The ship watches them.

The ship woke from it's long sleep and studied the circumstances that had caused it's automated subsystems to rouse it. A small alien vessal was being brought aboard after it had transmitted a recognised distress signal. The artificial intelligence instantly realised the obvious fact which it's non sentient subsystem had been unable to spot. The signal was merely the ship's own distress call being transmitted back at it by the aliens. The ship referred the matter to it's ethical code of default procedure and decided that irrespective of the nature of the signal it was obeying it's programming. It detected four lifeforms aboard the small craft and experianced as close as it was able a feeling of anticipation. When the last of it's crew had perished the ship had been left without purpose and had shut itself down, waking only sporadically in the intervening millenia when it was necassary to effect repairs or alter course to avoid spatial hazards. Without a crew to serve the ship felt empty and incomplete, if these lifeforms met it's requirements it could be whole once more. The AI brought it's internal sensors online and prepared to study the alien arrivals.

Inside the fighter the three guardwomen and Calvo could do nothing but look on impotently as the tractor beam dragged them down a broad shaft into the bowels of the gigantic alien ship. Ahead of them the tunnel opened into a large well lit hanger and the beam deposited the small spacefighter onto the deck, behind them airlock doors closed and the hanger repressurised with a breathable atmosphere. They peered nervously out at the empty space around them.

"No sign of a welcoming party." The lieutenant commented. "Do you get the impression that someone or something is waiting for us to get out?"

"I think we're going to find out." Calvo said, flicking switches on the control panel. "Propulsion is still dead, we're going nowhere unless we can switch off the dampening field that's effecting the engines."

"That settles it then." The lieutenant said decisively. "We can't stay in here without food or water. We'll move out and explore."

Eighteen opened the hatches and they all clambered out onto the hanger deck and looked around curiously. A doorway about six feet high with a control panel next to it was the only obvious exit. The lieutenant strode towards it, intending to study the controls. As she got near the door slid open with a quiet hiss, making everyone jump. Eighteen whipped the blaster up and trained it on the open doorway, a few tense seconds passed until it became apparent that no-one was coming through.

"It must be motion activated." The lieutenant surmised. "That's going to make things easier if all the doors are the same. I'll take the lead with Eighteen. Twelve and Calvo will follow."

"Wait, I can't go like this." Twelve protested.

Everyone stopped and looked at the naked little guardwoman, Calvo shrugged and pulled off the jacket he'd stripped from the dead pirate and handed it over. The jacket only reached to Twelve's upper thighs and half her pert little butt was left exposed and her black furred pudenda was scarcely covered, the jacket's body was far too big for the waiflike guard and hung off her slender frame loosely.

"If we're all ready now, let's move out." The guard officer ordered impatiently and stepped through the doorway.

As she passed through she was bathed briefly in a shimmering green light emanating from the door's frame. She turned and scowled at the door suspiciously, but seemed unharmed by the light.

"It felt like a bio-scan of some kind." The ebony skinned officer informed the others. "It makes your skin crawl but I reckon it's harmless, come on through."

One at a time they followed the lieutenant and each was scanned as they exited the hanger. On the other side they found themselves in a corridor, stretching off into the distance in two directions. They looked up and down but could see nothing to indicate which direction would be the best to go.

"Do you think the scan was automated, or are we being watched?" Twelve asked.

The ship looked on with it's internal sensors as the aliens moved out from the hanger and seemed to be discussing their next move. Every word they said was being fed into a translation program and soon the ship would be able to understand their language. It had noted how quickly they had left their craft, this species seems bold and inquisitive. That was good. It turned it's attention to the bio-scans and saw that the aliens had two genders as was the norm. The AI instructed two of the ship's maintenance androids to go to the research labs, from these it would create avatars in the aliens form to interract with them once it had translated their tongue. Soon, the ship thought, it would know if these lifeforms were suitable.