warden interrupted, “Very few of my prisoners are incarcerated for violent crimes. They can be housed in semi-large groups. There’s only one high-value prisoner that requires solitary confinement.”
Captain Brooks contemplated his options. Really though, there was really only one conceivable plan of action. It was far from ideal, but so was the situation. It would incur a loss, and there would be no end of paperwork and complaints from his superiors but lives always needed to take priority.
“Alright. Herrick, send a team to start disposing of the samples. Have them save what they can in the replicator storage, and toss the rest. We need that cargo bay.”
“But Captain-”
“But nothing!” Brooks cut him off, a fiery anger in his voice, “The Volanis system isn’t going anywhere; we can always go back and collect more. But here and now there are lives that we can save! Dump the cargo, and have the maintenance teams start constructing dividers in the cargo bay to make rooms. We’ll house as many as we can.”
“...Aye, sir.”
He turned back to the image of the warden on the viewscreen, relief painted on her face. “We should start the evacuation as soon as possible.”
“Agreed.” Suddenly, a console to the warden’s left exploded in a shower of sparks, and the resolution of their viewscreen dropped significantly. She raced over and began typing frantically. “No! Not now!” She glanced back up at her rescuers. “That was our primary communications system. I don’t know how much longer the backups will last.”
Her typing increased in speed. “I doubt our transporters are working, but yours has a higher capacity anyway. I’m sending you my personal comm frequency. If we lose contact, use it to pinpoint where to beam us from. Also-”
But her words were lost to space as the channel suddenly closed. Brooks turned worriedly to his ensign.
“I’ve got the code,” she confirmed.
A small sigh of relief spread across the bridge, but the crew just as quickly snapped back to emergency focus.
“Everyone to your stations then!” Captain Brooks ordered. “Gabor, keep monitoring that frequency. Herrick, get crews moving on clearing space, double time. I’ll be in the transporter room ready to receive the Warden to coordinate our efforts. All other orders are temporarily suspended, there are lives on the line!”
------------------------------
"Magh’ tok!" Warden Mindu swore, slamming her fist against the console in frustration and slipping into one of her preferred cursing languages. She tapped a few buttons, but the connection refused to reestablish. She could only hope that her final transmission had gotten through.
She began tapping out orders. Internal comms were thankfully still online. All she could do was prepare to evacuate and pray that the Johannesburg was monitoring her signal.
As she began walking down the hallway, she took a moment to compose herself and clean up her image. She needed to address and instruct the prisoners, and she needed to be calm, collected, and above all, intimidating and commanding. A difficult task, given her appearance.
Though her father had given her her skin and her eyes, her figure was both a blessing and a curse from her mother. While her breasts and hips would have been average on a human, on a tiny alien frame that barely topped 120 centimeters, her assets were positively bountiful. Even after two custom fittings her uniform still looked like it was under constant strain to contain her dramatic genetics. She rotated her regulation skirt a few degrees so that a recent tear looked more like battle damage and less like she was trying to show off her legs.
Soon enough, she reached the first cell block. Gathering herself, she set her face to a scowl and adjusted her posture.
The warden slammed the door open, purposefully making as much noise as possible. The containment rooms had old-fashioned hinged doors installed for just that purpose. The noise of prisoners died down to just a few inattentive talkers. Whipping out her baton, she raked it across the railing of the gantry to catch the last few stragglers’ attention.
"Alright vermin, listen up!" she roared, "A ship's here to help deal with our problem, starting with a full-scale evacuation. If it was up to me, I'd clear out myself, my staff, and the ship's crew and happily leave you all behind to the capricious whims of the dark mistress that is open space." She walked down the hall, making an effort to make each clack of her thick-heeled boots resonate like a whip-crack.
She sneered into the nearest cell. "Luckily for you, your rescuers are more openhearted. So here's what's going to happen!" She spun on a heel to face the majority of the cell block. "You will be escorted from your cells in pairs and brought to the transport pad to be beamed to the other ship with accompanying guards. Once there, their security team will bring you to where you'll be staying for the rest of the trip to your new facility."
She slammed her baton against the railing again and shot an evil eye across the room. "And if I hear anything, anything, about you giving their security team any sort of trouble, so help me you will wish I'd left you behind. Do I make myself clear?"
Hesitant voices of agreement and "Yes, Warden"s echoed across the floor.
"Good," she nodded sternly as she backed towards the door on the far end of the room from which she'd entered. "You have an hour. Maybe less." She took one more step back and let the door swing shut with a slam.
Mindu sighed and allowed the mantle of the grim, strict prison warden to slip off like an oversized jacket. It was never easy, putting on that much swaggering bravado, but years spent fighting her way up the ranks had made it almost second nature. After all, it wasn’t easy to earn respect as an authority figure when her own figure could put the prisoners’ posters to shame.
Grunting in determination, she reset her expression. She still needed to repeat her performance for another three cell blocks.
------------------------------
In a small cell, isolated from the rest of the prisoners, the ship's lone high-security prisoner plotted. He was an older man, with a tinge of grey in his hair, and looked to be somewhere in his early fifties by human estimation. Though in truth, his true age was nearly four times that.
This was not some unique alien quirk. He was human, essentially. He just had very good genes. Designer even, one might say.
Still, a man of his age and abilities should not have been languishing in a bland prison cell. By his own standards, he was long past the age where he should have found a nice primitive planet to settle down on, establish himself as a god-king, and live out his days in tyrannical splendor. But fate had conspired against him time and time again, leaving him to rot in a cell alongside beings who couldn't hold a candle to his greatness.
But, as capricious fate would have it, his cell had become the ideal setting for his conquest to commence. Even now he could hear chaos running amok throughout the ship as his handiwork wrecked havoc with the systems. The ship was old and it's security systems were laughable. Creating a virus had been so simple, someone with half a brain could have done it. Well, half of his brain, perhaps. He smiled to himself. Everything was going absolutely perfectly. And all that that uptight upstart warden and her imbecilic muscle-headed guards had to do to bring his plan to fruition was to follow their regulations to the letter, as they always did.
Soon, he would have not just a ship of his own, but an army of herculean, intelligent, and above all like-minded compatriots with whom he could conquer any planet he pleased.
His thoughts of glory were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching his cell.
“I have good news, Ordel!” The warden smiled with mocking enthusiasm from just outside his forcefield, looking as contemptible as ever. “You get to come out of your cell today. The bad news is you’re getting a brand new cell on another ship.” She frowned as she dropped her false cheerfulness. “We’re evacuating the ship, and regulations say high-value prisoners go first.”
She stepped aside as three guards entered, each a hulking Nausicaan easily twice as tall as her. They deactivated the forcefield and immediately surrounded Ordel, who said nothing and offered no resistance.
“Glad you’re feeling cooperative today,” the warden sneered, “Keep that up and maybe this trip won’t be so bad for you.”
“Oh, I think it will be quite good indeed.”
The warden whipped her head back, but he had only murmured the words, and now just smiled maliciously. She brushed it off as having misheard and lead the march down to the transporter room.
------------------------------
The transporter room had not been spared from the technical problems that plagued the ship. Panels had fallen from the ceiling and sparking wires left scorch marks on the walls. A lone guard stood by the console, trying in vain to use his long-neglected technician training to coax some life from it.
Guards surrounded Ordel on three sides, frogmarching him toward the transporter pad. He struggled to hide his excitement. He was so close! Only a few seconds more and all his efforts would finally come to fruition! An army of comrades and a fine new ship were within his grasp.
And then the Warden had to go and ruin everything.
"Move over Halaphen," she ordered one guard, "I'm coming too."
"Uh, really boss?" The aforementioned guard asked.
"Yes, really."
"What?" Ordel gasped, shock overriding concern for speaking directly to the warden. "But regulations state that prisoners of my level must be accompanied by three guards!"
She narrowed her eyes but decided to overlook his outburst. This time. "Don’t quote regulations at me, inmate. And that's a minimum requirement. I could assign my whole staff to guard you if I wanted, not that you're nearly worth the effort. Besides, I need to meet with the Johannesburg’s captain to plan the evacuation."
"But... but..." he rambled, panic overriding his usual glibness. "But the transporter can only take four at once!"
"And our rescuer's ship can handle five, which is why we're using theirs." She leaned in, close enough that he could make out every fleck in her enormous, ticked-off silver eyes. "Now if you're done complaining..."
No! She couldn't! He'd only altered the system with four passengers in mind, not five. And while his virus could easily jump to the other ship, there was no telling how it might respond to a different model of transporter. Anything could happen!
He struggled, he fought, he screamed with all his might. He couldn’t be transported! All his plans, all his dreams of conquest... Brought to ruin by an alien girl barely half his size.
"Would someone shut him up," the warden grumbled. One of the guards took something from his holster and, ignoring Ordel's struggles, pressed it to the prisoner's neck with a hissing sound. Instantly his movement turned sluggish and his outcries diminished to whimpers.
"Thank you Hallifax. You get first pick of guard shifts once we draft a new monitoring schedule."
She tapped a few buttons on the outmoded but still functional communicator on her hip, broadcasting out her personal frequency for the Johannesburg to detect. Within seconds, five rainbow pillars of glittering light vanished the five of them from the ship.
The remaining guard noted their successful transport and quickly left to instruct his colleagues to bring in the first set of prisoners for evacuation.
------------------------------
Warden Drellip Mindu blinked as the glittering lights of teleportation faded from her vision. Transporting always left her a bit queasy, but she put on a brave face and forced her feelings back down.
“Captain Brooks,” she greeted, recognizing him from the earlier hail. There was an odd echo-like quality to her voice, but she brushed it off as just her ears adjusting post-transport. “I’m relieved that you received my signal, I was starting to worry that...”
Why was he staring at her like that? And not just him, but all the staff in the room had expressions ranging from shock to confusion to outright horror. True, being of mixed species sometimes elicited that reaction, but humans were supposedly tolerant of such things. Besides, they had all seen her image earlier. Was something wrong? Had her clothes not materialized?
“Ah… forgive my rudeness,” Captain Brooks finally spoke, “You’ve caught us slightly off guard.” His neck tensed as he awkwardly asked, “Which of you is the Warden?”
She frowned. Had he forgotten her appearance already? Maybe humans just had a very bad memory for faces.
“I am,” she replied, her voice still carrying that same strange echo. “We spoke earlier.”
“Yes… but which one of you?”
What was this human going on about? She looked nothing like the guards on either side. They literally towered above her. She glanced just to make sure...
“Ah!”
Five Drellip Mindu’s cried out as they simultaneously noticed one another, each jumping back and instinctively drawing their batons.
“Who are you?” they demanded in unison.
“I’m the warden, who are you?”
“No, I’m the warden.”
“No, I am.”
“Stop that!”
“Stop talking in unison with me!”
“I order you to stop!”
“Cease mimicking me you imposters!”
As morbidly amusing as their synced reactions were, their unintended routine was interrupted by a humming sound, which rose in pitch matching with the brightening lights on the transporter pad.
“It’s starting up again!” Someone cried, “Whoever you are, get off the pad, quickly!”
The Wardens leapt off, setting aside their confusion for the well-known fear of being spliced by an overlapping transport.
“I can’t stop it!” the crewman at the console exclaimed as he frantically entered commands. “It’s auto-locking onto life signs near the last beam location. I’m locked out of the controls! Aargh!” With a flash of arcing sparks, he was blasted back from the panel which continued to spark and flash.
Five Warden’s looked on in shock as light blasted from the machine, forming four columns of matter and energy. Indistinct shapes grew within the beams, quickly resolving themselves into another four Wardens who blinked simultaneously as the light faded.
“Captain Brooks,” they greeted in perfect unison, “I’m relieved that you received my signal, I was starting to worry-” and then they noticed the five Warden Mindus scattered about him and promptly drew their batons. “Who are you, and why do you look like me?”
And then they noticed each other.
And then the transporter began to rev up once more.
------------------------------
Several months later...
Drellip Mindu frowned as the newest group of prisoners formed sloppy lines before her. They were obviously green, a lot of first offenders and a few that had been bounced around in other species’ prison systems. It was clear that they’d never been in one of her prisons before. You could tell by their sneers and by their eyes.
She could see lust in them, lust and arrogance and a touch of confusion. Any prisoner who had served time under her would know better. Their eyes would hold only fear or respect. She would soon correct them.
“Welcome, degenerates, to the Ankalla Containment Facility. Your new home.” She began to pace, such that she could look each of them in the eye. “I am Prison Administrator Mindu. This is my prison and therefore you all belong to me. Not that you’ll be seeing much of me, I leave the hands-on matters to the Warden and her staff. Warden?”
Time to put the fear of Mindu in them. “Thank you, Administrator.” Someone spoke as she entered the room. It was a carbon copy of the Administrator, only with a blue uniform to distinguish her. She addressed the room of rather confused inmates. “I am Warden Mindu. You will address me as either Warden or Ma’am. While most of you will be joining our happy family here at Ankalla, some of you will be boarding either the Albion, the Toongabbie, or the Paramatta-B for transportation to our sister facilities. During that time you will be under the care of either Captain Mindu, Captain Mindu, or Captain Mindu.”
She snapped her fingers. Immediately, a dozen women marched into the room creating a sea of blue skin, blonde hair, and green uniforms. “These are my S-level guards. Each manages her own cell block and has twenty highly trained guards under her direct command. You may address them as ‘Guard Mindu” or simply ‘Guard’. Likewise for those under their command.”
She whipped out her baton and pointed it at the crowd of now thoroughly alarmed inmates. “We see and know everything that goes on in this prison. If you break a rule, we will know. If you smuggle contraband, we will know. If you so much as throw a punch, we will know.”
She smiled venomously, as did every Mindu in the room with perfect coordination. “And if you do something particularly heinous, we will know...and we may just offer you a nonvoluntary position among our staff.”

Description

Captain's Log: Stardate 26532.8
Having finally completed our exhaustive survey of the Volanis system, the Johannesburg is headed to Starbase 149 for a long overdue refit. The crew likewise is looking forward to some well-deserved shore leave. Personally, I plan to-
“Captain Brooks?”
The man made a gesture. "Computer, pause log." A beep sounded in response. "Yes, what is it, lieutenant?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you in your quarters, but we're picking up a distress signal."
The starship captain quirked a bushy brow. "Origin?"
"A ship, sir. Unknown design."
"Curious." He stroked his beard in contemplation for a moment before coming to a decision. "Alright, divert course. And send a message to Starbase 149 that our arrival will be delayed."
"Aye, sir."
Another series of beeps indicated the connection closing.
“So much for an uneventful return journey,” Brooks mused as he began undoing the buttons on his nightshirt, walking over to the closet where hung his still-warm uniform.
------------------------------
Some time later, Captain Brooks stood on the bridge alongside his senior officers, who had also been summoned from their quarters.
The viewscreen before them showed a long and boxy ship, one with a clear emphasis placed on functionality over aesthetic design. It hung dead in the water, per se, with an alarming scorch mark near the midsection.
“Status?” Brooks asked.
“I can’t tell. There’s something irregular with their systems,” an ensign responded, “I'm getting conflicting readings.”
The captain nodded. This was not unusual for ships in distress. "Hail them, all frequencies."
“Aye, sir.”
It took longer than usual to establish a connection, and even once it did the image was poor. Static distortions and artifacts dominated the edges of the screen, though the figure in the center was thankfully clear.
The alien was humanoid, but with some distinctive exotic traits. Most noticeable was her sky blue skin and striking grey eyes. The eyes were much larger than a human's, and without sclera, hinting at a possible aquatic or subterranean ancestral origin. Contrasting this image was her bright blonde hair, which teased at a partial human heritage. Most likely a parent, or a grandparent at the very least.
She was also female, quite evidently, or so the male crew members gathered from her undeniable figure, squeezed as it was into a form-fitting grey uniform.
Her appearance spoke volumes of the state of the emergency. What had likely been a carefully maintained hairstyle was now a wild mess of frazzled strands, and a trickle of blood ran down a scratch on her temple. Her face bore a grim complexion, where a war waged between panic and fear. Her uniform was marred with rips and charred marks, mirroring the ragged appearance of its wearer, and bore a large bloodstain from some unknown source which had turned its collar and shoulder a filthy brown.
She didn't seem to notice the viewscreen coming online as she rushed frantically between consoles, manning the entire bridge by herself.
"This is Captain Brooks of the USS Johannesburg," the captain announced himself, hoping to catch her attention. "We picked up your emergency distress signal. Are you in need of assistance?"
The alien jumped in alarm at the sudden voice. Noticing the viewscreen, she quickly scrambled to try and make herself presentable. "What? Yes! Yes, we are in dire need of help."
"Could you identify yourself and explain your situation? Your ship is not showing up in our database."
The alien took a few deep breaths and composed herself. "Yes, right. My name is Drellip Mindu, Head Warden of the Ankalla Containment Facility and, due to recent circumstances, now acting Captain of the prison transport ship Parramatta."
Captain Brooks shifted his gaze to a crew member who had quickly tapped the name into her console. Ensign Gabor shot the captain a concerned glance as she shook her head. “There’s a ship by that designation in our records, but it doesn’t match this.”
Warden Mindu snorted derisively. “I'm not surprised. This antique's been patched and repaired so many times I doubt a single bulkhead's original anymore." She grumbled under her breath, something that vaguely sounded like a slur against cheapskate bureaucrats.
"That aside, here’s the situation. As of about ten hours ago, our ship has become plagued with dangerous malfunctions. Systems have been going haywire and every repair we attempt seems to lock us out of something else. It's been a fight just to keep comms and life support online."
"We could send a repair crew-"
"I’d advise against that," she cautioned. "The situation is becoming more dangerous by the minute. Something overloaded on deck three and exploded, causing a hull breach. We sealed it off but…” she paused as the words seemed to catch in her throat, “We lost all hands on that level, including the former captain. All of our engineers are focusing on isolating the warp core so it doesn't breach."
Captain Brooks tensed. The situation was dire, dire indeed. If a core breach was truly imminent, then there was only one solution. “We’ll have to evacuate your ship then. What is your current compliment?”
The warden paused, unsure. She stepped back to consult one of the flashing consoles. “Subtracting those lost in the breach… about 180 prisoners, thirty ship’s crewmen, and ninety guards, staff, and general crew.” She looked up. “Roughly. We don’t have an exact count of those lost.”
Captain Brooks grimaced. It would be a tight fit. They weren’t any sort of grand high-capacity ship, only a mere science and research vessel. He turned to one of his senior crew. “Options?”
“Not great, sir. We can take five at a time with our transporter, but the problem lies in housing. If it were regular passengers or crew, we could have our staff combine their quarters until we could drop them off. But prisoners need supervision, confinement, divided quarters...”
“What about the cargo bay?” a second officer added, “We could pack most of them in there.”
Denial came from a third officer. “It’s full to capacity with samples from Volanis.”
“If I could interject, sorry,” the neglected warden interrupted, “Very few of my prisoners are incarcerated for violent crimes. They can be housed in semi-large groups. There’s only one high-value prisoner that requires solitary confinement.”
Captain Brooks contemplated his options. Really though, there was really only one conceivable plan of action. It was far from ideal, but so was the situation. It would incur a loss, and there would be no end of paperwork and complaints from his superiors but lives always needed to take priority.
“Alright. Herrick, send a team to start disposing of the samples. Have them save what they can in the replicator storage, and toss the rest. We need that cargo bay.”
“But Captain-”
“But nothing!” Brooks cut him off, a fiery anger in his voice, “The Volanis system isn’t going anywhere; we can always go back and collect more. But here and now there are lives that we can save! Dump the cargo, and have the maintenance teams start constructing dividers in the cargo bay to make rooms. We’ll house as many as we can.”
“...Aye, sir.”
He turned back to the image of the warden on the viewscreen, relief painted on her face. “We should start the evacuation as soon as possible.”
“Agreed.” Suddenly, a console to the warden’s left exploded in a shower of sparks, and the resolution of their viewscreen dropped significantly. She raced over and began typing frantically. “No! Not now!” She glanced back up at her rescuers. “That was our primary communications system. I don’t know how much longer the backups will last.”
Her typing increased in speed. “I doubt our transporters are working, but yours has a higher capacity anyway. I’m sending you my personal comm frequency. If we lose contact, use it to pinpoint where to beam us from. Also-”
But her words were lost to space as the channel suddenly closed. Brooks turned worriedly to his ensign.
“I’ve got the code,” she confirmed.
A small sigh of relief spread across the bridge, but the crew just as quickly snapped back to emergency focus.
“Everyone to your stations then!” Captain Brooks ordered. “Gabor, keep monitoring that frequency. Herrick, get crews moving on clearing space, double time. I’ll be in the transporter room ready to receive the Warden to coordinate our efforts. All other orders are temporarily suspended, there are lives on the line!”
------------------------------
"Magh’ tok!" Warden Mindu swore, slamming her fist against the console in frustration and slipping into one of her preferred cursing languages. She tapped a few buttons, but the connection refused to reestablish. She could only hope that her final transmission had gotten through.
She began tapping out orders. Internal comms were thankfully still online. All she could do was prepare to evacuate and pray that the Johannesburg was monitoring her signal.
As she began walking down the hallway, she took a moment to compose herself and clean up her image. She needed to address and instruct the prisoners, and she needed to be calm, collected, and above all, intimidating and commanding. A difficult task, given her appearance.
Though her father had given her her skin and her eyes, her figure was both a blessing and a curse from her mother. While her breasts and hips would have been average on a human, on a tiny alien frame that barely topped 120 centimeters, her assets were positively bountiful. Even after two custom fittings her uniform still looked like it was under constant strain to contain her dramatic genetics. She rotated her regulation skirt a few degrees so that a recent tear looked more like battle damage and less like she was trying to show off her legs.
Soon enough, she reached the first cell block. Gathering herself, she set her face to a scowl and adjusted her posture.
The warden slammed the door open, purposefully making as much noise as possible. The containment rooms had old-fashioned hinged doors installed for just that purpose. The noise of prisoners died down to just a few inattentive talkers. Whipping out her baton, she raked it across the railing of the gantry to catch the last few stragglers’ attention.
"Alright vermin, listen up!" she roared, "A ship's here to help deal with our problem, starting with a full-scale evacuation. If it was up to me, I'd clear out myself, my staff, and the ship's crew and happily leave you all behind to the capricious whims of the dark mistress that is open space." She walked down the hall, making an effort to make each clack of her thick-heeled boots resonate like a whip-crack.
She sneered into the nearest cell. "Luckily for you, your rescuers are more openhearted. So here's what's going to happen!" She spun on a heel to face the majority of the cell block. "You will be escorted from your cells in pairs and brought to the transport pad to be beamed to the other ship with accompanying guards. Once there, their security team will bring you to where you'll be staying for the rest of the trip to your new facility."
She slammed her baton against the railing again and shot an evil eye across the room. "And if I hear anything, anything, about you giving their security team any sort of trouble, so help me you will wish I'd left you behind. Do I make myself clear?"
Hesitant voices of agreement and "Yes, Warden"s echoed across the floor.
"Good," she nodded sternly as she backed towards the door on the far end of the room from which she'd entered. "You have an hour. Maybe less." She took one more step back and let the door swing shut with a slam.
Mindu sighed and allowed the mantle of the grim, strict prison warden to slip off like an oversized jacket. It was never easy, putting on that much swaggering bravado, but years spent fighting her way up the ranks had made it almost second nature. After all, it wasn’t easy to earn respect as an authority figure when her own figure could put the prisoners’ posters to shame.
Grunting in determination, she reset her expression. She still needed to repeat her performance for another three cell blocks.
------------------------------
In a small cell, isolated from the rest of the prisoners, the ship's lone high-security prisoner plotted. He was an older man, with a tinge of grey in his hair, and looked to be somewhere in his early fifties by human estimation. Though in truth, his true age was nearly four times that.
This was not some unique alien quirk. He was human, essentially. He just had very good genes. Designer even, one might say.
Still, a man of his age and abilities should not have been languishing in a bland prison cell. By his own standards, he was long past the age where he should have found a nice primitive planet to settle down on, establish himself as a god-king, and live out his days in tyrannical splendor. But fate had conspired against him time and time again, leaving him to rot in a cell alongside beings who couldn't hold a candle to his greatness.
But, as capricious fate would have it, his cell had become the ideal setting for his conquest to commence. Even now he could hear chaos running amok throughout the ship as his handiwork wrecked havoc with the systems. The ship was old and it's security systems were laughable. Creating a virus had been so simple, someone with half a brain could have done it. Well, half of his brain, perhaps. He smiled to himself. Everything was going absolutely perfectly. And all that that uptight upstart warden and her imbecilic muscle-headed guards had to do to bring his plan to fruition was to follow their regulations to the letter, as they always did.
Soon, he would have not just a ship of his own, but an army of herculean, intelligent, and above all like-minded compatriots with whom he could conquer any planet he pleased.
His thoughts of glory were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching his cell.
“I have good news, Ordel!” The warden smiled with mocking enthusiasm from just outside his forcefield, looking as contemptible as ever. “You get to come out of your cell today. The bad news is you’re getting a brand new cell on another ship.” She frowned as she dropped her false cheerfulness. “We’re evacuating the ship, and regulations say high-value prisoners go first.”
She stepped aside as three guards entered, each a hulking Nausicaan easily twice as tall as her. They deactivated the forcefield and immediately surrounded Ordel, who said nothing and offered no resistance.
“Glad you’re feeling cooperative today,” the warden sneered, “Keep that up and maybe this trip won’t be so bad for you.”
“Oh, I think it will be quite good indeed.”
The warden whipped her head back, but he had only murmured the words, and now just smiled maliciously. She brushed it off as having misheard and lead the march down to the transporter room.
------------------------------
The transporter room had not been spared from the technical problems that plagued the ship. Panels had fallen from the ceiling and sparking wires left scorch marks on the walls. A lone guard stood by the console, trying in vain to use his long-neglected technician training to coax some life from it.
Guards surrounded Ordel on three sides, frogmarching him toward the transporter pad. He struggled to hide his excitement. He was so close! Only a few seconds more and all his efforts would finally come to fruition! An army of comrades and a fine new ship were within his grasp.
And then the Warden had to go and ruin everything.
"Move over Halaphen," she ordered one guard, "I'm coming too."
"Uh, really boss?" The aforementioned guard asked.
"Yes, really."
"What?" Ordel gasped, shock overriding concern for speaking directly to the warden. "But regulations state that prisoners of my level must be accompanied by three guards!"
She narrowed her eyes but decided to overlook his outburst. This time. "Don’t quote regulations at me, inmate. And that's a minimum requirement. I could assign my whole staff to guard you if I wanted, not that you're nearly worth the effort. Besides, I need to meet with the Johannesburg’s captain to plan the evacuation."
"But... but..." he rambled, panic overriding his usual glibness. "But the transporter can only take four at once!"
"And our rescuer's ship can handle five, which is why we're using theirs." She leaned in, close enough that he could make out every fleck in her enormous, ticked-off silver eyes. "Now if you're done complaining..."
No! She couldn't! He'd only altered the system with four passengers in mind, not five. And while his virus could easily jump to the other ship, there was no telling how it might respond to a different model of transporter. Anything could happen!
He struggled, he fought, he screamed with all his might. He couldn’t be transported! All his plans, all his dreams of conquest... Brought to ruin by an alien girl barely half his size.
"Would someone shut him up," the warden grumbled. One of the guards took something from his holster and, ignoring Ordel's struggles, pressed it to the prisoner's neck with a hissing sound. Instantly his movement turned sluggish and his outcries diminished to whimpers.
"Thank you Hallifax. You get first pick of guard shifts once we draft a new monitoring schedule."
She tapped a few buttons on the outmoded but still functional communicator on her hip, broadcasting out her personal frequency for the Johannesburg to detect. Within seconds, five rainbow pillars of glittering light vanished the five of them from the ship.
The remaining guard noted their successful transport and quickly left to instruct his colleagues to bring in the first set of prisoners for evacuation.
------------------------------
Warden Drellip Mindu blinked as the glittering lights of teleportation faded from her vision. Transporting always left her a bit queasy, but she put on a brave face and forced her feelings back down.
“Captain Brooks,” she greeted, recognizing him from the earlier hail. There was an odd echo-like quality to her voice, but she brushed it off as just her ears adjusting post-transport. “I’m relieved that you received my signal, I was starting to worry that...”
Why was he staring at her like that? And not just him, but all the staff in the room had expressions ranging from shock to confusion to outright horror. True, being of mixed species sometimes elicited that reaction, but humans were supposedly tolerant of such things. Besides, they had all seen her image earlier. Was something wrong? Had her clothes not materialized?
“Ah… forgive my rudeness,” Captain Brooks finally spoke, “You’ve caught us slightly off guard.” His neck tensed as he awkwardly asked, “Which of you is the Warden?”
She frowned. Had he forgotten her appearance already? Maybe humans just had a very bad memory for faces.
“I am,” she replied, her voice still carrying that same strange echo. “We spoke earlier.”
“Yes… but which one of you?”
What was this human going on about? She looked nothing like the guards on either side. They literally towered above her. She glanced just to make sure...
“Ah!”
Five Drellip Mindu’s cried out as they simultaneously noticed one another, each jumping back and instinctively drawing their batons.
“Who are you?” they demanded in unison.
“I’m the warden, who are you?”
“No, I’m the warden.”
“No, I am.”
“Stop that!”
“Stop talking in unison with me!”
“I order you to stop!”
“Cease mimicking me you imposters!”
As morbidly amusing as their synced reactions were, their unintended routine was interrupted by a humming sound, which rose in pitch matching with the brightening lights on the transporter pad.
“It’s starting up again!” Someone cried, “Whoever you are, get off the pad, quickly!”
The Wardens leapt off, setting aside their confusion for the well-known fear of being spliced by an overlapping transport.
“I can’t stop it!” the crewman at the console exclaimed as he frantically entered commands. “It’s auto-locking onto life signs near the last beam location. I’m locked out of the controls! Aargh!” With a flash of arcing sparks, he was blasted back from the panel which continued to spark and flash.
Five Warden’s looked on in shock as light blasted from the machine, forming four columns of matter and energy. Indistinct shapes grew within the beams, quickly resolving themselves into another four Wardens who blinked simultaneously as the light faded.
“Captain Brooks,” they greeted in perfect unison, “I’m relieved that you received my signal, I was starting to worry-” and then they noticed the five Warden Mindus scattered about him and promptly drew their batons. “Who are you, and why do you look like me?”
And then they noticed each other.
And then the transporter began to rev up once more.
------------------------------
Several months later...
Drellip Mindu frowned as the newest group of prisoners formed sloppy lines before her. They were obviously green, a lot of first offenders and a few that had been bounced around in other species’ prison systems. It was clear that they’d never been in one of her prisons before. You could tell by their sneers and by their eyes.
She could see lust in them, lust and arrogance and a touch of confusion. Any prisoner who had served time under her would know better. Their eyes would hold only fear or respect. She would soon correct them.
“Welcome, degenerates, to the Ankalla Containment Facility. Your new home.” She began to pace, such that she could look each of them in the eye. “I am Prison Administrator Mindu. This is my prison and therefore you all belong to me. Not that you’ll be seeing much of me, I leave the hands-on matters to the Warden and her staff. Warden?”
Time to put the fear of Mindu in them. “Thank you, Administrator.” Someone spoke as she entered the room. It was a carbon copy of the Administrator, only with a blue uniform to distinguish her. She addressed the room of rather confused inmates. “I am Warden Mindu. You will address me as either Warden or Ma’am. While most of you will be joining our happy family here at Ankalla, some of you will be boarding either the Albion, the Toongabbie, or the Paramatta-B for transportation to our sister facilities. During that time you will be under the care of either Captain Mindu, Captain Mindu, or Captain Mindu.”
She snapped her fingers. Immediately, a dozen women marched into the room creating a sea of blue skin, blonde hair, and green uniforms. “These are my S-level guards. Each manages her own cell block and has twenty highly trained guards under her direct command. You may address them as ‘Guard Mindu” or simply ‘Guard’. Likewise for those under their command.”
She whipped out her baton and pointed it at the crowd of now thoroughly alarmed inmates. “We see and know everything that goes on in this prison. If you break a rule, we will know. If you smuggle contraband, we will know. If you so much as throw a punch, we will know.”
She smiled venomously, as did every Mindu in the room with perfect coordination. “And if you do something particularly heinous, we will know...and we may just offer you a nonvoluntary position among our staff.”