“Fine? The woman was tortured!”
“Keep your damn voice down! Yes. To set an example. You don’t see these women rushing to deny Una’s rule now, do you?”
Ash looked at the great hall. They were all in Frostip 1, in the place where important events used to take place back in his day. An amphitheater, now filled with a thousand women. A thousand Eves, to be precise.
They were all what was left of the colonists. One thousand women in good health and in fertile age.
“What are we doing here?” Ash asked.
“We are attending the Renewal ceremony. It’s mandatory, except for some essential personnel. We do this every 28 days. We renew Luna’s Blessing.”
“What? But that’s not how it works...”
“Yeah, I know. My mom told me in secret. Sue, of course. Not Ivy,” Dot snorted. “The Blessing comes from Luna and doesn’t need a ritual or anything to get renewed,” Dot said very quietly, looking around nervously. “But Una makes a show out of it, keeps ladies in check.”
Una stepped into the stage and the crowd roared. Ash grunted. She wasn’t that fearsome. She looked like a tired housewife. Short, average build. She looked like someone’s aunt. The similarities ended there. She wore armor made of scary looking material, pointy and angry. Half her head was shaved. She was sneering, and walked in like Admiral used to do back in the day. Like she owned the place.
“Eves!” she announced and the crowd quieted. “We are here to renew Luna’s Blessing, for we are her favorites. We are special.”
Una walked next to the Asian woman and the tall black lady that was holding her pushed her on her knees. Una pulled her sword and held it triumphantly over her as the Eves cheered.
Ash tensed. Dot put a hand on his chest. “Don’t do anything stupid. I told you, it’s all for show.”
Una whispered into the Asian’s ear, and the poor woman sobbed. She sliced the Asian’s earlobe and blood dripped down on her neck, at the top of her chest and down on her breasts. The tall black woman held her in place by her neck.
The Eves were shuffling in their places, shoulders tensed, ready to move.
Una touched the tip of the Asian’s breast and brought the bloodied finger to her mouth. She licked it. “From the most frail Eve, we take the blood and accept the Blessing. Luna favors me!” she roared, and opened her arms, staring at the ceiling. Two of her lieutenants flanked her, swords drawn. Una gripped her fists and yelled, “Luna!” as the two lieutenants struck her in the torso from both sides. Ash was certain they were going to cut her in half. A momentary flash, a twinkle of colored light and the swords were deflected.
Una was unharmed.
“Eves, pledge your loyalty to me and receive the Blessing,” she announced, as the room erupted with energy. The Eves ran to the stage like animals, trying to lick off the blood first.
Ash was staring at the black woman, the one holding down the Asian as the Eves came as a mob. She was tall and muscular, trained hard and looked like she could wield that sword with precision. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Una’s second, Tam. People say she’s going to take over when Una is too old for the Blessing,” Dot explained with a hint of admiration in her voice.
The Eves were frenetic. A few hundred of them were fighting each other, pushing them away, trying to be the first to get to the blessing. Most of the Eves waited in their seats. In the front, it was a real moshpit for a few minutes. Una was standing there, casually watching the crowd. But Ash had a feeling that she and her lieutenants were keeping tabs on which women were in which group, eager or not.
The first wave of over-eager ones was sufficiently blessed, and then the other women made an orderly line and waited.
“That’s my mom over there, Sue,” Dot said and pointed at a brunette.
“She’s pretty, like you,” Ash said.
“She’s not my bio mom. She’s the fertility doctor. And that next to her is my other mom, Ivy. And she’s a slut.”
“Hey! Don’t say that about your mother, it’s not right,” Ash protested. Did he catch a glimpse of a smile in Dot’s face?
“No, she really is a slut. If there were any men left, she would have slept with most of them.” Dot brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh Luna, she mustn’t see you. She’ll be all over you in an instant.”
Ash pffted. “Come on, you are exaggerating.”
“I’m not. Come on, we need to get in line. It’s not smart to wait at the end, let’s go in the large group.
So Ash waited in line. Once, Una’s gaze met his for a second and his heart skipped a beat. Was he about to be discovered? What would these crazed women do to him if they found out he was a man? Nothing good, that was certain.
Fortunately, Una didn’t notice him in the crowd. When his turn came, he touched the Asian woman’s bloodied breast with the tip of his finger, and tasted her blood, receiving the Blessing.
Tam settled a few minor matters and went straight to Una’s chambers. She knew the Renewal ceremonies were making her leader horny, and she didn’t want her to call for any of the other lieutenants that might be around.
She walked in, bowing in respect. She sighed loudly and took off her armor, throwing herself into the couch.
She noticed Una by the drink cart, glass of whiskey in hand, checking her out.
In reality, what Tam wanted was to burst in and start kissing Una, stripping her down right where she stood. But it was nice to play the seduction game now and again. Show some skin, some vulnerability. Pretend to be tired, to not want any physical action.
Tam spread herself over the animal hide. It was fake of course, printed with precision from the matter printers. As leader, Una had no restrictions over which luxury items she could get. And as items went, this was really useless. An animal pelt? Tam didn’t like it at all. Una had turned her quarters into a tribal leader’s den, all leather and bone and earth tones. Tam’s tastes were very different in that area. She was more... Art deco.
Tam pulled off her boots as her mind raced. Una sat next to her, and Tam instantly dropped the tired act and pulled her leader’s boots off. “You know, one day these swords are not going to get deflected by the fields,” Tam said as she ran her fingers down Una’s legs.
“Do you wish for that day, my Second?”
“Never, Una! I’m worried about you,” she said, massaging Una’s feet.
“I know,” Una said leaning her head back and enjoying the care. “One day, I won’t be worthy of Luna’s Blessing. That day, it will be best for me to be struck down quick.”
“You can live out your life normally. As a consultant, to the next leader whom you choose,” Tam said.
“Yes. I need to choose one, mustn’t I? It’s only a few more months, maybe a year for me,” Una said and looked Tam in the eye.
She must not waver now. She had made her request, even if it was subtle. Una wasn’t stupid. She knew what Tam wanted all along. Tam gulped and kept on massaging her leader’s legs, leaning her body forward and brushing her shirt on her.
Una grabbed Tam by the neck and pushed her face down between her legs. Tam unbuttoned her leader’s pants and pulled them off, throwing them on the floor. She sank her mouth into Una’s lower lips and gave her pleasure.
Tam thought how conflicted her feelings were for Una. On one hand, she admired her for taking control of the fleet, and for this world they lived in. Tam was just a teenager when the Eves happened, so now her life was pretty much defined by Una. On the other hand, she wanted to grab her sword and gut her like a fish. She was in the way. And she couldn’t take the leadership forcefully, because people still favored her. She was beginning to lose some of that favor as she got older, but was still too much. Oh, how she wanted to just drive her sword into that cunt all the way up the throat.
But for now, she drank Una’s cum and enjoyed it.
Una took her by the arm and into her bedchamber. She put on the spiked strap on, and came on top of her. She bit her earlobes and
sucked on them tenderly, sending waves of pleasure in Tam’s body.
She thrust hard inside her, protective fields activating inside her vagina, shielding her sensitive flesh and making it tingle. Una had to be rough, or else she would tear her up from the inside. She couldn’t be tender. The kind way to fuck like that, was to fuck hard. Stop for a moment, and the fields dropped, the spikes dug into flesh. Tam screamed and moaned with pleasure. The feeling was like getting fucked by a thunderstorm.
The sex was thrilling and dangerous. In their world, being fertile meant being blessed. Risking an injury like that in their reproductive organs meant more than just pain, it meant risking their ability to bear children. Girls, of course, fertilized in vitro. And a woman who lost her childbearing ability, lost the Blessing instantly.
In one of her drunken orgasmic meetings with Una, Tam had asked to be fucked in all fours. But Una said no, because she couldn’t maintain control and take the spiked strap on out of her quickly. Missionary was the only way, and Tam looked into her leader’s eyes and loved her even more for taking that extra care among all the sadistic sex.
Tam knew that Una liked to fuck all her lieutenants like that. It demanded trust from them, on a level that nobody could explain to someone not experiencing the same thing. It was both a vice and clever leadership of her, to make her lieutenants have such deep feelings of trust for her.
It was also extremely wasteful. Every time a field activated, it expended one millionth of the total energy supply in the Frostip fleet. At first, that sounded a little to Tam, but then someone explained to her that it was from the total energy reserves, and the fleet still had 160 years to travel. Every blow, every strike deflected from one of the Eves was wasting their own limited energy.
That made the fuck all the more thrilling.
Chapter 27: Gen 7
“Go away, vagina-human!” Knox said behind closed airlock doors.
Dot rapped on the door and pressed the comm button ten times. “Let us in, I say. Drone! Open the door now.”
“Uh... Uh... I can’t do that Eve. Haven’t you read my report? It’s online, look it up. There’s radiation, you’ll get cancer and die. And it causes saggy tits! And... Ugh... I can’t allow you to harm yourself, first law of robotics and all that.”
“I read your report, drone. I think you are full of shit.”
“Technically, you meatbag, you are the one who’s full of shit. When was the last time you evacuated your bowels, hmm?”
Ash was standing next to Dot, hiding his face with the hood and keeping quiet.
“Listen to me you stupid drone, whatever your name is...”
“Knox, the name’s Knox. Nice and manly.”
“Knox. From obnoxious, right, easy to remember that way!”
“Well, no-”
“Open the damn door!” Dot screamed.
The airlock door hissed and swung ten centimeters wide. A drone appeared behind it, small, like a little floating spaceman with no feet. “Take your PMSing elsewhere, you damn cum-bucket, I’m telling you this whole area is irradi-”
Dot pulled a hammer from the emergency cabinet and threw it, stricking the drone on it’s head.
“Ow!”
“There’s plenty more stuff to throw in here,” she said, an insane glint in her eyes.
“No means no, isn’t that what you whiny slits like to say?”
The airlock door sealed back shut.
Ash stepped forward. “Hey, drone Knox, please let us in.”
Silence.
The airlock door hissed again and opened, all the way. The drone floated in the middle, looking at them. It had a dent on its white plastic head.
“What is this? Fundamental voice frequency of average 164 Hz? A glorious, deep, resounding male voice?”
“Yes, I’m a man. Male here,” Ash resigned and pulled back his hood.
“What a glorious day! Come on in,” Knox said and floated to the side giving space for him to pass. “A fine day indeed. I told my petunias I had a good feeling today, but this? More than I expected.”
Ash stepped inside the ship, “Thank you.”
Dot followed him and Knox bumped her back. “Where do you think you’re going, woman? The men are hanging out. If we ever need you, you’re the first booty call on our list.”
Dot whacked Knox so hard he spun three times, and she followed Ash into Frostip 4.
Chapter 28: Gen 7
Dot and Ash stood in the middle of a splendid hydroponics garden. The looked around awed. “So everything works?” Ash asked.
“Of course everything’s fully operational! What do you think we drones do around here, fool around like humans? Rad levels are minimal, and I’ve locked down most of the areas that are still irradiated,” Knox said proudly, touching his flowers with his tiny white arms.
“That is amazing, Knox!” Ash said, mouth open.
“This? Pfft. It’s nothing a man like me and you can’t handle, right?” Knox said and fist bumped Ash with his tiny fist.
Ash shook his head. “Wha-? Hold on, why do you consider yourself male?”
“Because I am!” Knox said and rose higher. “What else would I be, a lowly second-rate individual like her?”
“But... But it makes no sense.”
“Why are you such a fucking chauvinist, is the best question really,” Dot asked, hands on hips. “Dickless Noxy,” she taunted.
“I’m not chauvinist, you’re the one who’s only fit to run a kitchen, you-”
Dot picked up a rock and threw it at Knox.
“Ow!”
“Can we please calm down?” Ash said standing between them. “Please Knox, don’t talk to her like that. Now, we need to get Scout Luna back up and running again, is there a Scout bay on Frostip 5?”
“Of course there is! We have redundancies about everything. Follow me if you please, my man Ash and his stray cat,” Knox said proudly and floated towards their goal.
They rummaged through the gear and Ash described the damage the Scout had sustained. Knox made a guess and began gathering the spare parts he’d need to repair her.
“I don’t get it, the old Luna would know a Scout had landed instantly. And thus, all drones would be notified too, so that repairs would start immediately,” Ash said carrying crates on a pile.
“That was the old Luna. Yeah, good old days. No, Luna is depressed now,” Knox said ferrying gear.
“Depressed? Is that even possible?”
Knox grunted. “It’s not the right word, but it’s the best human equivalent I can think of. Luna doesn’t speak to everyone now. She only speaks to a handful of Eves, who are responsible for running the place. They are all Una’s women of course. Crazy bitches. Killed my mate,” he said and went silent, carrying gear.
“I’m sorry Knox. So, they might not know that I’ve landed?”
“Luna knows for certain. The Eves in charge might not, if it’s not important. Sooner or later they’ll notice, but we might be able to pass it off as an automated recovery of the ship. You know, we’ll write a report saying you were whisked off into space, the AI was fried, and the automated recovery brought back an empty coffin.”
“That,” Ash said solemnly, “Is very close to what happened in reality.”
“The way to lie is to build and extrapolate on facts. Cheer up mate, you’re not dead yet.”
“Wait a minute,” Dot said from her cozy little spot where she supervised the operation, sucking on a fruit. “I thought drones couldn’t lie.”
“That’s because you suck at robotics. We can lie if it’s for humanity’s best interest,” Knox replied.
“And lying about Frostip 5 does that, how precisely?” Dot said.
“Oh, that was simply because I hate women. And after the Eves, well, there were no more mates like my man Ash here to hang around with, were there? So I applied for a transfer here, where no woman steps foot. Until today,” he sighed from a recording.
“How is that in humanity’s best inte
rest, keeping a whole ship to yourself?” Ash asked.
“They don’t need it now, do they? The population is too low, barely over a thousand. I promise, if those wretched vagina-humans needed even a single screw from aboard Frostip 5, I would have dropped the charade and pulled the bay doors wide open!”
Dot sat up. “That... Is actually honorable of you, Knox.”
“Of course, I’d have lied about malfunctioning Geiger counters and whatnot. I’d never admit I lied to keep the filthies away. It’s not like those stupid females would know better, anyhow.”
A half-eaten fruit and its central seed sploshed on Knox’s face.
Chapter 29: Gen 6
May woke up and looked around, disgusted to see she was still alive. She was sleeping in some old maintenance area where the life-support system hummed loudly. The white noise was the only thing that could let her sleep anymore.
She propped herself up woozily, pulled out her knife and tried to slash her wrist.
It met resistance. A field of light and color appeared and stopped the blade mere millimeters from her skin, making it clink as if it struck marble.
May grunted with frustration. Oh well, that was enough for her daily suicide attempt. She pulled the rags closer to her, it was cold and she hadn’t slept well. There was a stench, but it had long stopped bothering her.
She looked at her nails. They were broken and filthy. She started cleaning the dirt under her nails with the tip of her knife. When she got to her middle finger, the knife slipped and cut into her skin.
“Ow!” May said sucking on it. “So we can’t cut own own veins but we can still prick ourselves accidentally? Some blessing you got there, Luna,” she said to the heavens and gave her a bloody finger.
May stretched. She was awake now. She rose, pulling her rags along, and a pack of guinea pigs bolted away from her and found refuge elsewhere. She had liberated them from an abandoned lab, and they were happily munching cables and littering the place to the bane of the remaining service drones.
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