After an experimental mission goes wrong, a starship captain finds herself stranded in a world where female nudity and submission is not just expected but legally enforced.
This story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.
Themes include ENF, CMNF, humiliation, non-consent, reluctance, public nudity, public sex, a touch of BDSM here and there, and occasional violence if it's relevant to the story or character development.
*****
Captain Emily Birmingham surveyed the bridge as the ship shuddered and tilted slightly, but she had expected something like this so was not particularly alarmed by it.
"Anterior stabilisers?" she asked anyway.
"Holding within parameters as expected, Captain," Chief Engineer Rod Collingwood responded without looking up from his screen.
Collingwood was ruggedly handsome and brilliant, but his intelligence also made him arrogant, and he could be such an insufferable jerk when he wanted to be. Not to mention borderline sexist at times. It was hard to get too annoyed with him though. He probably thought his wisecracks and patronising tone were funny or endearing, and any opinion to the contrary would have been beyond his comprehension anyway.
Whatever. It was a male-dominated industry and Emily was used to dealing with comments about her sex and its apparent bearing on her intellect, so she usually just played along, ignored him, or laughed him off. She liked him just the same though. His slurs, intentional or otherwise, and her reactions to them had become a game they played. It got much worse than Collingwood ever dished out anyway, particularly when it came to decisions about her career made by fat men sitting behind large desks. Plus, they were forced to live in close quarters often for weeks on end, so it was important to keep the peace.
"Ok, continue to full power," Emily instructed.
"Engaging full power in 5, 4, 3, 2... and hyperdrive is fully engaged," Engineer Tim Norris responded.
The rattling increased and then suddenly everything went silent. Outside there was only black. There was no sensation of speed or movement. It was eerie, like they were suddenly suspended motionless in space.
"Chief Engineer?"
"Well, I don't know where the fuck we are or how fast we're going but it appears to be working," Collingwood replied.
"Woohoo! Well done, everyone!" Emily replied. "But I'll remind you, Chief Engineer, that everything we say is being recorded."
Collingwood ignored the caution without as much as a raised eyebrow.
Emily felt like she had been training her whole life for this. At 26 she was the youngest person to have ever been chosen to captain a starship, and while she had excelled in her studies and training, she suspected there were other factors at play. One of those factors was that she was a woman, a rarity in the space engineering field, and a very attractive one at that. With piercing green eyes, flowing brown hair surrounding a gorgeous face, and an athletic figure with smallish breasts and wide feminine hips, she was well used to dealing with unwanted attention from men. Her sex and stunning looks were an easy sell to garner government and public support, and as much as she loathed it, she felt like those probably played no small part in the decision to fast-track her into the position.
Another more sinister factor she suspected was that she was more expendable. There were other, far more experienced personnel to choose from, but this mission had a rather high probability of failure, and at her level she was a smaller loss to the program should it fail. Plus, there were thousands of other candidates ready to take her place at a moment's notice.
"Ok, let's pull her out and start to slow down," Emily ordered.
"Aye aye, Captain," Engineer Norris replied.
"We are not a pirate ship, Engineer," Emily sighed.
"As you wish, Captain," Norris smiled. "Ok, disengaging in 5, 4, 3, 2... and disengaging hyperdrive system."
The shuddering returned and then at last they were back under the power of the ship's main thrusters. Their familiar hum was comforting to hear after the eerie silence of the hyperdrive.
"Chief Engineer?"
"I'll need a minute, Captain," Collingwood replied. "The instruments need time to recalibrate. Ok, here we go. No, that can't be..."
"What is it?"
"According to this we've travelled over 4000 light years! That can't be right. We were only under power for a few seconds. That's far beyond any known system."
"What are you saying? We can't find our way home?" Emily asked with some dread.
"Oh, no I didn't say that. Um... let me dumb it down for you, Captain, in a way you can understand," Collingwood replied condescendingly. "I know where we are, relatively speaking, and which direction home is, but we're deeply into uncharted territory here."
"Whew!" Emily replied, completely ignoring the condescension, which she knew very well was intended to get a rise out of her. "Ok, so let's about-face and head for home boys!"
"Yes, let's just hope the hyperdrive works again and doesn't blast us 4000 light years past our point of origin," Collingwood muttered, mostly to himself.
"Is that possible?" Emily asked.
"Anything's possible," he replied somewhat gravely. "We weren't even sure the thing would work at all, and we certainly had no idea it would work as well as it did. What just happened wasn't even supposed to happen. We figured at best we might go one or two light years. It's all new science so we've got no way of measuring our speed and distance with any accuracy while we're moving yet. To get home again, all we can do is measure the time we were under hyperdrive and apply the same again, keeping our fingers crossed we've got her pointed in precisely the right direction. Thankfully I have the time recorded down to the millisecond, but one bee's dick of a degree out with our direction and we could end up billions of kilometres off course."
"Oh my God. I thought we had a bit more control over it than that," Emily responded with some concern.
"Well, we do, and we don't. But trust me anyway," Collingwood replied smugly. "As long as it fires up again, we should be pretty close. Well, within a few weeks of thruster distance anyway, maybe a couple of months at the worst."
"Well, it's a long walk home if it doesn't fire up again."