Hollow

Posted on Fri Feb 3rd, 2023 @ 2:00am by Lieutenant Thraxina & Chief Petty Officer Meredith Corden & Ensign Dora
Edited on on Tue Feb 14th, 2023 @ 10:24am

2,720 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Fool’s Errand
Location: The Experimental Holodeck
Timeline: M1 MD15 (2268.6.02) 1900

Thraxina and Dora looked odd enough walking along the ship's corridors at the best of times, especially as the three armed, three legged Edosian had a habit of innocently holding hands with the attractive brunette Andaran helmswoman. She didn't mind, but it did get them some funny looks.

Today they managed to go one step further. Dora was dressed in an extra sleeved, extra legged Eighteenth Century pink velvet be-ruffled gentleman's outfit and a tricorn hat, she in a beautiful panelled silk dress of 1760s Earth vintage and both balanced powdered wigs on their heads and carried elaborate masks on sticks. They were going to try out the experimental Three-dimensional Recreational Facility that their friend Toby had been working on. A 'Holographic rec room' he called it.

They had to book the room well in advance and pick a program. They had gone for menu option #66 "Casanova's Venice". To be honest, the booking program had been a mess, it looked possible to accidentally double book the thing. Thraxina hoped that the programming on the actual holographic software was better.

They logged in their booking details in the panel outside the room; the door swished open, and they stepped into 18th Century Venice...

Or what was supposed to be 18th century Venice. Meredith was standing on a moor in 18th century Scotland, dressed for the time period but with her dress torn to bare a shoulder at the top, looking out. She turned in surprise when the other two entered, her cheeks coloring a bright red. "I thought I had this time reserved..." she protested.

The doors closed precipitously behind Thraxina and Dora with an ominous clunk as the computer program struggled to cope with running two holographic scenarios at the same time. There was a bleep and a buzz and slight smell of shorting fuses as the electronic brain decided it had better keep those doors locked until it had sorted things out.

"Well, we booked it first!" replied Thraxina as she tottered on her dainty Venetian shoes toward the other woman and then got stuck as one of the heels sank in the thistly loam.

"We're supposed to be having a sophisticated gondola ride around Venice with Casanova, Cagliostro and Baron Munchausen." the Andaran girl looked at Meredith's pre-torn dress with a raised eyebrow "What were you planning, a romp in the heather with Rob Roy McGregor and the Loch Ness Monster?"

"Clearly there's been some sort of error in the booking system," Meredith said, not responding to Thraxina's insinuitions on her choice of program. She frowned and looked at the doors. "I'll let you have it, sir."

"Oh Gods, don't call me 'Sir'! Makes me feel like I need to depilate my moustache and shave my legs! In the Andaran service we used 'Ma'am, it's still allowed in Star Fl..." Her chatter was cut off by the odd multilimbed creature she had walked in with, who was sighing a creaky, croaky "Ohhhhh deeeear!"

"What is it, Dora, can't you see 'Mummy' and... Yeoman Corden, isn't it?" she turned and checked she'd got the attractive blonde woman's name right.

"Can't you see that Mummy and Yeoman Corden are having grown up talk?" She always felt like the ugly yet cute, genderless Edosian ensign was somehow like a toddler, despite his scientific acumen.

One of the Edosian's three hands was groping around in mid air, where the door release and inside control panel had been. "We're locked in... and the control panel has disappeared!" the walnut headed creature groaned.

They both looked quite young to Meredith. She smiled anyway. "Yes, ma'am," she answered the lieutenant. "This is really not the most effective way to for the computer to deal with conflicting instructions," she added unnecessarily.

Thraxina looked around. Oh yes... Ma'am. She was the senior officer here, she supposed she ought to take charge.

"All right, Dora, you stay here: if the panel re-appears, get the doors open and close down the programs." she said to the wrinkled three armed Edosian. To the woman with the 'ripped' dress, she ordered.

"Corden, you come with me, we'll go down to that little fishing village, the one with St. Mark's Basilica in it, and see if we can get out that way. Toby said something about there being exit panels in each of the 'adventure areas' that appear once you 'solved a level'"

With that, she pulled off the powdered wig, which was getting on her nerves, and threw it to Dora who, despite having three hands instead of two, totally fumbled the catch.

"Too slow" she chided him and then beckoned Meredith "Come on, Flora MacDonald!"

As the two women tramped through the heather, down the glen toward the remarkably Italianate and canal riven 'Scottish' fishing village, Thraxina asked.

"So, tell what was meant to happen in your adventure. Now don't be coy, we need to know exactly what the computer has planned for you." in case the older, more experienced woman had any reservations spilling the beans to a girl who looked barely out of her teens, the Andaran added "That's an order, Yeoman."

"I was on the run from English troops, ma'am," Meredith told her. "I was going to try to escape them in the countryside when a party of Highlanders would come to my rescue. After that, I would be caught up in the events of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. I don't know all the twists and turns. It takes the fun out of it to read ahead. But I can assure you, ma'am, that, torn dress aside, it is not nearly so lurid as you are imagining. Swords and guns, on the other hand, are likely to abound. It's an adventure story."

"Hmmm, saved by a handsome Scotsman in a kilt with hairy legs, eh? Sounds all right. What rating did you set it to? I had my Casanova one set to the maximum adult rating, 333, but when Dora invited himself along, I adjusted it down to 222. You know, a bit of romancing, maybe some kissing and cuddling, that sort of thing." She took a look at Meredith's face.

"I mean with Casanova, of course, not Dora. Good Gods, he's completely genderless. He's really an 'it' but it sounds a bit rude to call someone 'it'"

"So, where was I? Oh yes, so if we've both set it to 222, it shouldn't be dangerously violent or, ahem, well, you know!" Thraxina was assuming that two 222 rated holodeck games combined would still be 222. But what if the two figures were added together? Where the maximum sex and violence rating was 333: what on Earth would a 444 game entail for them?!

"Mine was also at 222," Meredith confirmed. She frowned and she looked back towards where they'd left Dora. She was suddenly uncomfortable that the Edosian had been left behind but she didn't say so to Thraxina, mostly because she had no better idea. Someone did need to be present in case the door reappeared. "I'm not sure we can assume anything in a malfunction, sir, but I know very little about how this room actually works."

"Well, you're a Yeoman, you don't need to understand." replied Thraxina, somewhat patronisingly "But actually it's quite simple. You see..." but before she could explain, a man appeared over a rise: he was in period dress, and fancy period dress at that. He was swarthy and handsome in an Italianate sort of way.

"Oooh! I think it's Casanova! Well, he's got trousers on, so it can't be Rob Roy."

The man hurried over to them and started babbling at Thraxina in Italian, gesturing and then quickly grabbed her hand and started showering kisses upon it.

"Charmed, I'm sure , but..." Before she could finish, a carbon copy of the same man appeared and started to do the same thing to Meredith; then another, and another and then, a whole regiment of Casanovas came charging over the hill, all running toward the two hapless women, gesticulating wildly, filling the air with protestations of love and getting ready to make hot, 444 level love to the pair.

"Quick, forward, and fight our way through to the village!" ordered the helmswoman in the big silk frock: punching her man in the face and elbowing the next one to come along while he tried to reach round and unlace her dress at the back.

Thy were now surrounded by jabbering, grabbing, lust filled Italian men, all looking and acting exactly the same.

"Argh!" grunted Thraxina as she kicked on Casanova where it hurt and sent him tumbling to the heather "You don't get a man in three months, then a 100 come at once!"

Meredith tried to pull away from the man but then there were more. And more. And more. She brought a knee up to one of their groins and shoved him sideways into another. The next got an elbow to the solar plexus and one after that a sharp kick to his instep followed by a heavy stomp on his foot. "They don't seem to realize they're in a real fight!" she said as she pushed forward and began running down to the village. "They're just programmed for...ardor." She took some inward satisfaction in the fact that it was Thraxina's program that was causing problems. The woman's Stratos City outlook was rubbing her the wrong way, to put it mildly.

It was true, although the carbon copy dilettantes were trying their best to grope the two women, rip their bodices and generally monkey about with them, they weren't seriously trying to harm them. As they fought their way through the morass of men, Thraxina could at least know that it was Meredith's fault not hers, what with her ordering up a whole regiment of men to chase after her.

A few more kicks, wallops and biffs and they were through, chasing down the hill toward the village, the Casanovas confusedly stumbling after them, occasionally bumping into and molesting each other.

Despite their period clothing, the girls were making good headway as they neared the shore of the loch, along which the village lay, when there was suddenly a loud roar and the noise of something issuing forth from the large body of water.

Thraxina staggered back as a spray of water hit them and then, looking up at the huge creature emerging from the lake, shouted to Meredith "Yeoman, did you order a Loch Ness Monster?!!"

Meredith was catching her breath. She blinked a little as water splashed on her face, her hair, her dress. Already a little the worse for wear from the ceaseless attentions of the Casanovas. She looked up to see the monster and heard Thraxina's question. "I most certainly did not!" She supposed she couldn't blame this one on Thraxina either. The Loch Ness monster had no place in Venice. "The computer isn't just combining the programs. It's drawing on the ship's records for additional ideas, even loosely related. Very loosely."

"Let's just hope it didn't give that monster the same intentions as the Casanovas!!" Thraxina yelled as they dived out of the prehistoric looking behemoth's way. They now saw the duplicate Casanovas catching up with them just as Nessie reared up on its hind legs revealing the answer to the age old question of whether Nessie was a girl or a boy. "Oh dear!" was all the Midway's helmswoman could gasp.

They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, when the monster suddenly began to lurch forward to attack the amorous venetians, biting their bewigged heads off, picking them up and shaking them like a puppy with a rag doll, whacking them with his enormous tail and, mostly, just squashing them underfoot. There were yells, screams, curses in Italian, and blood. Lots of blood.

Thraxina grabbed her blonde companion's hand, which wasn't very officer-like, it must be admitted, and shouted "Come on!" and they sprinted toward the village.

Meredith didn't particularly mind when Thraxina grabbed her hand. She wasn't sure whether the young woman was scared or thought she was. It was a scary and somewhat creepy situation to be sure. So she squeezed Thraxina's hand briefly and ran with her as fast as she could towards the village. "They're just programs," she reminded the officer, though she was trying to remind herself just as much. The blood was very realistic.

They made the village. At last.

But it was deserted.

"Oooh, what I wouldn't give for a tricorder right now!" Thraxina sighed, looking this way and that for some sort of 'goal' that might represent an end point for a 'level'. Then it happened. HE appeared. The End Boss! He didn't walk toward them, he just appeared right next to them out of nowhere and grabbed them, one in each of his big hands and lifted them up into the air. Even the usually stoic Thraxina couldn't help emitting a scream as she kicked her legs uselessly .

He was massive, around 20 feet tall: an enormous, ginger bearded, kilted, bonneted, ugly Scotsman. He sniffed first at Thraxina as she struggled uselessly in his grip and then Meredith.

"Fee Fie Foe Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishwoman!" he rumbled in a deafening voice. "Which one of you is Miss Corden! We've got a date!! I want to toss my caber with you!!"

His giant nostrils took another sniff of Meredith. "It's yooo, mah bonnie wee lassie!!" he decided and dropped Thraxina wailing to the ground. He now had a spare hand to start prodding and poking at the blonde in his hand, Kong-like, starting to pull down her bodice.

"Are you all right, lieutenant?" Meredith called down as the giant dropped Thraxina.

But there was just dead silence below.

The giant was too large and strong for Meredith to physically overpower him and she didn't have access to any tools or even to a vulnerable spot. It was hard to think clearly. She had never faced this sort of danger in the line of duty before. The mere thought of it, when the crew had encountered the Orionss, was rather horrific. This had been supposed to be a fun evening. It was turning into genuine trauma as the monster started to bare her breasts.

Meredith took a deep breath. As bizarre as the program had gotten, the original program must be under there somewhere and her program had been a romance and not of the sort where the heroine gets ravished. It might be possible to appeal to the underlying program. "This is no way to treat a lady! The MacKenzie will not be well pleased to hear how you've conducted yourself!" She was using the standard way of referring to the laird of a Highland Clan. The MacKenzies were to be the ones encountered in the story.

The giant's eyes merely looked glassy and he stuck out his big giant tongue, which was the size of a soggy red mattress, and licked Meredith's body and face, leaving a mess of slobber all over her. Then he opened his mouth wide, and closed his eyes, the more to favour this delicious morsel...

Deeeeuuuwwww The bright light of the open village faded, as did the noise of the distant Loch Ness Monster and the Casanovas fighting, they were all back in the dull grey room again. Meredith was standing up right next to Thraxina, who was lying on the floor with her dress in disarray, a pair of fancy stocking clad legs kicking in the air. About a yard away was Dora, getting the door open and looking back at them both with concern.

"Oohhh Good. You're both O. Kaaaaaaay!" he sighed in his creaky voice.

Thraxina scrambled to her feet and grinned madly at Meredith.

"Whooooo! That was fantastic!! Let's do it again, same time next week!!" she yelled excitedly.

Meredith grimaced as the giant licked her, feeling his slobber all over her body. Then he opened his mouth and she closed her eyes. Wondering if this program could really kill a person. And then it was over. Meredith stared a bit blankly as she pulled her dress up, watching the other woman's excitement. She wasn't sure what had ended it. Her solution clearly hadn't worked. "Glad you..." She cut herself off. She wasn't going to say that.

 

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