Tasha let out her own soft whimper, watching this all with wide eyes, holding her kitten close to her chest.
Sarah slid her hand back – the tendrils retracting with a soft pop . Aiden’s face split with a dreamy little smile. His eyes closed and he knelt down, then leaned his head forward, nuzzling against Sarah’s green thigh. His tongue darted out and licked her through the skintight latex that Sarah wore. Sarah reached down and began to pet her fingers through the transboy’s frizzy hair, rubbing through his scalp. She felt...so... powerful . Her voice was a quiet croon as she whispered. “It’s okay...go to sleep, Aiden...” she murmured. “Let it happen.”
Aiden slumped backwards. By the time he hit the floor, the cocoon was already starting to grow, slipping out from under the jumpsuit, spreading and groaning. The jumpsuit tore, shredded, and slipped aside as the cocoon belled outwards, becoming a sleek, green pustule upon the ground, ringed with a hard rind of brown bone, which anchored it to the floor. Tendrils sank into the metal, thrusting into the ground – pulsating as they quested for the earth beneath the laboratory. Groaning and creaking sounded as metal gave way to them, like the way sidewalks could give way to roots in one of the slurry-cities. Sarah knelt down and slipped her palm along the cocoon.
“I...I am...weirdly turned on,” Tasha whispered.
“Me too,” Sarah said.
“Hah, yeah, we should make out!” Tasha said, her voice holding a faintly hysterical edge. “I mean, just kidding! Hah!”
Sarah shook her head slightly, trying to force her head out of the femdom headspace she had slipped into. But it was so comfy to feel like this. Strong and powerful and in control. She had felt it before, when she had ordered Dr. Bowers to heel. She had made a man roll onto his back like a dog and it had felt good . She closed her eyes and forced herself to hold her breath. Count to three. Remember who she was. She wasn’t some god-queen. She was Sarah Kappel, overworked office drone. She opened her eyes and saw Tasha looking down at the cocoon.
“How long will it take?” She whispered.
“I...I don’t know,” Sarah said. “It took Dr. Bowers two hours. But he became a weird...space...dog thing.” She felt a stab of pain, remembering the sharp crack of the gunshot, the sudden stillness of Dr. Bowers as he lay beside her. She shook her head.
“Well-”
What Tasha had been about to say was drowned out by a squealing alarm that sounded almost as strident and insistent as the depressurization alert or the emergency evacuation signal. Every console in the lab flashed red and white and the PA tried to speak – but it was too heavily damaged. Tasha looked around wildly, while her kitten went sprinting off to hide. Sarah scrambled to one of the computers and leaned forward, tapping furiously at the keyboard to try and get it to give her some information beyond ‘urgent’ and ‘alert.’ But the only other word that cropped up was an indication she should head to Command and Control center.
“Where’s the C&C!?” Sarah yelped.
“Uh, uh, uh!” Tasha closed her eyes. She looked like she was accessing her HUD. She nodded. “There’s a backup C&C in the security bunker.”
“The bunker we can’t enter?” Sarah asked.
“Y-You have superhuman strength,” Tasha said.
Sarah put her hand over her face. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
“Sorry!” Tasha said.
“No! I’m the idiot!” Sarah grabbed onto Tasha’s suit and chucked it at her. “Get it on! I’ll get the door open. And don’t worry about Aiden, he’ll be fine!” She sprinted for the makeshift airlock that they had set up and danced around, waiting for it to cycle. When it did, she stepped out and right into the sex bot.
“Diagnostics complete!” the sex bot said in a sing song.
“Not now!” Sarah shoving her way past the sex bot, which stumbled and almost fell right onto her obscenely perfect bubble butt. Sarah sprinted at near top speed, taking each corner so hard that she slammed into the wall every time, leaving behind a Sarah Kappel sized dent across half the lab. Once she came to the security bunker, she saw that the alerts were going off inside – there was a narrow window on the doorway. Sarah frowned, then looked the door over. It looked heavy as hell. Her brow furrowed. She punched the glass and her fist went through it – it wasn’t glass, since it didn’t shatter into jagged chunks, and it felt a hell of a lot sturdier. Then she groped around until she found the latch and undid it.
Once she stepped into the security bunker, she saw that the C&C station had been stuck into the corner. It had a small command chair and a dozen or so screens. Most of them were showing security camera footage from the perimeter turrets and her stomach clenched as she saw that the large, horse-sized bitey xenos were prowling around at the edge of the turret fence. She filed that into the back of her mind for worrying purposes as she flung herself into her seat and brought up the command interface. She had to press several buttons before it finally gave her some new information.
The information made the xenos outside seem like trifles.
The orbital tachyon com-unit was a three part system. It could send and receive tachyon bursts from Corporate – allowing for faster than light communication. But it could also transmit tachyon waves throughout the systems. The tachyons would interact with gravity waves, giving off emissions that were detectable by the receiver – which were then plotted out, just like an old style radio system. The big advantage of the tachyon pulse system, or TPS, was that it gave you a warning at the same time something happened, not when the light reached you.
That had the downside of violating causality according to general relativity, but Sarah had never passed enough physics courses to understand the unified theory that handled the newer physics.
It also had the downside of letting her know that the StarCon fleet, which had been in orbit around Trappist 1c and 1d had sent one of their ships on a high gravity burn towards Trappist-1a. That meant that, with the NovaDyne scout ship out of the area, StarCon was deciding to, as the security types put it, ‘up their bid.’ NovaDyne could appeal it in the UN, but at the end of the day, what the UN said didn’t matter diddly if StarCon had set up their own extraction service on Trappist-1a.
Sarah hunted and pecked until she brought up the detailed sensor log.
Her blood, already cold, became positively cryogenic.
The StarCon fleet hadn’t dispatched a scout-skiff or even one of their medium frigates.
They had dispatched the Excalibur ™. The StarCon flagship, captained by none other than the most heavily decorated Commander in corporate warfare: Texas Dallas himself. The hero of the African Bloc campaigns. The liberator of Titan. The scourge of Proxima. The Supreme Commander himself.
“What is it?” Tasha asked around a series of gasps and pants. Sarah glanced over and saw that the other woman had arrived, her helmet slightly askew from how quickly she had tossed it on.
“Weeee have company,” Sarah said, turning the screen to show Tasha the image of the long, cruciform ship.
Tasha blinked.
“D-Do you think I’ll get an autograph?” Tasha asked.
Chapter Seven: Sarah Tries Diplomacy
It took about ten minutes of reading manuals and swearing before the tachyon communication satellite finally managed to squirt an FTL bust towards the Excalibur ™. It took five seconds before Texas Dallas’ return link popped up. With a constant stream of tachyons going from point to point, the computer was able to throw up the image of StarCon’s most decorated Commander instantly.
Texas Dallas, as befitted his name, was blond and blue eyed and lantern jawed. He had three raking clawmarks that ran in parallel along the left side of his face, leaving one of those blue eyes grayed out and milky. The claws, after they turned one eye into a ruin, had then tugged his mouth into a perpetual snarl. His hair was buzzed to a short crop, and the marks of his Commander status were clear on his neck and on his temples: The stud jacks for hardened connections into his battle suit and the little implanted half-disk op
tical unit around his intact eye. The camera had just enough space around it to show his high backed command chair and the crisp, corporate military uniform he wore.
He scowled at Sarah.
“Hi!” Sarah said, waving. “I’m Dr. Cappel, uh...NovaDyne research. Hi.”
“You look like an alien freak,” Texas Dallas said, his voice raspy and rough.
Sarah blushed. “I, uh, there have been, um, something-”
“We’ve been informed by NovaDyne that an alien enemy has taken control of their base,” Texas Dallas said.
“No! No! No! No!” Sarah held up her hands and shook her head hurriedly. “I really am Sarah Kappel! I was transformed by an alien-”
“Right,” Texas Dallas growled. He actually pulled up a thick cigar and chomped into it. “And I like wearing panties under this uniform.” He leaned forward. “Save it for the United Nations, alien.”
“I’m not an alien!” Sarah shouted, grabbing onto both sides of the screen so she could shake it. “But there is an alien force that we need to be ready to deal with! They’re what changed me, you-”
“We?” Texas Dallas snorted. “StarCon doesn’t need help dealing with pre-tech alien scum. Now, unless you want to get that top of yours off and give me something nice to think about before I waste your ass-”
Sarah’s eyebrow twitched. “Listen to me, you stupid, stupid man,” she snarled. “I was captured and changed by an entity with a race memory stretching back millions of years . They have who knows how many solar systems under their control and biotech that makes our nanotech look like fucking...fucking...” She groped for some primitive technology. “Like fucking iPhones! Now, if we work together, maybe we can learn more, maybe we can...”
She trailed off.
Texas Dallas was smoking his cigar and leaning back in his seat, watching her with a cool expression – one that made her skin crawl. He tapped ash into an ashtray by his hand and blew out a slow ring of smoke. “I’ve fought aliens on four planets,” Texas Dallas rumbled. His eyes narrowed. “Bugs gave me this.” He pointed at the furrows. “And I’ll tell you this, alien...” He leaned forward. “The only acceptable outcome for this is your complete and total annihilation . ”
Sarah gulped.
“Any questions?” Texas growled.
Sarah hung up.
Tasha stood still and silent beside her.
“So, uh, not getting that autograph, huh?” she whispered. “Are...are we going to die?”
Sarah shook her head. “No. No, we’re not.”
“C-Can’t they just glass us? That’s the term, right?” Tasha asked as Sarah stood.
“But they’re not sending an asteroid tug out to drop a rock on us,” Sarah said. “T-They’re sending a Commander. That means a ground attack. They want to take the base. They want to take...me...” She trailed off. “Who knows what they know, or what they suspect, or...or anything.” She shook her head, then turned to the computer, tapping at it. After another few glances at the manual, with Tasha’s help, they managed to bring up an ETA.
“Four days,” she said. “Then he’ll land.”
“Great. We can hide!” Tasha said.
But Sarah was already thinking. She was thinking a mile a minute, her eyes wide. A Commander wasn’t just a single person with a single starship. They came with general makers and the best technology that a corporation could invent, buy or steal. They had unchained gamma and beta AIs to serve as their on the field troops. A Commander could drop onto an uninhabited planet and, within a few hours, build the industrial capacity to build a 25 th century army. The only way to stop a Commander was to fight your way past their army, past their base, and then take on the Commander proper. And that meant taking on a veteran soldier in the most advanced power armor money could buy, armed with…
Well.
Rumors called it the boom gun .
No one was quite sure what the B-gun could do. Or what it fired.
But all the rumors said it was scary. Like ‘makes hardened veterans of World War 3 blanch’ scary.
Sarah nodded. “I have an idea,” she said.
“Hiding?” Tasha whimpered.
***
The door to the labs opened as Sarah rubbed her palms together. “Okay, first thing we need to do is figure out how to move-”
Aiden’s cocoon exploded in a spray of green glop and bits of fleshy skin.
Tasha, who had just stepped in through the airlock, froze.
Sarah froze.
And Aiden stood, still dripping and slick.
Standing in the ring of hardened bone that was all that was left of his cocoon, Aiden rubbed his hands through his hair. The sound he left out was the kind of orgasmic sigh normally used after the best sex in the universe. His eyes – bright, golden eyes – closed and he grinned as he stretched his body. The first thing that struck Sarah was the lithe perfection of that body. She could count every single ab and pectoral and deltoid and...and she...honestly couldn’t remember the names of some of the other muscle groups. They were dribbling out of her ear alongside her ability to speak English, stand, and breathe. Because Aiden’s skin was now a sleek gray green. His shoulders were armored with a series of overlapping plates that could flex apart, revealing membranes stretching between them, making it look as if he had a frilled coat on. His hair was a collection of smooth spines, thrusting straight back and away from his angular, sharp features. His teeth were razor sharp and when he opened his eyes, the gold that Sarah had seen before resolved into the vertical slit pupils of a goat or an octopus’ eyes.
He was also hung like a horse.
His cock, as exotic as the rest of him, was ridged and knotted and a dark, midnight black. It looked like it had been designed to bump and grind against every single part of Sarah going into her. His balls were lightly scaled and looked firm and large and eminently nuzzleable.
Then, with a languid, creaking noise, a pair of batlike wings fanned out behind him as a pair of horns thrust from tiny slits on his forehead and a foot long black tongue emerged from between his black lips. It curled and flicked at the air as he crooned. “Hey Sarah...”
“...I...I thought you were just giving him HRT...” Tasha whispered.
Sarah let out a little nervous giggle.
Aiden stepped daintily out of the cocoon, his wings folding behind his back. He breathed in, then out, then grinned at her. “This feels so fucking cool,” he whispered. Sarah tentatively reached out. Her finger slowly brushed along one of his horns. Aiden’s teeth bared in a wry smile – and then his eyes closed as Sarah rubbed her fingers up and down the horn. It felt so hard, and so warm. Aiden hooked one of his fangs over his lower lip and closed his eyes even tigther. “S-Sarah!” He hissed as she gripped his horn firmly, tugging him just a bit closer.
“Mistress,” Sarah crooned.
That was not what she had meant to say. She had meant to say ‘oh my god, I’m so sorry’ or ‘what the hell did I do to you’ or ‘are you okay?’
“Mistresssssss,” Aiden hissed. His tongue thrust out and flicked against her throat, tasting her. His hand reached up to grip her hip. She tightened her grip on his horn, then leaned in close. Her mouth opened. Closed. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to bite him. The rest of the world, the rest of the situation was fading rapidly as she smelled his scent. He was warm and so very male . Sarah jerked him forward by her grip on his horn and his mouth and hers met. His tongue thrust down her throat in a single, questing push . Sarah’s toes clenched against the floor, bending it with a squeal of stressed metal. His tongue began to thrust inside of her as his hands reached back, trying to find the zipper on her suit.
He gave up on that and just hooked a claw under the collar and tore. The fabric split and her skin dimpled against his claw as she slid her hands along his back, rubbing the join of bat wing and shoulder blades. His wings furled and closed around them both, hooking and trapping her in a leathery cocoon that smelled and tasted of him. Every breath she took was warmed
by his body, was scented by his eagerness, even as the tatters of her outfit hit the floor and she was naked and she was wet .
His mouth drew back. His tongue retracted a moment later. Those golden eyes met hers.
“I want you, Aiden,” she crooned.
“I need you, mistress,” he murmured back.
“Mmm...” Sarah’s lips split into a wicked smirk. “Do you now?”
“More than oxygen...” Aiden leaned forward, kissing her neck tenderly. His fangs and his sharp, sharp teeth teased her skin. His tongue darted against her pulse point, licking her gently, nuzzling her afterwards. His free hand cupped the back of her head, stroking his way through the tiny spines of her hair. Sarah smiled, then murmured.
“Do you like the changes your mistress bequeathed you?” she purred.
“Goddess, yesssss...” He kissed the tip of one of her breasts. The contact made her back arch and her mouth open in a wanton, eager moan. She leaned into his wings, nuzzling the membrane. She licked him as he suckled to her breast as tenderly, as eagerly as a newborn. Her knees quivered and her breath caught as his other hand darted down to cup her ass, holding her firmly as he started to add the pressure of his teeth to her nipple, coaxing a fiercer croon from her. She let herself relax into his grip as he sucked on the other nipple, leaving both of her breasts glistening – his tongue swirling about them, caressing and licking every inch of them. She gleamed with his attention.
Her thighs were soaked.
“Do you want to fuck your mistress?” Sarah whispered, huskily.
He nodded, unable to even form words.
Sarah reached up, her arm moving between the two of them. She caught his chin, tilting his head back. She looked down into his eyes – black peering into gold. She stood taller than him because he was bent forward – but she felt taller than him because she was his mistress. His goddess. His queen . Part of it felt so natural, so pure. But at the very back of her mind, a teeny tiny voice was screaming. Screaming in terror . Terror at what she had done. What she was becoming. What she could become. Her fingers paused in their stroking. Her thumb grew gentle.
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