[magicmerlon]

“I still don’t see why you needed to drag me along.”

Chief of Security Lily Smithwesson crossed her arms and continued to begrudgingly follow the professor through the bustling space port. She was dressed in a grey generic jumpsuit with an electro pistol on her hip and her long blonde hair in a tight knot under her baseball cap.

“You’re my security guard, of course I’d take you on an important away mission like this!” Gretta replied, throwing her arms wildly in excitement.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh puh-lease, what’s the worst that could happen to your skinny ass at a space port? Pickpocket?”

“My “ass” is perfectly proportioned, thank you very much! And poor Polly here got stripped naked just an hour ago,” the Nettik responded, pointing out her Conicoid assistant wearing only a lab coat that she was desperately holding closed from the inside. Her naked feet pitter pattered across the tiles, drawing the attention of many curious eyes to her equally naked legs.

“I was wondering about that, but it felt rude to ask,” Lily commented back. “And your ass wouldn’t be so bubbly if you came to the gym with me sometime.”

“Unfortunately, I am far too busy in my lab to make time for your exercises.” Greta didn’t sound that torn up about it.

“My “exercises” get results, professor.” Lily rolled up her sleeve to the shoulder and flexed her impressive, olive skinned bicep.

Greta rolled her eyes. “If you get any more ripped, you’ll be all 45 degree angles soon.”

“You’re just jealous…”

The three girls eventually sighted what they were looking for: A tall Translnid woman arguing with what looked like a ship’s pilot. The pilot was sitting in a chair at a table, with the alien woman in question on her hands and knees on top of the table staring down at her.

“Hey, yes, hello!” Gretta said, running up to them, interrupting the harsh argument. Both debaters turned to look at her. The Translnid eyed Polly and her eyes lit up. She jumped off the table and made a disturbing purring noise.

“Eep!” went Polly as she hid behind Lily, who was over a foot shorter than the tall alien woman.

Gretta stopped the Translnid from walking past her. “I am her boss, I believe you promised us a ship for our experiment? Please, time is definitely of the essence and-”

“You <i>what</i>?!” shouted Tarsha, who jumped to her feet. “How dare you make promises on my behalf!”

Paz, who wanted to diffuse the hostilities quickly, reached behind and roughly squeezed Tarsha’s chest. The sensitive girl sat back down immediately to get away from the grope and was for the moment silent and blushing.

“My associate here, she is the one who has a ship and in fact is a pilot,” Paz explained. She added a few nods and a fake smile to be safe.

“Oh… ma’am, uh, we can pay you for your troubles, if you’ll help us.”

Tarsha, rubbing her sore boob, heard mention of being paid and stood up. “Uh, yes! Tarsha and the <i>Wayfarer</i>, at your service!”

“Splendid! We really don’t have much time,” Greta spun around, her tail twitching excitedly, “Polly, tell the team to get the Flotation Device ready to be mounted, and then monitor our progress planetside. Lily, if you would accompany on the ship for on the fly repairs?”

The short muscle girl nodded.

“Please be excusing me,” Paz piped up, “but is it at all possible for myself to see this test? It sounds most interesting.” She gave another fake smile.

“Oh, uh… well you did assault my assistant and all…” Greta was concerned this overbearing woman wouldn’t leave her alone without a fight, and she couldn’t afford any more delays. “I guess it’s fine though. Don’t touch my equipment though!”

“Of course!” Paz sounded pleased. Her eyes were glued to the Nettik’s tail, her pupils swaying back and forth with it.

“So, um,” Tarsha walked around Paz, giving the doctor a wide berth, to talk to Greta. “How much will this pay?”

“Well,” Greta looked embarrassed, “we only have about 200,000 dosh left in our accounts…”

Tarsha’s eyes bugged and she forced herself to swallow a noise of glee. After a couple seconds of mental composure, she managed to squeak out, “I suppose… if that’s all you have… I can make an exception to my standard rate.”

“Wonderful! Please arrive at these coordinates within the hour, and have your ship fully fueled and loaded!” Greta shoved a datapad into the pilot’s hands and turned back around to her associates.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” She shooed them along.

…

“Are all systems green?” Greta asked, strapped into a chair on the bridge to the left of Tarsha.

“All of my normal systems are running smoothly,” The pilot reported, in the central chair of the small bridge.

“Deep Dive Flotation Device reported as online and functional,” reported Lily, from the chair to the right of Tarsha. She looked a little bored.

“Why’s your armor in the storage bay?” asked Greta as Tarsha ran last minute flight checks.

Lily shrugged, “If we make galactic history, I’d like to be wearing my sunday best for the reporters.”

The Wayfarer slowly rose into the air and began accelerating towards high orbit. Through the rocking of the ship, Tarsha hit the comms. “Everything ok back there doc?”

“Splendid!” the doctor’s voice replied through the console.
A few minutes later, the ship and the four girls inside were in shallow space over Aurovo. They manuevored away from the more trafficked parts of orbit to a relatively empty area near the planet’s north pole.

“Here’s the coordinates you gave me… I don’t see anything though,” Tarsha remarked.

“Of course you wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be a discovery if anyone could just see it,” Greta replied, typing quickly onto her console. “I’m activating my modified sensor module we installed on your ship and linking our data to my lab… Polly, do you read anything?”

A very enthusiastic Conicoid voice broke over the radio. “Loud and clear! These readings are much more clear than anything we could get planetside. Professor, it’s there, a deep space wormhole… and its radioactivity is growing exponentially. I believe your window is about to open.”

“Amazing!” Gretta bit her lip with her fangs and squealed. This was her life’s work! Everything was about to come together, something was about to happen, she could feel it. “All hands, brace for deep space entry!”

In the bowels of the <i>Wayfarer</i>, the experimental deep dive flotation device whirred to life truly for the first time. It resonated with the mysterious energy readings surrounding the ship, and Tarsha initiated the dive procedure. The ship lurched, suddenly pointing downwards at the planet. The usual miasma of colors entered the view window on the bridge, but this was no ordinary dive. The colors stretched out, exploding over and over into ranges of pastels and neons and earth tones. Weird shapes floated in the paint soup, and whispers of deep space languages floated through the air of the ship. The vessel buckled, and seemed to stretch out infinitely as it dived deeper than any Torat made ship ever had.

“Proooooooofessssssssssssooooooooorrrrrrrrrr,” Polly’s drawn out voice gradually said through extreme static on the radio. “Wwwwwwwhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatssssssssssssss yooooooouuuuuuurrrrr staaaaaaaaaaaaaaatuuuuuuuuuuussssssssss?”

Before Greta could reply, the radio cut out altogether, and the electronics on the bridge failed. The ship began spinning out of control as the only system working anymore was minimal life support and the hungry deep dive flotation device that was now sapping all the power the ship could generate, determined to fulfill its function. The colors outside stretched, darkened, and were interrupted by nightmare shapes of horrible demon-like creatures.

“Whats… happening...?” Tarsha shouted out in slow motion.

“I- I… don’t… know…” Greta conceded after furious attempts to revive her dead console.

The ship continued to “fall” deeper and deeper into the terrifying dimension.
“The flotation device will eventually deposit us into normal space.” Greta said, speaking at a noticeably normal speed now. “I’m sure of it, it has a failsafe installed to do so.”

“And if that untested failsafe… fails?” Lily asked, trying to hide her worry with an angry tone.

Before anyone could answer the thought out loud, the whole ship shook violently and the girls blacked out.

…

Greta’s head was killing her. What happened- the ship! The flotation device! The test! She forced her eyes open.

The bridge was in disarray, with panels blown out and everything not bolted down was thrown around. The other two girls were strapped to their chairs, still hanging unconscious. Wait… if their still in their chairs, why am I on the floor…?

“And why am I naked?!” Gretta suddenly screamed. She looked down to see her furry shoulders, where her fur ended at her clavicle, her perky breasts, pinchable belly, curvaceous legs and of course the red tuft of hair between them.

“Please relax,” Paz suddenly said, her smiling face and four predatory eyes suddenly filling Greta’s vision. She tried to cover up, only to find her arms restrained by the alien doctor.

“~Let me go!”

“I cannot do that until you calm down.” Paz insisted. The doctor was drooling a little bit and was a little flush. “My apologies, I was simply seeing if you were ok but I have never examined a Nettik before. I was curious how your curves would look unclothed and laid bare, and then I wanted to see how your nipples might form so I removed your bra and I was curious if your fur pigmentation was the same on your pubic mound so I removed your undergarments…” she took a deep swallow and breathed out heavily, “It was very good research.”

The doctor finally let Gretta go and the girl shot to her feet. She crossed her leg to cover her womanhood and d****d one arm across her breasts as she checked her reactivated console. Obviously the ship survived, and they were once again in shallow space, but…

“If this is right, we’re over 20,000 light years from our last location!” Greta shouted. She added a cat-like squeal of panicked joy afterwards.

“And-” she stopped and yelped again. “~Aww, what?! S-stop it!” She shouted, as Paz grabbed her tail.

“It is so soft…” the alien droned. “Do I take by your reaction that it is an erogenous zone?”

Greta just pouted, embarrassed to answer. “J-just, let go, please…”

Paz obliged, as the other two girls woke up.

“Woah doc, were you so excited you jumped out of your clothes?” Lily asked with a grin.

Greta covered up again and grabbed at her lab coat from the floor. She wrapped it around herself. “It worked, we have travelled, in mere minutes, over 20,000 light years into unexplored space!”

“Great…” the groggy Tarsha remarked. She blinked as she noticed the naked Nettik. “Why are you naked?”

“Nothing! It was nothing! Nothing happened!” Greta blushed. “But my device worked! I’m a genius!”

“Awesome. How do we get back?” Lily asked, crossed her toned arms and already ready to go home.

“Yes, right we just need to find the wormhole…” Greta suddenly looked worried.

“Doc?”

“It’s not there… no, it has to be but… no no no!” She looked up from the console, both hands on it so that her lab coat fell open and once again exposing her nude body. “There’s no wormhole on this end!”

“Wait wait, I thought all wormholes had two ends?”

“I mean, yea, for normal wormholes, but deep space wormholes are more enigmatic…” Greta slumped to the floor and hugged her tail. “I guess…”

“That…” Tarsha trailed off.

“It’s gone.” Lily concluded.

“We’re stuck! On the other side of the galaxy!” Greta whined, holding her tail tighter and starting to tear up.

“It is ok! You still have my company!” Paz tried to cheer them up.

And so completes our pilot episode! Four girls, stranded far from home! An invasive alien doctor with a warped sense of bedside manners, a whining-prone scientist with a blush as deep red as her fur, a shy pilot with a complicated biology and a dark secret, and a short tempered, strong muscled, and short statured gun gal. Where will the Wayfarer go? Will our girls eventually run out of clothes? Will the stripping get better now that I’m done setting up my premise? All this and more will be answered on the next installment of Flotation Device: Riptide!