Free Alien Caged by Tracy St. John Page A

chocolate brown eyes pop, and why she gave her full lips a dash of lipstick.  Before they’d come along, she’d given up such niceties.
    She brushed her hair again, letting it assemble itself in loose waves.  The chronometer warned her it was time to get moving, to take her roundabout trek to the kitchen.  She tucked a small spray bottle of vinegar in the pocket of her smock.  If anyone wanted to attack her in the corridors, he’d get an eyeful.
    Elisa gave herself one last look.  Her smock and skirt had become a couple of sizes too large since food rationing had become an issue.  It felt like she was always hungry nowadays, with an unpleasant hollowness yawning wide in her gut.  There was no help for it though; as the ship’s nutritionist she knew better than most how low the stores had gotten.
    “I should have left the ship when I had the chance,” Elisa whispered to herself.  She still sometimes considered asking Captain Walker to let her off at the next opportunity.
    But then what?  Earth was gone and Elisa had no funds to live anywhere else.  Not only that, but First Officer Chase and Lieutenant Commander Robards had begun naming those attempting to leave as traitors.  Some whispered that not all those who’d abandoned the cruiser had made it off the ship, at least not alive.  Rumor had it secret executions had begun without the captain’s knowledge.
    Escaping also meant leaving behind Zemos’ clan.  The thought of not getting those few stolen seconds with the three Kalquorians was enough to bring tears to Elisa’s eyes.  At the very least, she needed to know their ultimate fate before she could contemplate running away.  She had to know they would be all right.
    She sighed and turned her back on the unkind vanity area that reminded her how few options were left to a middle-aged woman with no home planet and nowhere safe to turn.  Her hand in her pocket, curled around the small bottle of vinegar, Elisa left her quarters.
    She reached the battlecruiser’s kitchen unmolested.  The moment she got there, Elisa went straight to her station and began prepping the Kalquorian prisoners’ lunches. 
    As a dietician, her main job before things had fallen apart had been quality control, regulating food safety, planning menus, and training other kitchen staff.  She knew quite a bit about actual cooking, but that duty had fallen to the others.  However, with so many leaving the ship after Armageddon, Elisa had picked up the slack.  There were only 250 or so people left in the crew.  However, with only ten manning in the kitchen, that meant everyone there pitched in. 
    The one area most of the kitchen staff was unwilling to help with was preparing the Kalquorian prisoners’ meals.  The entirety of that responsibility now lay on Elisa’s shoulders.  She even made their breakfasts ahead of time, leaving it to the morning shift to warm the meals and deliver them.  The early day staff groused about even that small duty, but a visit from Captain Walker at Elisa’s request had kept them in line so far.
    The one thing that still united the majority of the crew was their dislike of Kalquorians.  After Armageddon, they hated their enemy more than ever.  Many had decried keeping the prisoners alive, no matter what the Holy Leader wanted.
    One of the few people not utterly devoted to wiping Kalquorians out had been the ship’s head doctor.  He’d approached Elisa soon after their capture with a list of the aliens’ dietary needs:  high iron and protein content, very few grains, and Earther levels of fruits and vegetables that were also high in carbohydrates.
    “I’ve told Captain Walker the Kalquorians require a lot of meat,” Dr. Stroud had informed her.  “They can go longer than us without eating anything, but after two months without animal protein and iron, their bodies break down fast.  The captain’s orders are to not ration their diet at all.  Apparently where they’re going,