by Marcus Sloss
Jarod had been ruthless. He knew what he needed: rare elements, not steel, and not gold. He pilfered high-end electronics. Jane had further emphasized female slaves. The females sold for far more than did Human males. He had already converted Merideth into a most wonderful play toy. She was a keeper, destined forever to serve Jarod’s every whim.
Wherever Jarod and his pirate crew had raided these past five days, they’d come across numerous rich entitled families, who clung to a pre-apocalyptic society, with their dogs, security cameras, and personal guards. They hid in their mansions, living on their overstocked supplies, infinite solar power, and water desalination units. Their comfort was their downfall, and Jarod’s gain.
A dog or guard could easily be removed from the equation with a siren’s sweet lullaby. An alarm would eventually trigger, however, and nine out of ten times the family surrendered to his demands. Jarod had been shot at a few times, but his alien shield easily deflected the bullets. Victory was always swift, the looting extremely profitable. The large yacht he strapped to The Pearly Dream in Hawaii became a makeshift prison for the souls of the fortunate. They would all be sold to serve the will of the gods.
His collection point for those who would receive salvation had blossomed. Today’s trip to the docks was his seventh voyage there. The first six trips had been to steal additional boats to add to his floating city. When the Pearly Dream flew back to his little armada, Jarod smiled at the sight.
His girls had lashed thirty ships together to create a floating island of sorts. Two of his sirens guarded the hundred plus prisoners who huddled among the decks. A constant song pealed from the sirens’ lips to placate the mass of prisoners; the sweet melody converting the Humans into willing servants.
A mile north of his aquatic base, an Xgate drifted slowly over these waters. Two miles northeast of the Xgate sat a prime target that Jarod had patiently waited to hit, until they dropped their guard. A cruise ship had learned the golden portal was a trading beacon, and had sailed close in anticipation of the next market.
The Sleipnir of Norse Cruise Lines, Inc., was a cruise ship built for thousands. They had been broadcasting for survivors to bring their electronics to trade for food ever since Jarod and his crew had arrived. Of course, his sirens had intercepted every ship that had sailed for the Sleipnir, and added them to Jarod’s base. Humanity lacked the weapons necessary to crack the shielding of Jarod and his team.
Now he waited. Snagging Mason from the docks was more a symbolic victory, than a necessity. After the purchases he would make at this next golden portal, he was coming for San Francisco.
∞∞∞
Meredith slurped on Rossco’s cock while Jarod watched. Meredith had become the perfect little sex toy. The virum transformed her body from that of an out of shape mom with stretch marks, cellulite, and flabby thighs to a pert and perky twenty-year-old. Meredith was now blemish-free, vibrant in her youth, and always eager to please. For the first week, she had continued to call every male she gleefully pleasured Henry. Her desperate attempts to cling first to the past, and then to sanity, failed her.
Eventually, they trained her to call him by the right name. Meredith shifted her hips from side to side to tease Jarod. A slick finger beckoned him forward, glided over her slit, and twirled over her pearl. Her glistening wet, plump lips were open, begging for Jarod to claim them. As he watched from the head of the bed, Jane rubbed her breasts against his side; she toyed with her own pussy while stroking Jarod’s cock. She enjoyed the show as much as he did.
He enjoyed the tease. Meredith was a pleasure tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Even though he had converted her into a willing succubus, of sorts, he had no regrets. He routinely filled her womb with his seed. All his servants carried his children now. Except for Rossco, of course. But even the wolfman’s loyalty was handsomely rewarded. Jarod normally forced his release into slaves waiting for the next market or for conversion into servitude. Often it was Rossco, Jane, and his conquest that he filled. Every once in a while, he allowed the wolfman into his chambers.
Rossco was panting as Meredith gripped his girth tightly with her lips, increasing the tempo of her blowjob. That beckoning finger and slick, tiny pussy were begging for Jarod’s stiff cock, to the point he couldn’t resist the urge to fill it. Jane joined him, reaching around Jarod with her firm tits pressed against his back. He slid behind Meredith and plunged deep into her in a single thrust. Gate-Gods, she was wet! She moaned as he filled her up, her muffled cries of pleasure stifled by the large cock in her mouth. Jane pressed her hips to Jarod’s and they worked the little slut over in tandem.
Meredith enjoyed being their little piggy on a spit. Jarod felt her walls start clenching almost instantly in an orgasm. Whenever he spit-roasted her like this, she came so hard that her juices dripped down his balls and coated his thighs. On her third iteration of clenching spasms, she brought Rossco to climax, and the wolfman came with a whimpering howl.
Meredith struggled to swallow the load. Her pussy clung so tight to his pistoning shaft that Jarod, too, busted a nut into his little sex toy. The only one in the room who hadn’t cum was Jane. She would get hers later; Jarod always gave her special treatment.
When there was a knock at the door, Jarod climbed off the bed to answer it. The combined sex juices of Meredith and Jarod dripped from his semi-flaccid cock onto the floor, landing not far from a kneeling Bubble. Fucking Bubble. That little bitch had been caught trying to lure him into a dreamless sleep for the last time. She was told to grovel or have her tongue removed.
“Master the gate has gone golden. The enemy is mowing boats to the portals even as I humbly inform you of this news,” Bubble said, her eyes fixed on the ground. “May I clean you, Master?”
“It would please me to have my slave clean my sex toy’s juicy remains. Yes. Lick me clean.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Jane, set a course to intercept these rowboats. Rossco, get your armor on and man the turret. The rest of you, I know you can hear me, get ready to fight,” Jarod said.
He glanced down to where Bubble busily lapped at the sloppy remains of their frenzied sex session on Jarod’s cock. “You’re King has spoken,” he ordered, “We go to war.”
He backhanded Bubble when she was done. She was his biggest disappointment. The fact he’d have to remold her was not lost on him. He had a pleasant surprise in store for her.
“I have chosen in my heart to forgive you Bubbles. From this moment forward you may kneel on only one knee when addressing me. If you help me with the trading today, I may even allow you to stand. Does this please you?” Jarod asked.
Bubbles rapidly bobbed her head up and down, while helping Jarod equip his gear.
When he was armed, armored, and loaded for war, he stepped out the top hatch. Rossco’s protection flickered as a large bug smashed into the deep blue shielding. A quick nod to each other and Jarod was ready.
A warrior king led from the front; the Gate-Gods demanded nothing less. Off on the horizon, the Xgate sat on the water with its shimmering golden portals. The flicker of his shields activating prepared him for the coming battle. His aqua-suit was ready to go.
The Pearly Dream hovered over the five encased lifeboats whose inboard engines brought them nearer the portal. Jarod chuckled at the sight as they tried to dodge Rossco’s suppressive fire that he spewed in front of their ships, causing them to slow. A smirk curled Jarod’s lips as he watched the blue orbs rock the lead boat.
The lifeboats were in a panic, desperate to avoid the aggressive flying sailboat. Jarod knew the timing was right as he ran forward and leaped high over the railing into the air. His form flew over the side of his flying boat, gravity greedily pulling his body towards the waves while he yelled into his helmet with joy.
The lapping waves rushed to greet Jarod. His plunge into the depths sprayed water high into the air. Miniature water jets in his aqua-suit fired, immediately twisting his dive into a rapid ascent as he sliced through the water. From below all
Jarod could make out was the shadow of the hull outline contrasting nicely with the evening sun’s glimmer. He pushed his jets harder as he closed the distance.
Jarod’s armor piercing darts crashed into the propeller of the starboard engine. The rotating fins spun down into the ocean’s depths, severed from the driveshaft. The port engine was next. Another victim of superior technology. His aqua-suit streamlined through the water to the next awaiting lifeboat.
Did they hop into the water and fight? Of course not. Jarod snorted into his helm. He’d known deep down that these cowards were fodder. Unfit for the gods. His bolts swooshed through the water. The vortex wakes trailed his rounds as they disabled the next boat’s propellers. The last three lifeboats pushed desperately hard into their turns, trying to return to their ship.
“Ha! As if you could get away,” Jarod muttered into his helmet. He glided through the water with ease. His bolts found and disabled propellers and within five minutes, every boat sat dead in the water, ripe for pillaging.
Jarod surfaced, bored by the lack of resistance. When his head breached the water, though, some brave fool fired a flare gun at him. The burning round pinged off his armor to sizzle into the waves at an odd angle in the distance.
“Nice shot,” Jarod said through his microphone.
The Pearly Dream descended behind him. A head stuck out a lifeboat’s window to fire at Rossco, except their head vanished in a plume of blue, red streaks of blood and brain matter dribbled down the exterior of the window. A scream from inside the ship forced Jarod to turn down his audio.
“What do you want?” A voice bellowed out of a cracked window from the first life raft.
“Blast down that door, Rossco,” Jarod said, sailing his suit across the surface to the boat.
A big blue ball blasted the offending door into a haze of splinters, plastic and glass. Jarod breached out of the water and surged into the gaping hole; his boots slamming down onto the deck of the lifeboat. The entire structure bobbed and swayed from his dramatic entry. There were only two people on board. An old man with a grey beard and stern eyes was near a station. A scared woman huddled in the back of the boat, blood leaking around the life vest she pressed into her side.
A pistol rested on the floor at her side, the weapon abandoned in an effort to staunch the thick flow of blood.
“Who is the Captain here?!” Jarod spoke through his speakers.
The man raised a hand, opened his mouth to respond and Jarod fired.
The man ingested a dart to the guts.
He stumbled. Shock froze his features, his blue eyes lost in the confusion of the moment. He crashed to his knees.
“Shit, he had a heart attack.” Jarod sighed, “Jane, this one is not my fault. I was going to save him. Fuck. Fuck. I guess I should kill the woman too. Yes, the gods want this.” Jarod raced forward and caved in her skull with a mighty stomp of his armored boot.
Brain matter and blood splattered the wall behind her as her death throes trashed the interior of the life boat. Jarod felt better after this offering to the Gate-gods, a wave of calm soothing him. A quick inspection showed the rest of the lifeboat piled high with valuable electronics.
“Excellent, they did my work for me. Very nice of the sacrifices to understand the god's blessing and will,” Jarod said reverently.
He found a radio next to the captain’s body. A quick flick of his wrist shed the blood that clung to it. Time to address the other boats.
“You are my prisoners. Failure to comply with any and all instructions is death. Accept without resistance and you will be spared. Open your doors or be destroyed. Those are your only options. I am boarding now!” Jarod said, plunging out the lifeboat’s busted doorway and back into the depths.
All four of the remaining boats’ doors opened. Jarod bypassed them all, knowing his sirens would process these prizes. He kicked on his turbojets and cruised through the water. Not a mile away was the ultimate target—the cruise ship. He knew he would never get the behemoth into the portal, but he didn’t need to.
Jarod found that travel under the waves was strangely peaceful, his anger dissipated whenever he glided through the deep. The cruise ship had heard his radio call. They were already turning to hastily depart the area, the whine of the straining engines audible through the water, even at this distance. Not that a cruise ship could outrun the torpedo that he had effectively become. A hundred feet out from his target, Jarod kept pace with the ship. He needed to wait for the rudder to straighten. There!
He backed off a little while dropping down into the darkening depths. When he was lined up with the ship’s fantail, he applied full thrust and ascended rapidly until he shot out of the water, breaching a hundred feet into the air. His gamble paid off and his arcing trajectory brought him crashing through the sliding glass door into a balcony suite.
A body softened his fall. Jarod tilted his head to stare down as a grandma's final gaze of shock glazed over in death. She’d been crushed by the man in a robot water suit who magically smashed into her room. Of all the ways to go, this was legendary. Jarod respected that. He even left her distraught husband alive without a contract.
Jarod calmly kicked the door to the interior corridor off its hinges. He would hold no punches for the rest of the fodder foolish enough to stand in his way. He thundered down the hallway for the bridge. Each long stride crashed into the floor with a resounding echo. There was no stopping this freight train. A poor old man exited his room only to turn around and stumble into Jarod’s path. His shattered body flew back several yards before splattering along the wall, its eyes frozen forever in horror.
The last part of his journey was in an elevator. That fucking annoying music was almost as grating as the slow, measured pace of the lift towards the bridge. When he reached the top deck, he found a startled woman patiently waiting with two kids. The little girl tore at a memory that wriggled out of his mind’s grasp. Jarod fell to a knee in agony, a migraine flaring behind his right eye. He rolled out of the elevator before it closed. The mother tried to run, but the youngest girl fought against her mother’s frantic tugs.
“Mister, are you alright?” she asked, in a pleading tone, hoping the man in the wet metal suit was okay.
Whatever memory threatened to break free, had failed. He turned to the concerned little girl. Jarod was a savage, but even he had his boundaries.
“Oh, thank you for that missy. Do you like my safety suit?” Jarod asked.
“I do, can I get one?” the girl asked, her eyes wide with excitement.
“If you tell me where the captain’s station is, I’ll see if I can work something out,” Jarod said and the little girl giggled and clapped her hands.
“That is easy, silly, it’s the place right there that says Captain’s Deck,” the girl said pointing while still laughing. “Everyone knows that one.”
“Ma’am.” He turned towards the skittish mother, “I am Jarod. When my crew boards the ship, you’re to mention that you spoke to me for a special privilege. Use the code, Mary. This girl reminds me of a niece I had. Or whatever a cousin's daughter is. Mary is your code. Do you understand?” the mother nodded, though still visibly frightened. “Maybe it was Margaret…” Jarod shook his head in his suit, “or, was it, Mallory? Ah, distant family, right? Mary is your code.”
Before she could respond, Jarod dashed up the stairs. The solid door before him was securely locked. Jarod leaped to the railing and pulled himself up over the front of the bridge. He walked over by where the main control station most likely stood. When he reached the edge of the roof, he sat down and simply let his feet dangle. Jarod was certain the crew were panicking about now, probably pointing at the two armored boots kicking idly in the wind.
He grabbed the lip of the roof and lowered himself in front of the glass protecting the crew. He dangled a hundred feet off the nearest deck. The crew had enough. They ineffectively fired their small arms through the plexiglass of the bridge and into his shield. A few rounds managed t
o crack against his armor, leaving little more than a scratch. Jarod grinned.
His right hand went to a laser weapon secured on his hip. “Consider this your one and only chance … surrender or die,” Jarod’s weapon aimed at the stern maternal woman wearing a fancy hat in the middle of the bridge. She had watched the scene unfold without flinching. With death staring at her, however, she caved.
“The ship is yours,” she said, removing her hat and placing it in the captain’s seat beside her. “Lower your weapons,” she directed her crew, “we are not military; we have nothing that can harm him. There are thousands of lives aboard this ship.”
“Smart decision ma’am. You are all now my prisoners. Open the door,” Jarod said, hoisting himself back onto the roof. He muttered to himself as he tromped back across the top of the bridge, “I fucking hate heights, I swear they will be the death of me.”
His heavy boots echoed through the roof as the metallic soles crashed against the steel hull. He dropped down to the stairs with a booming thud. The door was opened. He went to push aside the little shit who stepped in his way but the sailor fled. His armored suit barely fit into the doorway. He clanked his way over to the captain’s chair and plopped down, squishing the ridiculous hat.
“Helm, reverse course. Take me to the Xgate,” Jarod commanded.
The man at the helm looked to the old captain. Jarod’s pistol whipped up and with a splash of viscera against the far wall, eliminated the insubordinate ingrate. The captain saved the rest of her crew by stepping forward at this point.
“Consider it done. Let me give a brief call to the rest of my crew, then you may have the communications. I am Rebecca,” she nodded to the remains of her former helmsman, “I apologize for Willy’s actions.” Rebecca stepped up to a radio and plucked it off a charger before moving to stand by him. Her delicate wrinkled hands entered a code. She keyed the mic and said, “We have been rescued at last. The ship is going to the portal with an elite military escort. Please, no one panic. We will be heading to the Xgate soon.”