Captain Chella Vonada struggled to open her eyelids, which felt as if they had weights attached to them. Her head felt heavy, and her mind foggy. She tried to lift a hand to rub her eyes, but her arm was sluggish like it, too, was weighed down with lead. Think, Chella, think… Where was she? What had happened to her team? Why did she feel so weird?

My team… Slowly, the fog clouding her brain began to lift, and memories flooded in. They had landed on Bypso-18, an unpopulated planet in a neighboring galaxy that had just recently been explored and mapped by drones.

Chella was in charge of the exploration team sent to further study five of the planets in that galaxy, worlds reported to be suitable for habitation. Their mission was to identify which planets were ideal for relocating many of the inhabitants from her increasingly vastly overpopulated home planet, Zugador. They had accepted many settlers from the planet Earth, but now, Zugador, a smaller world than Earth, needed to find a new home for the hundreds of people from Earth that continued to arrive. Their emperor had called a halt to the heavy migration and promised the powers that be on Earth that they would help find another planet that was fit for colonization.

Bypso-18 was a very large planet with two mauve suns and a smaller almost purple one, it had two moons, and it was the last of the five they had set out to explore. It was at least ten times the size of Zugador and Earth and could easily accommodate hundreds of thousands of Earth’s people. Juliette, her science officer, had found no evidence of intelligent bio-life on her instruments, and the atmosphere was compatible with that of Zugador and Earth. They had been quite excited and decided to land to explore its vegetation and animal life, test the soil, and look for possible areas where settlers could build a colony.

Lucas, their pilot, had remained with the ship. Chella, Juliette, Darren, their biologist, and Peter, their navigation officer, had set out in the shuttle and then on foot to explore the lush vegetation of the forest near which they had landed.

Now that her mind was clear, she could still visualize the paradise that they’d found at the base of a mountain ridge. The triple suns shone down from a pale mauve sky on a crystalline lake fed by a silvery waterfall and surrounded by pristine white beaches, indescribable flowers, and fruit-laden trees. Darren had tested many of the foreign-looking fruits and vegetables they’d discovered and pronounced them edible for humans. It didn’t just look like paradise…it was a paradise with no evidence of predators. They’d only seen gorgeous birds, little furry animals, some tall, long-legged, red bird-like creatures that seemed friendly, and they hoped the rest of the planet was just as beautiful and peaceful.

The last thing she remembered was that they’d taken a break to have lunch on a pristine beach with sand so white and fine it resembled salt. “So far, it looks like we’ve found a new home for many of the people on Earth,” were her last words while opening her lunchbox, when out of nowhere, a cloud of blue dust had descended upon them. Before she could react, she’d felt dizzy and recalled falling to the sand and passing out.

Now that her memory had returned, she managed to open her eyes, though they still felt like they had a pound of that silvery sand in them. Her vision was a tad foggy at first, but when it cleared, she sat up and noticed she was naked. “Where the fuck is my uniform?” she muttered and gazed at her surroundings.

She was alone in an enclosure that resembled a small cave. The walls were some kind of limestone, as was the ground beneath her. In the corner were some very large limestone boulders. She reached up to tap her comm that should have been on her earlobe, but it was gone.

On the opposite side of what looked like a street, she saw similar caves, all in a row, each occupied by an animal or alien. She stood and walked to what looked like the entrance, only to receive a fierce jolt that sent her flying backward to land on her back, knocking the breath out of her.

“A forcefield? What the fuck!” She suddenly realized she was a captive. As were those she’d seen in the caves opposite her.

She scrambled up and now focused on the other enclosures. None of them were occupied by humans. The one directly opposite hers was quite large and housed a huge gold dragon. Several of the caves she could see held a single alien inside. One had a naked, red-skinned woman with strange spikes growing from her elongated head and a long tail. In another was a green man with four arms, scaly skin, and only one eye. In the last cave, she could just make out what looked like a horse but was not because it had arms and legs like a human.

“Juliette! Darren! Peter!” she yelled several times as loud as possible but got no response.

A trumpet blasted from somewhere above her and she saw movement coming down the street. Small groups of alien toddlers, teenagers, and some adults, all dressed in very unusual clothing, were slowly stopping in front of each cave. Their communication sounded like strange clicking, and they gestured with two long thin arms that ended in large four-fingered hands. They had green reptilian skin, huge round yellow eyes, and a row of small horns from their foreheads to the back. From what she could see of their legs, they were also long and thin with very big feet.