by Cameron Hale
Gathering it in her hands, she pressed it to her lips. Her tongue flicked across the head and down the rough shaft. Gradually, the roughness disappeared. Something firm and pliant met her tongue. Slowly, she inserted it into her mouth and sucked it. Feeling its faint pulse, she removed it and trailed it down her body, teasing her nipples into erection. The ache brewing in her loins blossomed into a throbbing pain. She rubbed the phallus against her clit, her sticky wetness coating the heads. Waves of pleasure rippled through her body. Probing deeper, she felt an initial resistance.
Uttering a sigh, she lay back on the floor and raised her thighs. The heat bore into her exposed cunt like hot breath, urging her to open herself further. Closing her eyes, she pushed the phallus inside and felt its thickness stretch her. She shoved it in harder and gasped from a mixture of pain and ecstasy. Little by little, she worked it in deeper, her hips thrusting in a frenzied motion that brought her to the edge of coming so explosively that she could not even utter the cry rising in her throat.
“Jem? What the hell are you doing?”
The voice intruded from a distant place. A blaze of lights followed a moment later, accompanied by the awakening equipment and a cool, dry influx of air.
“For God’s sake, can you hear me?”
Jem said nothing, her eyes glazed in a trance-like expression.
Sharaan approached her and stared at the phallus impaled within her with a look of utter disbelief.
“Jem?
She merely smiled. Withdrawing the phallus so quickly the motion was almost a blur, she rose and wrestled Sharaan to the floor.
Caught off guard, Sharaan’s exclamation was silenced by the feel of Jem’s mouth against hers. Hands roamed her body, the phallus a solid pressure between her legs. The aroma of Jem’s musk was so strong it choked her.
“Jem—what?”
“Ssshhh,” Jem whispered in a coarse, husky voice. “You know it’s what we both want. To serve him—to pay homage to him—what else is there?” She smiled and gazed into Sharaan’s terrified face. Despite her slim stature, she was easily able to suppress Sharaan’s struggles.
“Let me go!” Sharaan cried, flailing uselessly. “Can’t you see what’s happening to you?”
Jem smothered her protest with her lips. “Why do you fight me?” she murmured, wedging Sharaan’s legs apart. “You know you will please him. Malestru has always favored those with midnight hair and eyes the color of the dawn.” With one hand, she proceeded to rip off Sharaan’s flimsy robe. Drinking in the sight of her creamy naked flesh, she pressed her lips against a rosy nipple. Sharaan struggled, but as Jem continued to caress her body, her resistance began to fade.
Gradually, the lights and the droning equipment faded. Engulfed once more by a creeping humidity, the two writhed on the floor in a sandwich of gleaming, sweat-drenched flesh. Fingers and tongues touched and tasted, their murmurs growing more intense as both took turns licking and fondling the phallus. Taking it in her hand, Jem burrowed between Sharaan’s legs and poised it between the engorged lips of her cunt.
“Are you ready to receive him now?”
Dazed, her eyes staring at Jem but not quite focused, she could nod once.
Jem smiled, her eyes ablaze like coals, the pupils reduced to mere slits. “Then join with our lord and liege. Accept his flesh into yours.”
Sharaan’s scream echoed throughout the room. Her body arched as Jem drove the phallus deep within her. Clawing at the floor, her eyes shut tight, her cries gradually transformed into a rutting, feline moan until only Jem’s furiously working hand was visible between her thrusting hips. Neither noticed the blood trickling on the floor…
* * *
Standing together in the steamy embrace of the shower, Jem wiped away the last of Sharaan’s tears, if not the fear and vulnerability haunting them. Her fingers trailed to the thick strands of wet hair plastered around her shoulders. Gently, she kneaded her taut muscles.
“Feel better?”
Sharaan nodded and leaned against her. “What are those—things, Jem? My God, do you realize what almost happened to us back there?”
Jem pressed a panel that instantly shut off the jets. Warm air blew from several vent openings, beading the moisture on the bodies. Jem mussed her hair to dry it. “I know that something is playing with our minds and bodies, something that can exert such control that we lose ourselves completely.”
Sharaan stood close to the dryer vents. “But what is it? An airborne infection, a nanovirus, some kind of transient entity trapped in the relics? And why don’t the computers show anything? How can we fight it if we don’t know what it is?”
“Computers are only machines, Shar, no matter how sophisticated. Whatever we’re dealing with here goes far beyond mere technology. Clearly it’s contagious, but not in the traditional sense, and only it seems in close proximity to the artifacts.”
Sharaan unconsciously touched her pubic area. “Close proximity! Much longer and that thing would have seriously injured me. How would we have explained this? Phantom rape by a possessed artifact?”
Jem reached for her and cupped her face in her hands. “Listen to me, Shar. There won’t be any explanations. I’ve placed the artifacts back in the container and sealed the room. We arrive at Kham’hor on schedule. As far as Larius is concerned, we…”
The shrill tone of the status alert shocked them both. Rushing from the shower, they scrambled to get dressed, the volume of the warning a hammer blow to their ears.
“Emergency alert, there is an error in the navigational system. Immediate correction is required to maintain proper course. Emergency alert, there is an error in the navigational system…”
The message repeated maddeningly as Jem and Sharaan raced to the bridge. Halting in mid-stride before the viewer, they both gasped at the sight of a massive planet orbiting in the location of the distortion. Its vividly mottled surface churned like a boiling stew beneath the onslaught of a maelstrom so vast and violent, the stats scrolling frantically down the datascreens simultaneously flickered and blanked.
Sharaan crept toward the viewer. “It looks like—hell.”
Jem shook her head. “This can’t be possible.”
“What?”
“This planet—I recognize it. So should you.”
“I’d remember a world like this.”
“It hasn’t existed for over ten-thousand years, but you should know it well. It’s the Nolistrai homeworld.”
Sharaan gaped in astonishment. “But that’s…”
“What? Impossible?”
“Every child with a history primer knows it was destroyed during the Assimri Wars. Anti-matter charges placed in faults in the planetary crust. I remember…”
“Then what’s this?”
The ship juddered and lurched violent, the gravitational pull an inexorably gripping hand.
“My God,” Jem cried. “It’s pulling us in. We’ve got to get out of here now!”
“Let me shut this damned noise off,” Sharaan said, canceling the alert. “Attempting course correction now.” She slammed the controls with her fist. “Shit! Helm isn't responding. Only basic life support functions are operating. I'll try manual override.”
Biting her lip, Jem entered a universal distress signal and attempted to fire the jump thrusters. “It’s no use! We’re locked tight.” She stared grimly at the stormy planet consuming the viewer. “It's like the ship's got a mind of its own.”
Sharaan’s head swiveled sharply toward her. “Or maybe something else’s?”
Jem yanked off a nearby wall panel and studied a color-coded gridwork. “I'll go down to the engine room and see if I can hotwire something. The auxiliary systems should have kicked in by now. We’ve got to get away from that planet before we break up in the atmosphere.”
“I’ll keep hailing on all frequencies,” Sharaan said. “We’re not that far from the Kham’hor trade routes. We might get lucky and reach a ship in the vicinity.”
“I’l
l be back as soon as I can,” Jem said, disappearing into the service lift.
The ship continued on its course despite Sharaan’s increasingly frantic attempts to override the controls. Barely twenty minutes later, a tightlipped Jem returned from the engine room to find Sharaan scowling at the viewer with a pale, taut face.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
Sharaan regarded Jem with wide, frightened eyes. She twisted nervously at her hair, leaving a cluster of tangled black curls at her nape. “They brought us here, didn’t they?”
“What are you talking about?”
She whirled around, anger coloring her face. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Those fucking fossils. There’s something here, Jem. Can’t you feel it? And it’s not going to let us go until it takes us into that inferno.”
The ship groaned, juddered and dropped sickeningly. Jem gasped and grabbed Sharaan’s arm. “We’re losing altitude. Get to the emergency pod!”
Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they bolted through a corridor linking the bridge to the pod bay. Around them, a blinding array of emergency lights sprang to life underscored by another droning alert. Jem slammed her hand against the bay’s access panel and pushed Sharaan through the moment it irised open.
“Start launch protocols!” she cried above the din.
Sharaan grabbed her arm. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Jem rushed to a nearby auxiliary command console. “I’ve got to initiate self-destruct. It’s the only way to stop this. God help us if it infects a populated world.”
Sharaan scrambled inside the pod and commenced the launch protocol. Her sweating hands fumbled over the instruments, her heart a drumbeat in chest. Selecting the autopilot option, she programmed an emergency course designed to achieve maximum distance. Fuel concerns were secondary, and if they survived, could be dealt with later.
“Get your ass in here!” she shouted from the pod’s open door. “Launch countdown has started.”
“A few more seconds,” Jem said, inputting the final sequence with a shaking hand. The confirmation flashed across the across the screen. A deafening claxon boomed through the bay.
“Attention. Self-destruct in zero minus ten minutes. Immediate evacuation recommended. Attention. Self-destruct in…”
“Jem! Now would be a good time!”
“Okay, coming,” she cried, blundering into the pod. The door shut behind her. Settling into the seat, the harness immediately conformed to her body size. Both stared at the void beckoning from the opening bay doors. Away from the view of the approaching planet, the diamante spray of stars shimmered innocently.
The launch alert trilled from the pod’s navigational panel. Jem reached for Sharaan’s cold hand and gripped it as the pod jettisoned violently from the bay. It plummeted away at a dizzying speed, the stars little more than a distant blur. The image of the ship filled the viewers, the menacing planet a baleful eye consuming the horizon. Jem swallowed the lump in her throat. The ship had been her home for a decade, the work left behind the accumulation of years of toil on countless worlds ranging between paradise and hell. Now, it was about to be destroyed, and her dreams with it.
“At least we’re safe,” Sharaan said, reading her thoughts. “And we’ll have other worlds to explore. You said it yourself—imagine what would happen if that force got loose on a populated world.”
The consolation of her words vanished when the pod started to heave and buck. Beneath a chorus of emergency alerts, it plunged, banked sharply and spiraled toward the planet's turbulent atmosphere. Sharaan’s attempt to manually override the controls provide futile, the pod’s thrusters unresponsive.
“Nothing’s responding,” she cried, her eyes pivoting between the controls and the view of the roiling planet. “We’re going…”
A violent jolt slammed them into their seats. The pod steadied and slowed of its own accord.
“Status?” Jem asked haltingly.
Sharaan shook her head. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, the pulse throbbing in her neck. “Unknown. Something else is controlling the pod.”
Jem licked her parched lips. “Then it’s here with us.”
Sharaan gazed apprehensively at the planet. Gaps appeared through whorls of angry molten clouds, teasing them with glimpses of the surface. “It's like one of the conjurers' tricks at Selius Nexus. You look at it and it keeps changing before your eyes.”
“Can you get any readings?”
“Only that there are none. Yet the surface appears stable, nothing at all like the upper atmosphere.”
“Nolistrai.”
“What?”
“The homeworld. We’ve been brought here.”
Sharaan sighed tiredly. “Why us? There have been others in this region before us.”
“But none carrying the artifacts. I think I know what’s happened. During the wars, the Nolistrai must have planted relics on other worlds knowing that some day, they would be found.”
“So we’re dealing with what? Some kind of perverse technology designed to resurrect them?”
“In a sense. By possessing us, we become carriers to spread their influence. Who else is likely to find the artifacts? Merchants, traders, collectors, others in seek of treasures who are also most likely to travel throughout the galaxy.”
Sharaan remained unconvinced. “But we’re not traveling anywhere, Jem, except down there.”
“Maybe there are others…”
Even as she spoke, an enormous gap spiraled open through the murky surface. The pod descended smoothly and emerged above a landscape of lush, dense forest basking under an improbably cerulean sky.
“My God,” Jem said. “Look at that sky, blue as a summer’s day back home.”
“Readings still confirm nothing,” Sharaan said. “There must be some kind of jamming technology at work here.” She peered more closely at the viewer. “Look! In the distance. What is that?”
“It looks like a city,” Jem said.
The pod banked on a slow approach toward a sea of golden, mirrored towers tapering into the seamless blue sky. Great monuments and temples rose from a verdant checkerboard of immaculate grounds, bisected by gleaming lakes, rivers and streams. Only when the pod hovered above the city did the intricate and unique details of the sculptures become discernable.
“City of the giants,” Sharaan murmured.
“More than that, much more,” Jem said, her fingers fumbling for the datascanner controls. “Log addendum by Jem McOullar, Chief Exo-archeologist, Earth date 37 Octobris, 2189. While en route to the Kham'hor system with a consignment of ancient Nolistrai artifacts, we encountered a phenomenon initially assumed to be a spatial distortion…”
Sharaan gasped as a trio of glowering, oblate eyes flickered onto the viewer. Jem unconsciously reached for Sharaan’s arm, a leaden coldness settling in the pit of her stomach. The eyes watched them momentarily before fading.
“It's them,” Sharaan murmured. “Did you feel it? It was like something looked into my mind.”
Jem suppressed a shudder. “They say there are no surviving images of the Nolistrai, or at least none that we’ve discovered. But we’ve found them now.” She glanced at the instruments. “Still no life readings of any kind. Not even the forest registers as organic. They've either managed to conceal themselves with some fantastic technology or none of this is real.”
“Or they’re already inside us.”
The pod veered abruptly toward a tower bordering the eastern fringe of the great forest. Rows of towers drifted by like monolithic dominoes. Nowhere was there any sign of life, the great plazas and thoroughfares deserted. From a distance, what appeared to be an enormous fresco flanking an icicle-shaped tower became a gaping black maw as they approached and banked through.
“Oh my God!” Sharaan cried, flinching from the viewer.
Jem’s lips moved silently, her mind unable to comprehend the dimensions of a massive, honeycom
bed chamber whose walls soared into obscurity. Each hexagonal unit glowed with golden radiance. Tenuous shapes rose from each, anonymous despite the pod's magnified viewer.
“I can't comprehend what I'm seeing,” she said. “It's like trying to imagine the size of the universe. Nothing's connecting.”
“It looks like an enormous beehive,” Sharaan said.
Jem glanced sharply at her. The honey colored glow cast her face in an ethereal light. For a moment she felt a pang of yearning, and reached to stroke her silken cheek. She flinched at the contact, the unexpected heat leaving her fingers tingling.
Sharaan turned to her in slow motion, a flush staining her cheek where Jem had touched it. Watching her with drowsy eyes, she released her seat harness, caught Jem’s hand and clasped it to her breast.
Despite the feeble protests of her rapidly fading will, Jem could not release her hand. The sensation of the Sharaan’s breast elicited a narcotic thrill of desire, the stirring in her loins by now unmistakable. Instinctively she knew instinctively that her body was no longer her own, that the desire raging through her blood was the desire of another. Yet it no longer mattered, only the beckoning softness of Sharaan’s flesh.
Releasing her seat harness, she rose and straddled Sharaan. Sharaan removed her top and ran her hands through Jem’s hair, pulling her mouth down to her breasts. Neither noticed the pod slip into an open unit until it rested before a huge altar carved from stone. Sheaths of blood-colored flowers draped walls depicting intricate symbols and images.
The movement of the gently settling pod finally distracted Jem. Rising from between Sharaan’s parted legs, she stared at the fearsome effigies comprising the altar. One robe-clad figure standing twice the size of the others wore an elaborate mask revealing three oblate eye openings. A huge, mushroom-headed phallus flanked by scales protruded like a club from a carved slit in the robe. The flowers, as if aware of her scrutiny, began to tremble and slithered down from the massive walls.