Their Human Vessel

by Lizzy Bequin

  The trio rushed toward the door, and Grekh deposited Corrie in front of the security device.

  This was the moment of truth.

  Corrie was wearing the contact lenses again. They had worked the first time, but a lot had happened since then. For one thing, her eyes were now glowing green beneath the artificial irises. For another, these contacts had been riding around in Vorne’s primitive leather pouch for several days. Maybe they had gotten scratched.

  There was only one way to find out. Corrie took a deep breath and lowered her face to the eyepiece of the scanner.

  A pulse of light, just as before.

  “Stage one identification complete. Please provide fingerprint identification.”

  Corrie let out an exhale of relief.

  One down; two to go.

  Just like last time, the panel slid back, revealing once more the glossy surface of the hand-scanner. Corrie fitted her hand to the outline that was drawn there.

  A ripple of blue light. A cheerful beep.

  “Thank you. Stage two complete. Please read the following alpha-numeric code aloud to finish your verification.”

  Corrie took the vocoder device out of the pouch sewn to the hip of her leather loincloth. She was sweating now—sweating so hard, in fact, that she thought she could probably have heard it coming out of her pores if it weren’t for that blaring alarm.

  She swiped the moisture from her throat, pressed the adhesive side of the vocoder into position, and slowly read off the alpha-numerical code in Waylon Burgess’s deep drawl.

  For a moment there was nothing but the painful, repetitive squawk of the siren.

  Finally, the synthesized voice of the door’s security system spoke again.

  “Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Access granted. Please proceed.”

  There wasn’t even time enough to feel relieved. As soon as the mechanical blast door yawned open, Grekh or Vorne, Corrie wasn’t even sure which, had whisked her off her feet and into the cramped antechamber.

  The door clanked shut behind them, muting for a moment, the sounds of the alarms. Then the second door in front of them opened onto the massive, warehouse-like space of the seed-farm. Flashing lights cast a red glow on the seemingly endless rows of cylinders. A few white-coated technicians were running about like headless chickens, until they spotted the aliens. Once they saw them, they wasted no time fleeing.

  Vorne, Grekh, and Corrie rushed forward.

  Immediately, Vorne worked the end of his blade into the door of the first cylinder they came to and began trying to lever it open with brute strength.

  Corrie reached down and pulled the hand switch, and the door started to hiss open.

  “It’s a little easier that way,” Corrie said with a wink. “See, aren’t you glad you brought me along now?”

  The door of the cylinder opened fully, and a dark-blue-skinned, green-eyed alien stumbled out with a perplexed look on his face, like he had just woken up from a dream. Vorne took him by the shoulders.

  “Brother, we are here to rescue you.” He pointed to the switch on the cylinder, then pointed to the other cylinders. “Hurry, help us free the others and spread the word.”

  With surprising speed, the nameless alien’s expression transitioned from confusion to understanding. A cruel grin split his face, and he strode into the next row to start opening other containment cylinders.

  Vorne’s eyes glowed with green power.

  He nodded now to Grekh and Corrie.

  “Let’s keep going,” he growled. “Free as many as you can and tell them to free the others. I’ll take this row, you two do that row.”

  They set to work opening the cylinders one by one, giving instructions to each new alien they freed. Within a minute, the facility was already swarming with Terramaran males. Crashes erupted throughout the massive space as they started trashing the machinery.

  The freed males were surprised to see Corrie, and in many cases, their green eyes blazed with lust. But Grekh was there with Corrie, and whenever this happened he positioned himself in front of her protectively and informed the aliens that Corrie was with him.

  She hadn’t even considered this factor, but to her surprise, the newly freed aliens seemed to accept Grekh’s claim.

  By now hundreds of Terramarans were loose, and they were freeing each other at an exponential rate. Their roars and snarls of liberation drowned out the blaring alarms.

  “Come with me,” Vorne’s voice spoke straight into Corrie’s ear so she could hear him over the cacophony.

  But he didn’t wait for her to come with him. It wasn’t so much a request as a command. One of his powerful arms snaked around her waist while the other gripped the top of one of the cylinders. He pulled them both atop the cylinder so that they were overlooking the chaotic scene surrounding them.

  Vorne threw back his head and let loose a bellow that seemed to shake the earth.

  Amid a sea of dark blue, a thousand glowing green eyes all turned in their direction. At first, they were looking at Vorne, but almost immediately, they focused on Corrie instead. Thousands of eyes that had not seen a female in a very long time.

  “Listen to me, brothers,” Vorne called out in a booming voice that easily overpowered the sound of the machines. “I am Vorne, of the city of Ashlar, and I have come to set you free.”

  The aliens were listening, but their eyes were focused on Corrie and glowing with lustful looks.

  Vorne snarled fiercely, and the terrifying sound snapped the others out of their trance.

  “Let’s get one thing straight. This female is mine. Mine! She belongs to me. She will bear my children.”

  The aliens seemed to accept this, though Corrie sensed disappointment.

  “However, many among you are still young. You will be mated to our daughters, and they will bear you children of your own. In this manner we will rebuild our world and our species.”

  That disappointment was already changing to hope.

  “Free your brothers. Leave no one behind. And spread this news. You are all welcome in the canyon city of Ashlar. That is where we will build our army to take this planet back.”

  There wasn’t much time now. Soon the guards would be arriving, and Corrie sensed that Vorne wanted to wrap up his speech as quickly as possible before that happened. He concluded in a roaring voice, squeezing his protective arm around Corrie’s waist.

  “A new day is dawning, brothers. Terramara has a future once again.”

  Thousands of fists punched the air, and the crowd of escaped prisoners cheered so loud it really did feel like an earthquake. The moment of celebration, however, was short-lived as the aliens set to work freeing the remaining prisoners and spreading the good news.

  Vorne lowered Corrie from the top of the cylinder into Grekh’s waiting arms below, then he lept down as well.

  “Let’s go,” he growled. “Our work here is done. It’s time to go.”

  “But the other prisoners,” Corrie said.

  “They will free each other,” Grekh said. “They know what to do now and where to go. The most important thing now is to get you out of here. If any harm comes to you, little one, then everything will be lost.”

  His face seemed almost pained as he spoke that last part, as if merely considering the possibility of Corrie being injured or killed was enough to cause him physical agony.

  With that, they set off toward the main door. Grekh was in the lead, holding onto Corrie’s wrist and pulling her along behind him. Vorne was in the rear, protecting Corrie from behind.

  Briefly, she wondered what had become of Xalleus and whether he was okay. God, she hoped he was. If he had been killed, she would never forgive herself.

  All around them, the farming room was a swirl of dark blue aliens with glowing green eyes. Many of the plastic tubes and hoses for siphoning away their seed had ruptured, and gallons of the priceless alien semen was spilling onto the floor and disappearing into the drains. The air was thick with the scent of salt tinged with c
hlorine.

  The double entrance of the farming room was now yawning open. Some of the aliens had opened the blast doors from inside and jammed them open with pieces of machinery so that the doors could not shut.

  The trio rushed out of the ruined entrance of the massive farming room, heading back the way they had come.

  As she and Grekh burst into the lobby, Corrie gasped in fear.

  Rushing toward them down another corridor was a cadre of guards dressed in black combat uniforms and armed with heavy rifles. And there at the front of the group was the man himself—Waylon Burgess, his trademark cowboy hat on his head, and his big belly flopping over the top of his too-tight jeans. In his hand he was carrying a nickel-plated Colt revolver in a large caliber.

  When he saw the trio of aliens fleeing the facility, a whole spectrum of emotions washed over his face in rapid succession, and Corrie could practically read his thoughts.

  First there was fear at coming face-to-face with the escaped aliens. This was followed by shock at seeing a female. And finally his expression transitioned into recognition, as he realized that the blue-skinned, green-eyed female standing before him was Corrie.

  “You,” was all he said, his voice raspy with hate.

  He leveled his weapon, and Corrie found herself staring straight down the barrel.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” Burgess snarled. “Let’s fix that.”

  What occurred next was too fast to even register. It was only after the fact that Corrie was able to put the pieces together.

  There were two simultaneous flashes. The first one came from Burgess’s pistol. The other came from Vorne’s sword, which swept in front of her face in a smooth arc of steel. The alien warrior had timed the stroke perfectly, and the bullet was deflected straight back into Burgess, hitting him right in the gut.

  “Fuck,” the plant manager choked between gritted teeth.

  The pistol fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. He clutched his belly and looked down in disbelief as a vibrant red stain blossomed across his white shirt.

  “Open fire!” the leader of the guards shouted.

  They moved their guns into position, and Corrie cringed. There would be no way that Vorne could block all of their shots like that.

  Before the men could shoot, however, a curdling roar blasted through the lobby. It had not come from Vorne or Grekh. It had come from behind the guards. Some of them spun to face this new threat, but it was too late. Already, their bodies were being flung left and right amid the sounds of crunching bones and panicked bursts of gunfire that didn’t hit anything.

  And there in the very heart of the chaos was Xalleus, his face creased with rage and eyes glowing furiously.

  He killed the entire cadre of men in a matter of seconds. Burgess, still standing there staring dumbfounded at his gunshot wound, was the last to go. Xalleus slammed into the cowboy with his one unbroken horn, goring Burgess and flinging him like a rag doll backward over his head.

  Xalleus glanced around, snarling to make sure no enemies were left, then he charged forward to join the others.

  Together they escaped into the night.

  Behind them there was the sound of an entire army being unleashed as the other aliens began flooding out of the farming area to wreak havoc throughout the rest of the facility.

  CHAPTER 26

  Corrie stood at the very edge of the pale green glow given off by the thin stream of lava and stared off into the darkness as the desert wind ghosted over her arms and legs and bare midriff. They had already traveled so far in the night that the Juvanis facility was now out of sight beyond the horizon, but she could see the orange flicker of flames lighting the underside of the low-hanging clouds.

  “Don’t stray too far, Corrie,” Vorne whispered.

  It never ceased to amaze her how quiet the massive alien could be when he chose to.

  Vorne had crept up on her as stealthily as a cat, and now he slid his strong arms around her bare belly. She leaned back into his embrace, feeling safe and protected. In the background, Grekh and Xalleus were talking softly as they cleaned up the remnants of their dinner, some strange lobster-like creatures that they had caught and roasted over the lava. Corrie wondered at all the things she still had to learn about her new homeworld.

  In the far distance there came the sounds of whoops and howls. Corrie realized these were freed Terramarans, already heading toward Ashlar.

  “We did it, Vorne,” she said. “We set them all free.”

  The alien nuzzled the top of her head and snuffled her hair.

  “Yes. But tonight is only the beginning, Corrie. War is coming to Terramara. There are still many other facilities on this planet, but with each that we liberate, our army will grow. And you, my little female, are the key to everything.”

  For some reason, Corrie didn’t mind being called Vorne’s little female just this once. This time when he spoke those words, there was a shadow of tenderness lying beneath his usually deep, brutal voice.

  But something made Corrie shudder in Vorne’s arms.

  “Are you all right, little one?” he asked.

  Corrie sighed. “It’s just weird,” she said, “I’m not sure I like being ‘the key to everything’ as you put it.”

  Vorne hugged her a little tighter.

  “But it is you who will give birth to the next generation of Terramarans. And this will give the other males hope. It will give them a reason to fight. Our planet and our species has a future now because of you.”

  His big hand smoothed over Corrie’s bare belly, and she couldn’t help wondering if that next generation had already started growing in her womb. God knew that Vorne and the others had done their part to make that happen.

  Still, Corrie felt strange. Back on Earth, she had been obsessed with fame and accolades. However, that was totally different. She now saw that none of that represented real importance. Not like this. Now, as the mother of a new world, she was going to take on a level of responsibility that she wasn’t even sure she could handle.

  But she would try. For the sake of Terramara she would try.

  Corrie, however, couldn’t quite find the words to express this to Vorne. So instead she asked another question that had been nibbling at the back of her mind.

  “Vorne, how will it all work? I mean, I’m only one female.”

  “Yes, but many of the males that we released tonight are still young for Terramarans. Some are only a hundred cycles old. They still have centuries of breeding left in them. The best and noblest of them will become the mates of our daughters.”

  It felt a little funny to be talking about her yet unborn babies that way. But Corrie guessed it made sense. Obviously she would have daughters, and she would want them to be happy. Part of that would involve taking on strong and handsome mates just as she had done.

  However, that still didn’t really answer her question.

  “But I mean, they’ll all be from one bloodline, Vorne. Our bloodline. That means all of the next generation will technically be cousins.”

  She stopped there, hoping Vorne would understand the implication, so she didn’t have to spell it out. She assumed that on Terramara, as on Earth, that sort of thing was taboo.

  “Yes,” Vorne answered. “I have thought of this too. I do not have an answer. All I can say is that the Listener predicted that Terramara will be repopulated because of you. She has been right about everything else, so I must assume she will be right about this too.”

  Corrie shrugged. She would have to do the same, for now at least. Only time would tell.

  “Come, Corrie,” Vorne said, leading her back toward where they were camping for the evening. “It has been a long day, and we should rest for a few hours before dawn arrives.”

  They had set up camp alongside a narrow river of green lava. Their two drashegar chariots were parked nearby, and the drashegars themselves were munching happily on some plants and fungi that Grekh had gathered for them. Xalleus was resting, lean
ing back against a boulder, his green eyes narrowed to slits. With his abs crunched and his muscular legs outstretched, he looked incredibly sexy.

  “I don’t want to rest,” Corrie said defiantly. “I’m not tired.”

  She knew she was being bratty. In fact, she was doing it on purpose. But she was also telling the truth. Even though she felt calm now, her brain was still humming from the earlier excitement and danger.

  There was no way she would be able to sleep.

  Xalleus grinned at her, his white fangs shining in the dark.

  “Feeling a bit defiant, are we?” he growled.

  “Maybe I am,” Corrie half-whispered. She walked toward the reclining alien slowly, swinging her hips seductively with each step. She pulled her top over her head and tossed it aside, enjoying the warm air on her naked breasts. She unfastened her loincloth and let that drop too. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Something flashed in Xalleus’s eyes. Something hot and green and cruel.

  “Careful, little mate. Don’t taunt me.”

  Corrie was straddling his legs now. She reached out one hand and touched his horn, the unbroken one, wrapping her fingers around its ribbed hardness.

  “Or else what?” she whispered. “Are you going to gore me?”

  She started to stroke Xalleus’s horn. A guttural sound of enjoyment rumbled up from deep inside his chest. His hands moved to his loincloth, unfastening the black leather and freeing his rapidly engorging cock. Within seconds, his member was as hard as the horn that Corrie was stroking.

  “So hard,” Corrie sighed. She brushed her thumb over the pointed tip of his horn. “So sharp.”

  She walked forward until the length of that bony horn was pressed against the joining of her thighs. She swiveled her hips, grinding her sex against it, softly at first, then harder. Below her, Xalleus was growling with pleasure as he gripped his stiff cock and started to jerk.

  “So fucking hard,” Corrie whimpered.

  She was sliding her groove up and down along the length of his horn now, letting the hard ribs and ridges stimulate her. Her clitoris was erect and throbbing. Ever so carefully, she stroked it against his point.