by Mel Corbett
“Queen’s Victory, what is your authorization code?” he snapped, pressing a button to switch to a secure channel. He leaned over one of the control panels, staring at the series of codes written there.
“Alpha, Niner, Six, Mary,” the voice on the speaker rattled off a complex code of fifteen characters. He authorized them to leave. For each ship leaving to the blackness of space, he repeated the process in response to the unique code they gave him, barking out commands and manually authorizing their codes on the control panel.
His shoulders sagged as the last ship took off in the direction that he had authorized.
“Honored Husband,” !Estraith said in the brief quiet.
*Rafu spun, his mouth opening and shutting as he bit down a command.
She held up a small lunch she had brought him, a nyah fruit and some soft cheese.
“!Estraith!” he exclaimed, shock apparent on his features. His eyes wide, but she hoped she detected a bit of pleasure at her presence.
“I know you’re busy, but I thought to bring you a gift now that you are back in our city.” She chewed her lip. Would he accept her offering of peace? He had not been happy at being re-assigned to the port at Queen’s Caverns from the massive interstellar ship preparing to jump to Earth.
“Thank you, wife,” he said. The speakers crackled again. Another flier asking for permission to land.
He turned away and snapped out a sharp command.
“I know you can’t talk,” !Estraith said. “I thought merely to bring you lunch and perhaps watch my Honored Husband work.”
He nodded, his mouth already authorizing another pilot to fly. He controlled the very skies. !Estraith needed to know how he worked and how his job worked. Only the most trusted of Honored Ones were given this type of job. They were always married with a pilot so they would be aware of how each pilot was someone’s beloved. She swallowed as she watched him work. The authorization codes echoed in her head as he spoke. Each one a different code for each ship.
She watched for some time, then, in another quiet moment, she stole a kiss before heading off to her own duties.
FORTY-TWO
MARY
Pilu and Lily played with their dolls in the corner while Mary’s other three girls drew on their chalkboards. They chattered away in a mix of English and the blue tongue. Mary watched with one eye focused on the girls and chatted with the other nannies, happy to be allowed to use English during their free time. The older children cartwheeled, played tag, and jumped rope in the giant stone cavern. A few climbed on a stone structure in the middle of the room. Mary’s five girls were the youngest assigned to this cluster of nannies.
Her heart sank when Illis stepped into the large play cavern. They should have twenty or thirty minutes of free time after lunch, but the girls had just barely started playing and already Illis was coming in to collect them. Illis smiled as she approached, and the women quickly switched from English to the blue tongue.
“Good day,” Illis said. “I see the children are playing quite well.”
Mary and the others nodded, waiting for Illis to get to her point. Usually their days were very structured. They should be getting ready for a blue sport of some kind. The blue women had even had the children play jump rope and other games that were familiar from Earth.
“I have arranged a sort of play date for the children,” Illis said.
They’d been taught the word, but Mary shook her head, not understanding. Who would the kids be having a play date with?
“Please assemble the children. The older children shall leave this room with me to go to another play room, the others will remain here.”
Mary clapped her hands in the same rhythm she’d used for years on Earth at daycare. Her girls clapped twice in response and ran to her, the dolls and chalkboards dangling from their hands. She handed the girls their bags, and they immediately put away their toys, then formed a straight line behind Mary.
Mary felt a touch of sadness at how quickly they complied. She knew they’d learned Illis did not tolerate complaints when playtime ended. The other kids obeyed their nannies as well and quickly put up the few toys they were allowed, and soon there were fifteen lines of five or six. The cavern that had bustled with children’s play now stood silent.
Illis tapped eight of the women on their shoulders. “You eight will follow me. The remaining seven will wait here for Commander !Estraith.”
Mary held her breath as Illis and the others filed out of the room. When Illis and the others disappeared, Pilu tugged at Mary’s jumpsuit.
“Ih Mary, what’s happening?” Pilu asked in the blue tongue.
Mary shook her head. “A play date,” she answered in blue tongue, not sure if she believed it.
FORTY-THREE
RACHEL
It is an honor to see the Queen. An honor Rachel could scarcely believe. The Queen had spoken directly into her mind and summoned her to the mouth of the Great Cavern so that she might receive a secret gift. Sunlight filled the antechamber to the cavern where Rachel and three female Honored Ones she had never met before stripped off their clothes, per the Queen’s demands. Rachel did not speak to the other females. Instead, naked, she knelt before the Queen’s Honored Attendants.
The Queen’s Honored Attendants nodded in greeting as they carried three unconscious walker females into the giant cavern ahead of them. Two were blue women, but one was earthen with pale skin and a flash of red hair.
“We are nothing,” said an Honored Attendant as he left the chamber empty-handed. “You have been summoned by the Queen herself. Your honor is as great as ours.”
Rachel nodded, but inside she questioned how that could be true. She was a youngling. Not even six months in service to the Queen, and she’d failed repeatedly to meet the Queen’s commands due to her and her walker’s inexperience. Did the Queen wish to reprimand them?
“Enter the Great Cavern,” the Queen’s dry, creaky voice echoed in her head. Rachel and the other three females entered the chamber. The attendants laid the unconscious on the hard ground in the middle of the cavern. Rachel led her sisters to a spot just in front of the unconscious walkers.
Behind them, the attendants shut the great doors. The Queen herself did not tolerate sunlight. Rachel’s eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. An acrid smell with a hint of rotten eggs singed Rachel’s nose. In the darkness, something creaked and screeched across the hard stone, a sound like nails on a chalkboard combined with a rock fall. Was it the Queen approaching? Rachel’s stomach knotted and twisted. Her hands went to her belly to protect the new life growing there. The smell spoke of sickness and death. Rachel’s Queen had lived for millennia. Surely, She could not make such a smell. Surely, her Queen was healthy.
“Help me!” the Queen’s voice creaked into Rachel’s mind. Rachel glanced at the others, but they did not react. They kneeled beside the unconscious walkers as Rachel should be doing.
“Take my gift to help me to spread our kind,” the Queen’s voice creaked and groaned into Rachel’s mind. “You must tell no one of my gift.”
Rachel would not kneel. She needed to help her Queen. The others could wait. Rachel stepped forward, her eyes adjusting slowly to the faint light of the moss. The others knelt, and the riderless humans remained unconscious, not even stirring in the dark.
The Queen dragged herself into the Great Cavern. She pulled herself forward on limbs that seemed too small for her mass. She was enormous. Larger than a bus or an airplane. Her mass dominated the tall ceilings of the Great Cavern, and Rachel could see how the Queen once hollowed out this space.
The Queen dragged herself forward on hands that looked like they might have once been human with five fingers, bony knobs sticking out at the knuckles. The hands were too large. Far too large. One giant hand stopped a yard or so in front of Rachel, and the Queen pulled herself forward again. Her heavy carapace dragging on the ground once again screeched worse than nails on the chalkboard, tons of mass behind the scrape
against the hard stone.
Rachel swallowed back the fear and stepped forward.
“My Queen, how may I serve you?” Rachel asked. “Please tell me how I can help you and accept your gift.”
“So brave, little one,” She creaked into Rachel’s mind.
Rachel nodded an acceptance. The others still knelt, but Rachel could feel their desire to run. The mental connection with the Queen opened the others’ emotions to her as well.
The Queen raised her upper body, supporting herself on those enormous, yet disproportionately small arms. Rachel stared up and up and up into her Queen’s giant eyes. The Queen caught Rachel in one of her knobby bony hands. In some ways, the Queen’s front half was like a giant from a children’s story, but her lower half was swollen and full of eggs, sickness, and rot. The Queen lifted Rachel so that she was level with her eyes, perhaps thirty feet above the cavern floor.
Fear coursed through Rachel. When she summoned Rachel, the Queen said Rachel had served Her well and promised her a gift, but as Rachel stared into the Queen’s giant face, she quaked with fear. The Queen’s mouth opened and closed, chewing and working something.
“Do not worry,” the Queen’s voice creaked in Rachel’s mind.
Rachel swallowed and clung to the Queen’s knobby pinky. The honor is enormous, to be held by the Queen, but Rachel could not find her balance on the uneven surface of the Queen’s palm. Deep scars traced the palm where the rock had refused to give way before the Queen. Rachel’s feet settled onto a raised patch of scar tissue.
“My Queen,” Rachel said, but her voice was as unsteady as she felt.
The Queen’s mouth closed and opened, and opened and closed. Was the Queen going to eat her? Was that her gift? Service as food? It would be an honor, but… the life inside her would be gone. But no… the Queen does not eat walkers. She eats the rocks and the roots of trees that tunnel deep into her subterranean home.
The Queen’s other hand slid down, towards Her large hardened abdomen. The part of Her that was swollen with eggs. The Queen dug Her fingers into the hard carapace. The Queen’s voice did not appear in Rachel’s mind, but Her body moaned in pain as she tore open her belly.
Rachel held tight to Her pinky. Rachel’s human body tried to lose the food she had eaten, but she fought down the bile. Whatever honor the Queen was planning to bestow on her, on all of them, must be very great.
Inside of the hole the Queen has torn lay a nest of swollen red eggs, but they were not Her normal eggs. The eggs writhed. Short limbs scrabbled in the air at the sudden lack of protection. No. They were not eggs, they were larvae.
The Queen delicately pinched one between her bony thumb and forefinger. Her movements were slow, measured, and gentle. The larvae appeared to be about two inches across and five inches long so that it had oblong shape. Rachel thought it was the size of a jelly-like candy bar with tiny scrabbling limbs.
The Queen held Rachel and the others still with her mere desire that they not move, but Rachel could feel the others’ fear. The others could no more run from their kneeling position than Rachel could run from the Queen’s bony palm thirty feet above the ground.
Rachel clutched Her pinkie tight.
“Lay down, little one,” the Queen said into Rachel’s mind.
Rachel did as the Queen commanded. She could not disobey her Queen. Trembling, she lay back on the Queen’s palm, her feet next to the pinky, her head stretching towards the giant thumb. Rachel swallowed hard, afraid of the Queen’s gift.
The Queen set her gift on Rachel’s naked belly. The belly that had just begun to swell with the life Nate put there.
The slimy larva writhed, seeking purchase on the new warm surface. Its limbs ended in tiny claws that bit into her skin to steady itself. Rachel studied the creature resting on her stomach. She could see a miniature Queen, but lacking a face, lacking a mind to lead it.
The Queen held Rachel still with Her mind, but She was not cruel. She offered words of comfort.
“I remember my fear when this happened to me,” She creaked.
When did this happen to the Queen? The Queen has always been and will always be.
“This will end well for you, dear one,” her voice crackled.
The Queen’s gift crawled down Rachel’s belly. Its claws bit into her skin, but it did not mean her harm.
Rachel flinched as the first limb reached down into her pubic hair. Rachel swallowed hard.
“Rachel, you will shelter my gift and grow full with it.”
The Queen’s gift placed three of its limbs inside of Rachel. They began writhing within her.
Serving her Queen filled her with pleasure. The touch of the Queen’s gift within began to bring her to arousal. Her body began to add its own lubrication to the gift’s slime. Rachel whimpered, with pleasure rather than pain as the gift began crawling inside her. It filled her as neither Nate or Preet could.
The gift’s soft form molded to her inside, but pressed ever outward, too large to be contained in such a tiny opening. Its claws bit into her cervix. Rachel groaned in pleasure-pain as its claws began prying her open, deep inside.
“You will carry my gift within you,” the Queen whispered into Rachel’s mind.
Pain consumed her as the gift pried her womb fully open. Rachel refused to scream, but her body bucked out of her control. The Queen cradled her. Rachel slid into the cupped part of Her palm. Rachel’s body shuddered. The gift burrowed deeper and deeper. Fire burned at Rachel’s cervix, open for the first time ever, full of the gift as it forced its way into her womb. Rachel’s hips stretched and screamed as the gift forced its way past them into her womb. Her belly felt overfull as the gift writhed inside of it.
Rachel watched her stomach ripple as her body tried to expel the invading gift, but the gift expanded. Filling her. Absorbing the liquid around the life growing inside.
Rachel’s body shuddered, contracting, fighting the Queen’s gift. Rachel could not stop her body from fighting the gift. The gift itself blocked the opening, fought the contractions shuddering through Rachel’s body. It clung to the inside of her womb.
Rachel whimpered her gratitude to the Queen as the new life took root in her womb.
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed this book, please tell a friend or leave a review so that this story can find the right readers :-)
Sign up at MelCorbett.com/Updates for a free story and updates on new stories.
If you would like an electronic copy of the next book for free, please email me the link to your review at [email protected]
About Mel
Mel Corbett wants to be a werewolf, no a vampire, no a fairy, no an ancient alien theorist. Well, she at least writes about all of those. Mel is also in love with Giorgio Tsoukalos’s hair and while she isn’t saying that it was aliens, it was totally aliens! She studies linguistics at UC Davis and lives with her son, her husband, and two 55lb balls of fluff named Minnie and Daisy… because her husband’s NOT obsessed with Disney ;-)
Find more at MelCorbett.com and on Mel’s Amazon Author page.
Get updates at MelCorbett.com/updates
Continue reading for your exclusive sneak peek of
ONE
JORDAN
“A promotion?” Connie asked, rubbing the disinfectant onto Georgina’s hands for the third time. Hygiene rules were strictly enforced—especially in the mess—and the toddler kept finding weird things to get her hands dirty with. “That’s wonderful! Of course, we’ll go to the ceremony. Won’t we, Mike?”
“Whatever,” Mikey said. He slapped his tray down onto the rack as they moved forwards.
Jordan stared up at his little brother. Somehow, in the past few months the rug rat had shot up past Jordan and was filling out across the shoulders. “You’re not even seventeen, yet. How can they be promoting you?”
“Shut up!” Jordan snapped. He glanced around to see if anyone had heard, but none of the other soldiers were even looking his way, except Ma
son, and she was too far to hear. He smiled at her, and she winked back.
“Besides, you’ll be seventeen next month. You put any thought into enlisting?”
“Unlike you, I’m not a liar,” Mikey said. “If I were going to enlist, I wouldn’t until I really was old enough.”
“We’re getting a lot of tech off that ship we brought down,” Jordan said, ignoring the jibe. “Next time Al comes sniffing, our fighters will be ready for him. You should help us bring him down.”
“I like it in the gardens,” Mikey said.
Jordan rolled his eyes. “The gardens? You’re taller than me. You’re built for fighting Al. You’re built for carrying a gun.”
A hand touched Jordan’s waist, and he spun, only to find Mason—Bess—smiling up at him. Her eyes sparkled.
“B—Mason, you surprised me,” Jordan stammered. She didn’t want anyone knowing her ‘countrified’ name.
“You can call me Bess in front of your family, just keep it down so the others don’t… think I’m a girly-girl.”
Jordan laughed. “No one will think you’re a girly-girl.”
“What’s so wrong with being a girly-girl?” Connie asked.
“When you’re a soldier? Everything,” Bess said. She held out her hand. “I’m Bess Mason, and you must be Connie. Jordan said he’d be inviting you to the promotion ceremony.”
Connie shook her hand and slid her and Georgina’s trays along in front of the mostly empty serving stations.
“I like her,” Connie mouthed to Jordan as Bess turned her sights on Mikey. Jordan’s cheeks burned hot for a moment, but Bess didn’t notice.
“And you must be his ‘little’ brother, Mikey, but you don’t look so little to me.” Bess offered her hand, but Mikey refused to take it. “And don’t listen to your brother, we need gardeners, too. If you’re not looking to fight, that’s fine. Without you, there’d be no delicious…” Bess glanced at the slop the server was dumping onto her plate. “This stuff. No delicious this stuff.”