SPACE QUEST: DARK PSYCHE
(c) 1998 - 2008 by Anthony Durrant
The Escape from Starbase 41

Right at noon on that awful day, I closed the library where I used to work on
Starbase 41, picked up my old lunch bag, and left for the cafeteria. On the
way, I met a friend of mine named Stanley.

"Well, if it isn't old Walter Libram!" he cried. "Come and have a drink with
me, bless your old heart!"

"I think I shall!" I said.

We went together to the cafeteria, where he handed me an order form for an
Antigonian tiara, an item worth its weight in gold. I took a sandwich, a drink
of ginger beer, and a cupcake. On my way back, I mailed the order by putting
it in the electronic mailbox near the cafeteria counter. It made a series of
beeps, and then the tiara dropped down. I picked it up - but then the sound of
a klaxon alarm filled the air and the mailbox's red emergency light turned on.

"I'm sorry, Walter," Stanley said, pulling out an ID badge, "but as the new
security officer, I'm going to have to arrest you for vending machine fraud.
You really should make a habit of paying your bills!"

***

I was remanded for trial in the station's courtroom, and was found guilty by
the jury.

"Having found you guilty of vending machine fraud," the judge said, "through
not paying the 600, 000 buckazoids required to buy the Antigonian tiara,
Walter Libram, I sentence you to life as a sex slave, because fraud is such a
severe offence that there can be no legal appeal for anyone convicted of the
crime. Guards, take this man away! Next case."

I was dragged, kicking and struggling, to the transformation chamber, where I
was put on the slab and strapped down tightly. With the push of a button, the
Conversion Machine came down over me, and I gave a final scream as it covered
me from head to toe. Soon I was in agony as the nanites entered my body and
began transforming me.

Several hours passed, and then the computer's voice said:

"Conversion complete. The sex slave programming will be ready in a few
minutes."

Anthony Durrant 2.

May 30, 2008

The Conversion Machine rose back up to the ceiling, where it had originated.
Finding that my straps were loose, I wriggled my arms until I broke free.
Looking around, I saw nobody, so I sat up and pulled off my leg straps and
swung my legs to the side of the table - slim, shapely legs with dainty feet!
Standing up, I searched the chamber, but all I could find was a used keycard
and an old hand mirror, both of which were in the garbage unit. When the door
opened to let a robot come in, I dashed out. Using the keycard in the slot of
a security unit, I went down in an engineering elevator to the spacedock.
Hiding behind a spacedock wall, I watched two men at a station there talking
to each other and laughing.

"That's her," one said, pointing to a spaceship shaped like a scorpion.
"That's the Skorpyon, a Latymyrean ship. She's one of the fastest spaceships
I've ever seen. Powerful, too - she could outrun one of our cruisers, and then
some. She's incredible."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" the other said. "You know, I wish there were sex
slaves here on this deck, so we could have a really good time, Michael."

"Oh, you dreamer!" the first man said as I inched to the lockers on the wall
beside their console and managed to slip by without either of them seeing me.

One of the lockers was close at hand. Using the mirror as a crowbar, I broke
the lock, and opened the locker door. On the back of the door was a mirror,
and reflected in the mirror was a slender, blonde-haired girl with green eyes,
wearing a red dress with a gold halter. With a start, I realized the girl was
ME! For a minute, I swayed, shocked by the surprise, but recovered and
searched the locker. I found only a bra and a small bottle of pimple cream
inside, so I took the box and the cream, then dashed off down the corridor to
the docking bays. Soon, I came to the Skorpyon's berth and found a Latymyrean
robot pilot guarding the ship. Putting the bottle in the bra, I twirled the
bra over my head and shot the jar right at the pilot, sending him falling off
the catwalk to his death. When I searched the body, I found the Skorpyon key.
Taking the key, and looking round again, I went up the ramp to the platform,
opened the airlock, and ran down the boarding tube to the main hatch, where I
inserted the key. The door hissed open, I entered, and pushed the POWER
button. The door shut automatically, and the ship powered up. Pulling on the
throttle, I was pushed into my seat as the ship took off, sailing through the
bay doors, which opened like a rose.

"I'm free as a bird!" I cried. "I'm free as a bird!"

Looking at the Skorpyon's star charts, I set the ship on a course to the
planet Requiem, then set the speed to Lite Speed. The Skorpyon shot into
lightspeed, pushing me into the pilot's chair as it made its way through the
far reaches of the cosmos.

Anthony Durrant 3.

May 30, 2008

The Planet Requiem and its Ancient City.

I saw the planet Requiem in the viewport, and it was the most majestic sight
I'd ever seen, hovering in space like some unearthly angel from Heaven. I
pushed the LAND button, and the Skorpyon turned about and landed on the
planet's surface. When I lowered the gangplank, and stepped out onto the
surface, I felt an odd sensation, as if I was getting weaker. Going through
the nearest door of the city I'd landed in , I found myself looking into the
facets of a Dekyon Crystal as black as night.

"It's at full power!" I thought. "I really AM getting weaker."

There was a crystal key lying on the ground; I took it and followed the
hallway west past the crystal to a bank of cells, all empty except for one
containing an elderly hermit. Using the crystal key on the keyhole, I opened
his cell and he stepped outside.

"Thank you!" he cried. "What's your name?"

"Walter Libram!" I said. "I used to be a librarian."

"In return for your kind act, Walter, I'll give you this key, which opens the
door to the reactor's control room." the hermit said as he handed me a key.

"Thank you!" I said as I took the key. "I appreciate it."

"A machine that could help you on your journey is in the control room, Walter.
Look out - my captor has returned!"

I didn't have time to even turn before everything went black. When I awoke, I
saw the face of a Huntsman in front of my eyes, smiling cruelly at me, his red
eyes glowing.

"Did you really think you'd get away with my beautiful crystal draining you of
your strength? You're very brave, but very reckless as well. I've drained all
your strength out of you and into me! With this Dekyon Crystal, I can conquer
the whole Galaxy. There's no hope left for you now, because you're MINE!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hermit pull a sheet off the crystal and
turn it around on its stand, then give me the "OK" sight, and activate the
crystal while the Huntsman was talking to me. All of a sudden, I felt a surge
of power go through me. I was getting plenty of strength from the Huntsman! As
the Huntsman raised his staff, the crystal exploded into vapour.

"You've got no idea what I'm going to do to you, do you?" he asked.

Anthony Durrant 4.

May 30, 2008

I shook my head, and he burst into an evil cackle.

"When I'm through with you, you'll obey my every wish!" he cried.

He touched my face with his staff, and I felt a surge of sexual pleasure go
through me as he kissed me on the lips.

"Any last words before I start?" the Huntsman asked.

"Yes!" I said. "Your prisoner set the crystal to 'reverse.' YOUR strength has
drained into ME!"

With that, I snapped my chains, and strangled the life out of the Huntsman
with my bare hands. On searching him, I found a necklace of pointed teeth, a
dagger, a flawless ruby lens, and his long wooden staff, all of which I took.

"Which way is the reactor control room?" I asked the hermit.

"Past the cells and to the north!" the hermit said. "I'll just nip out of here
and take off in the Huntsman's ship."

"Goodbye, then!" I said, shaking his hand firmly.

"Goodbye, Walter!" the hermit said. "Oh, and since you've forgotten to ask, my
name is Bermit. May I see you again!"

With that, he dashed away, leaving me standing there.

***

As Bermit had said, the reactor chamber was down the bank of cells, and then
down a corridor that branched off north down the hall. There was a crystal
keyhole at the end of the corridor, and I used the crystal key in it and the
wall slid upward. When I went into the room beyond the wall, I found the
control console stood on a platform with a pit around it. Using the Huntsman's
staff, I pole-vaulted across. Athletic, but that's how my friend Roger Wilco
would've done it.

There was one glowing light on the console, and it came from a small
compartment beside the pressure valve. I noticed it had a socket atop it that
looked like it would fit a ruby lens - a lens like the one I was carrying! I
inserted the lens into the socket, and the compartment opened, revealing an
ancient gadget, which I promptly grabbed.

Anthony Durrant 5.

May 30, 2008

"Overload in twenty minutes!" a voice said. "Prepare to evacuate the planet. I
repeat, there will be an overload in twenty minutes!"

The door opened, and I pole-vaulted across and hurried back to the Skorpyon.
Once on board, I took off and flew away from the planet just before it
exploded. As soon as I was as far away as possible, I inserted the ancient
gadget into an open compartment in the ceiling of my ship and attached it
firmly to the Skorpyon's systems. Sitting back in the seat, I set course for
the planet Epistle. To my amazement, a voice said:

"We'll be arriving at Epistle in two hours, love."

I'd wired the Requiemian computer core into my ship! To silence the voice, I
pushed a button on the console marked VOICE OFF, and set the Skorpyon to Lite
Speed. The ship tore off at light speed again, and soon I was looking at the
planet Epistle's face. Realizing the Skorpyon had just stopped, I sat back in
my chair and sighed in relief.

The Planet Epistle and the Temple of Death.

The rough face of the planet Epistle reminded me of a mining outpost whose
library I'd worked in before I went to Starbase 41. As I pushed the LAND
button, I smiled at my reflection in the viewport. The Skorpyon landed
smoothly on the planet's surface. When the gangplank lowered and I got out, I
found myself in a desert! On a sand dune I found a wrecked ship, and went
inside to have a look. Not much left was worth salvaging, but the ship's laser
cannons were still intact, so I went outside and unclamped them, then went
back to the Skorpyon and installed them.

Getting out into the fresh desert air again, I walked north until I came to a
ruined temple with sand piled high around the entrance. Walking up to the
entrance, I turned a dial beside it clockwise, opening the door. When I walked
into the temple, I found myself standing at the start of a maze! The image of
a young man with a goatee appeared. Dressed in black, he was strikingly
handsome, with black hair. The man said:

"Welcome to the Temple of Death, wanderer. The path to your fate leads to the
center of this maze."

He disappeared, and I continued forward - north - to a junction where a
passage branched off to the east, and I turned that direction, walking east
until I came to a wall with an inscription that read:

"I am the ruler of the Greek underworld, son to Chronos and Rhea. Name me!"

Anthony Durrant 6.

May 30, 2008

"Hades!" I said.

Nothing happened, so I went in the opposite direction and found a niche in the
wall that had opened. I found a gold key in the niche, and walked to the end
of the west passage and found a door with a golden keyhole beside it.. On
inserting the key, I watched as the door rumbled open, and saw the passage
turn south on the other side. I followed it, and found that it turned east at
the end. At the end of the passage was a screen, on which was the young man's
image.

"Riddle me this!" he said. "What's the name of the goddess forged from the sun
god Ra's eye?"

"Sekhmet!" I said, and he smiled and said:

"Good! I knew you'd guess the answer. Go ahead, the way's clear."

A passage had opened to my left, and I walked down it. Realizing the maze
might form a puzzle larger than I thought, I continued east down the passage
until it turned west at the end, where I found a message that read:

"Pass the rays with great care, hoary one, unless you want to be killed
instantly."

Turning right, I found myself looking at a set of laser units with beams
criss-crossing the passage. Taking out the mirror, I thrust it into the beams,
sending them back at the units, and frying them into inoperability. Now I knew
what the warning had meant about "the rays." Going down the passage, I found
myself at the main temple doors. As the hero of Space Quests I - VII, Roger
would be proud if he could see me now. The young man appeared and said:

"The hoary one [referring to me] must guess this riddle: Who devours the sun
god Ra at the end of the day, only to see him reborn on the morrow?"

"The serpent Apophis!" I said.

"Very good!" he said.

The doors opened and I walked right in. The temple was a vast dome with a
black alter in the middle. On the altar rested a goblet, and behind it was a
huge screen, with the young man's face on it.

"Go ahead, drink from the goblet!" he said. "The poison in it guarantees a
peaceful death. After all, that's what our sect cherishes, isn't it? Take the
goblet and drink to your

Anthony Durrant 7.

May 30, 2008

heart's content. Come on and take a hearty swig!"

I picked up the goblet but, instead of drinking from it, I tossed the poison
at the screen. There was a series of sparks, and then the screen smoked and
dissolved. Obviously, the poison was acidic, and I would've died a very
painful death - the young man had lied. Even though my sex drive had been
increased many times over, and my body had been horribly altered during the
conversion, I didn't want to die; my will to live was simply too strong.
Springs had popped out of the damaged screen, and I took them with me.
Searching the area, I also found a skeleton with a priest's rod in its hand.
After getting the rod, I left the temple and went back to the Skorpyon. Once
aboard, I left Epistle for good. Setting course for Johnny Doolan's Space
Doughnuts, I turned on the Lite Speed, set the autopilot, and went to sleep.

Johnny Doolan's Space Doughnuts

In the dream, I lay on the slab beneath the Conversion Machine as it rose to
the ceiling. Stanley was there, and as the Sex Slave programming was being
uploaded, he said:

"This is for your own good, Walter - you deserve to be a sex slave."

I woke up roaring and sweating and sexually high. I was in the Skorpyon, and
it had been a dream brought on by the shock of my conversion. In the viewport,
I could see the restaurant known as Johnny Doolan's Space Doughnuts.

I docked the Skorpyon at the restaurant and got out through the docking tube.
When I went to the counter to place my order, I was forced to stand behind
some of the beings paying their food bills. As I stepped forward, my foot
landed on a whoopee cushion that let out a squeal. As I bent down to pick it
up, the being in front of me let out a huge belly laugh, revealing his sharp
teeth.

"I can't believe you fell for that old trick!" he cried. "Arbuk's my name, and
jokes are my game. Here, take the whoopee cushion - and my card, of course! Do
you want to buy anything today?"

"I don't have any money, Mr. 'Arbuk of Arbuk's Jokes and Novelties.'" I said,
reading the card. "I'm sorry. Perhaps another day when I'm in the money."

"Too bad, my little chickadee!" he said. "So long."

With that, he entered his ship and zipped off.

Anthony Durrant 8.

May 30, 2008

"What a ham!" I thought, smiling. "How can I get some buckazoids to buy a
doughnut with?"

In front of me, I saw a young blonde-haired fellow who looked like Roger.
Blowing up the whoopee cushion, I playfully tucked it into his pants, then hit
the whoopee cushion hard. As he screamed in shock, I laughed heartily and
said, recalling what Arbuk had told me:

"I can't believe you fell for that old trick."

I opened his shirt collar and massaged his chest as I added:

"Here, take my card. You look like you've got the flu, chicken pox, or that
dread disease, Mogo on the Gogogo. My name's Arbuk, of Arbuk's Jokes and
Novelties. Would you like to buy my merchandise, my little cock-robin? What
would you like?"

"To get my merchandise and get to my table!" he cried, doing both in double
time - and leaving me with his wallet, which I'd taken when I'd picked his
pocket.

"Just enough," I thought, counting the buckazoids, "for a Super Duper Doughnut
and a try at that new Defensor ™ arcade game!"

Going up to one of the tellers, I said:

"I'd like a Super Duper Doughnut, if you please. I'm very, very hungry."

"That's five buckazoids, miss!" he said, and so I counted out five buckazoids
and gave them to him.

I took the doughnut he handed me to a table near the wall and ate it. It
tasted good, but every time I took a bite, I felt surges of sexual pleasure.
As I finished the doughnut, I bit into something hard - a Defensor decoder
brooch! Putting it on, I went to the game and inserted a buckazoids. After ten
rounds, a coded message appeared. Using the brooch to decode it, I read:

""I'm being held prisoner by Slash Vohaul, Sludge Vohaul's brother. Help! I am
the Moboan known as Dr. Synthe!"

I rushed back to the Skorpyon, and took off again. I had to find Dr. Synthe!

***

Anthony Durrant 9.

May 30, 2008

"Slash Vohaul is a retired Xenonian Army colonel!" the computer told me after
I'd turned on its voice. "He earned the Red Heart for Valour and is a
highly-decorated officer. He went underground after retiring to build a
super-soldier army, love."

"And his brother was Sludge Vohaul, the man behind the Star Generator theft!"
I said. "So where is Colonel Slash Vohaul now?"

"On the planet Oxymoron, love!" it told me.

"Then I'm going to go hunting," I said, "catch me a Vohaul. VO-HAUL!"

Pressing the lite-speed button, and setting a course to Oxymoron, I was
crushed into my seat as the Skorpyon went into Lite Speed, and was lucky I
wasn't hurt. Soon the Skorpyon was orbiting the warworld Oxymoron, a planet
totally transformed into a vast spaceship.

Oxymoron and the Rescue of Dr. Synthe

As the Skorpyon landed on Oxymoron, I was awed by the vast machines on the
surface. When I got out, I bumped into two large men in uniform - two of
Genera Vohaul's super soldiers, specially enhanced to serve him.

"Hello, boys!" I said, striking a sexy pose. "Do you want to have some fun
with me?"

Their sex-drives proved to be too strong for their biocircuitry, which
exploded, killing them.

"Super-soldiers, eh?" I thought. "I'd call them DUDS."

Looking around, I saw two guards standing near a doorway, one on each side of
the door. Walking up to them, I struck a pose and said:

"Hey, sugar plums, how about buying a girl a drink?"

Once again, my enhanced pheromones proved to be too much for the super-
soldiers' biocircuitry. Both of the guards sparked, exploded, and fell dead at
my feet. I walked right into the room behind the door, which hissed open to
let me in.

"Slash Vohaul's enhancements can't protect these poor men from ME!" I thought.

***

Anthony Durrant 10.

May 30, 2008

When I entered the room, I found I was standing in a storage room with a grate
on one side. I went over to the grate, and forced it open with the Huntsman's
dagger, then crawled west through the vent shaft behind it until I came to
another grate. Wrapping the necklace around one of the bars, I ripped the
grate from the wall by pulling on it. Crawling through the hole where the vent
had been, I found myself in a bathroom. After a quick shower, in which I felt
alive with sexual pleasure, I dried myself off and put on the necklace, taking
the towel with me and dressing on the way out. As I was walking east down the
corridor, a pit opened, and I pole-vaulted across to the other side with the
Huntsman's staff. I soon came to this floor's elevator and got in. When the
doors opened and I got out, I found myself on Floor Two. Sneaking past the
super-soldiers, I dashed through the first door on my left, and found myself
in the kitchen. I opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled a roll of paper
towels off a door rack. In the cabinet was a small waste paper basket, and I
took it.

I left the kitchen, and went east to another elevator, then jumped in and went
down to the first floor. When I left the elevator, I saw a sign on the metal
wall facing me that read, "This way to General Vohaul's Private Library."

Following the sign, I came to a door marked LIBRARY. When I went through the
door, I discovered a room full of books, all of which were about military
strategy or technology. A book was on the table, and I picked it up and read
it. It turned out to be an autobiography written by none other than Colonel
Slash Vohaul! On one page, he had written this very revealing statement:

"I've always hated the advanced fighting machines used by the Army. If the
soldier could be improved, the military benefits would be great indeed. If I
could just design the perfect soldier, I could develop an army of men and
women who could take over the Galaxy without making so much as an eye twitch
against my commands."

"A fanatic!" I thought. "He doesn't even bother to have somebody else do his
research for him - he goes ahead and designs a super-soldier army!"

As I left the library, I was ambushed by a quintet of female super- soldiers,
who held my hand to the ground and a gun to my cheek. One tapped her comm ring
and said:

"We've got her, Colonel Vohaul!"

"Good! Take her to the basement dungeon!" Colonel Vohaul's mechanized growl
said over the comm. Channel, and I was dragged into an elevator and taken to
the basement, the brooch on my wrist making a squealing noise as they threw me
in the dungeon.

"The guard robots will unplug from the walls and gun you down if you try to
escape!"

Anthony Durrant 11.

May 30, 2008

said the squad leader as she entered an elevator, leaving me sitting there in
the darkness.

I put the paper towel in the basement, and lit it by rubbing together some
pieces of wood from an old broken chair in the corner. A few minutes later,
sparks poured out of the Guard Robots as the water from the sprinkler system
in the dungeon ceiling frizzled them out. Looking around the dungeon, I found
a carbonite block containing Dr. Synthe with a lever bearing a label that
read, "REVIVE." I pulled the lever, and the carbonite melted, releasing the
good doctor.

"On behalf of the Star Confederation, I thank you!" Dr. Synthe said solemnly
as he reassumed his usual form, that of a handsome dark-haired man with
pointed eyebrows and blue eyes.

"My name is Walter Libram!" I said.

"How did they turn you into a girl?" Dr. Synthe asked me in a very shocked
voice.

"They arrested me for vending machine fraud, and sentenced me to life as a sex
slave, but I escaped before they could reprogram my personality."

"Sorry to disturb your little meeting, doctor," Colonel Vohaul said, his voice
coming from the intercom.

A door opened in the wall, and we went through. Vohaul - a cyborg whose mind
and organs were encased in an impregnable droid body - sat waiting for us as
we entered the room next to the dungeon through that door.

"You have the power to convert matter into energy and vice versa, Dr. Synthe!"
said the Colonel. "Why will you not use it to bring my brother Sludge back
from the dead?"

"We Moboans have too great a respect for the dead to allow that to happen!"
Dr. Synthe told the Colonel, who retorted angrily:

"Because you won't revive my brother, I'm going to shrink you into oblivion!"

He pointed his ring finger at Dr. Synthe, and I raised the mirror in front of
the good doctor. The beam bounced off the glass and hit the Colonel, causing
him to shrink out of sight. Rushing to Vohaul's chair, I sat in it and saw a
timer on the console - his death had activated a destruct system!

"This planet will explode in thirty seconds!" I shouted. "Follow me! Follow
me!"

Anthony Durrant 29.

May 30, 2008

We raced up the ramp at the end of the room, and hurried through the door at
the end. We raced through the tunnel behind the door to a passage, at the end
of which we found a catwalk. We dashed down the catwalk and ran through the
open door at the end, emerging at a shuttlepad.

Dr. Synthe and I dashed over to the Skorpyon, and the two of us ran up the
ramp into my vessel, and we were able to lift off in time to avoid being
caught in the planet Oxymoron's death throes. It was then that he turned to me
and said:

"You've got a nice ship here, Walter!"

"I certainly do, Dr, Synthe!" I said.

Then I pushed the Lite Speed button, but it didn't work. Colonel Vohaul must
have had the connection between the ship's ion engines and FTL drive severed
after bringing the Skorpyon over to his headquarters. The doctor noticed my
distress, and said warmly:

"Don't worry, Walter - I'll take care of it!"

With that, he grabbed the severed connector cables in both hands, and melded
the severed areas together again so that they again became two single cables.
When I pushed the Lite Speed button again, the Skorpyon went easily into Lite
Speed, and we were able to get away just as Oxymoron exploded.

"Thank you, Dr. Synthe!" I said warmly.

THE END