Alien Conquest

by Tracy St. John

  Chap­ter 8

  Li­don sat at the com­puter sta­tion in the clan’s quar­ters, frown­ing as he ran de­cod­ing pro­gram af­ter de­cod­ing pro­gram on the Earther trans­port’s records. Thanks to a crewmem­ber’s newly en­hanced in­ter­pret­ing de­sign, he was fi­nally mak­ing some head­way on the Earther sys­tems. It hadn’t got­ten him far yet. Af­ter hours of work, all the Nobek had de­ci­phered were safe han­dling in­struc­tions for trans­port­ing haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als, codes of eti­quette for dig­ni­taries who hitched a ride, and in­struc­tions on how to ser­vice the ship’s ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem. He snorted at the para­noia that drove Earth­ers to en­code ev­ery­thing. Even be­fore the war they’d been a highly sus­pi­cious lot.

  Tra­nis and De­gorsk were cur­rently in the con­tain­ment unit with Gen­eral Hamil­ton, where the chief medic was per­form­ing a full phys­i­cal on the Earther. Cap­tain Big­ger’s un­ex­pected death was mak­ing ev­ery­one cau­tious when it came to in­ter­ro­gat­ing Hamil­ton. Tra­nis had de­cided it was im­per­a­tive they make sure no other ugly sur­prises awaited be­yond the ex­plo­sive heart im­plant. No doubt the in­va­sive­ness of a com­plete workup would be a form of tor­ture for the up­tight gen­eral. Li­don’s lips curled in a ruth­less smile.

  The com­puter beeped at him, and he peered at the mon­i­tor. An­other bit of in­for­ma­tion had been de­coded. Li­don stud­ied the data, his heart beat­ing a lit­tle faster.

  Unau­tho­rized en­trance into Earth’s at­mos­phere by way of the Tri­an­gles will re­sult in Ar­maged­don.

  “Fi­nally,” Li­don breathed. He hoped this tan­ta­liz­ing tid­bit about ac­cess­ing Earth meant he’d dis­cov­ered some­thing to do with breach­ing the planet’s se­cu­rity.

  “Con­cen­trate de­cod­ing on one hun­dred ci­pher groups sur­round­ing last de­coded en­try,” he or­dered the com­puter. He added, “Sep­a­rate com­mand: de­fine ‘Ar­maged­don’ as the term re­lates to Earth.”

  A new read­out ap­peared next to the first. Ar­maged­don. Ex­act trans­la­tion: Moun­tain of Meg­gido, which is lo­cated in the prov­ince of Is­rael, Mid­dle East­ern Bloc. More pop­u­lar use: fi­nal bat­tle be­tween prophet Je­sus and the an­tichrist as de­picted in Earth’s of­fi­cial re­li­gion.

  Li­don swore un­der his breath. “An­other damned code. Lo­ca­tion and ge­og­ra­phy of ‘the Tri­an­gles’ on Earth.”

  No ge­o­graphic cor­re­la­tion for any lo­ca­tion named ‘the Tri­an­gles’. The no­ta­tion may re­fer to ar­eas known as the Bermuda Tri­an­gle and the Dragon’s Tri­an­gle.

  The screen dis­played two ar­eas on the en­emy planet, one off the North Amer­i­can coast and the other off the Asian coast. The lo­ca­tions were in the two largest seas of Earth.

  None of it made sense to Li­don. As part of a spy­ship crew that tar­geted their ef­forts against Earth, he had some un­der­stand­ing of his en­emy’s re­li­gion. He’d spent many an evening study­ing the be­lief sys­tem along with tak­ing a train­ing course. Even with the knowl­edge the Nobek had gained, he couldn’t imag­ine how en­ter­ing the planet’s at­mos­phere could set off a fight be­tween good and evil re­li­gious en­ti­ties.

  At any rate, they had to ac­cess the se­cu­rity grid be­fore the Kalquo­ri­ans could get near Earth’s at­mos­phere. “Close sec­ond read­out,” he sighed. The maps winked out.

  At least it was some­thing new to ques­tion Hamil­ton about. Li­don had no doubt that by us­ing the com­puter he would even­tu­ally be able to ex­pose all the se­crets the Earther trans­port car­ried. Yet get­ting the en­emy gen­eral to spill his guts would be much faster. And more sat­is­fy­ing.

  A soft snore in­ter­rupted his thoughts. Li­don turned to smile at Cas­sidy, well into her sec­ond hour of sleep. She curled on the bil­low­ing sleep­ing mat, her lovely pale body shim­mer­ing against the dark blue linens. She looked ethe­real, like a mag­i­cal crea­ture that could dis­ap­pear with the slight­est breath of air. De­spite her ex­hausted slum­ber, ten­sion creased a line be­tween her brows.

  Poor child, the Nobek thought, a stab of sym­pa­thy slic­ing into his heart. De­spite feel­ing sorry for her plight, it did not quite calm the in­stant erec­tion he got from look­ing at her. He wished there was some way of help­ing her see that the clan was putting her through hell so she might re­al­ize par­adise in the end.

  Cas­sidy’s stub­born re­solve im­pressed Li­don. She re­fused to be in­tim­i­dated by the three men’s size and strength, per­haps dis­cern­ing they could never cause her real harm. Had they given her the means to at­tack with blaster or blade, Li­don had no doubt the lit­tle Earther would do her damnedest to evis­cer­ate them. She had strength, all right.

  Yet some­times Cas­sidy broke as ex­haus­tion and her nat­u­ral sex­ual urges gained the up­per hand. When her re­solve crum­bled, it usu­ally meant tears would soon fol­low. See­ing the young Earther cry was harder than Li­don had an­tic­i­pated. It made some­thing in his chest ache.

  Li­don had killed en­e­mies in the line of mil­i­tary duty and never lost a mo­ment’s sleep over it. Nobeks were the fiercest of Kalquo­ri­ans, and Li­don was one of the dead­li­est of his breed. But his lit­tle Matara’s tears hurt his heart. He’d rather cut off his good leg than make Cas­sidy suf­fer any emo­tional an­guish. It felt wrong that he, the man sworn to pro­tect her from all harm, was seen as her great­est en­emy.

  Li­don checked the chronome­ter on the com­puter read­out. Ac­cord­ing to De­gorsk’s or­ders, he was mo­ments away from wak­ing Cas­sidy from her ex­hausted rest. It was nearly time to ply her co­op­er­a­tion with more per­sua­sive love­mak­ing.

  Li­don would tell Cas­sidy she’d had a full sleep cy­cle, help­ing to con­fuse her sense of time and mak­ing her doubt her senses. Ac­cord­ing to what the psy­cho­log­i­cal board re­ported, fa­tigue would ex­ac­er­bate the un­cer­tainty the clan tor­tured the girl with. It would make Cas­sidy more sus­cep­ti­ble to los­ing her con­vic­tion that sex with the Kalquo­ri­ans was a sin.

  Li­don wasn’t sure brain­wash­ing Cas­sidy in such a way was eth­i­cal, but he knew she had a skewed idea of evil as it re­lated to love­mak­ing. Most Earth­ers did, tyr­an­nized by their Church-led gov­ern­ment. The Nobek snorted at the idea of nor­mal bi­o­log­i­cal needs be­ing held as evil. He thought such dogma was the real evil. One only had to see how con­fused and up­set Cas­sidy be­came over it to know the ex­trem­ism had done ter­ri­ble dam­age. His lit­tle love was trau­ma­tized and pro­grammed by Earth’s in­sane stric­tures. Was it re­ally so aw­ful what they were do­ing to her and the other women?

  De­gorsk seemed to think so. Li­don’s Imdiko was find­ing it harder and harder to have his team co­erce the Mataras into sex­ual play. The medic was try­ing to find a gen­tler so­lu­tion to the prob­lem, search­ing for some way of con­vinc­ing the women of their worth and right to plea­sure.

  Li­don looked at Cas­sidy and thought ahead to what was about to hap­pen. Her lush body beck­oned him, and heat trick­led into his cocks. He’d noted that this won­drous be­ing des­tined to be his life­mate seemed to re­spond to both ten­der­ness and a firm hand. The lat­ter suited him quite well. Cas­sidy would soon find his meth­ods were nowhere near as gen­tle as De­gorsk’s. It was time to dis­cover if she liked rougher use as much as he sus­pected.

  Li­don looked at the blank wall where the re­straints he’d planned had still not been in­stalled. No mat­ter. The anti-grav­ity cuffs would work well enough for his pur­poses this time. Cas­sidy would be just as vul­ner­a­ble to his in­duce­ments. Us­ing phys­i­cal means to se­cure her obe­di­ence didn’t bother the Nobek as much as the men­tal games. She’d al­ready shown some en­joy­ment of such play. With De­gorsk’s bless­ing to in­cor­po­rate pun­ish­ment into her re-ed­u­ca­t
ion, Li­don was ready to find out how rough she liked it.

  He stood and stepped to the bed­side. Cas­sidy’s sweet, round face sur­rounded by the cloud of al­most-white hair was the loveli­est thing he’d ever seen. Look­ing down on the soft curves of her body, know­ing it was his to en­joy for the rest of their lives made Li­don’s groin throb. He swal­lowed, think­ing of all the plea­sur­able acts he would per­form with her in the years to come. One day she would wel­come them with all her be­ing.

  At his com­mand, a drawer over the bed slid sound­lessly from the wall. Li­don took four cuffs from the drawer, and it re­tracted to blend seam­lessly into the wall once more. He strapped the anti-grav­ity shack­les on the girl’s wrists and an­kles. Cas­sidy moaned in her sleep but didn’t wake as he worked.

  As soon as he had her prop­erly cuffed, he or­dered, “El­e­vate pris­oner three feet, ver­ti­cal X-for­ma­tion.”

  Cas­sidy slowly rose into the air, pulled up­right by the wrist cuffs. Her eyes flut­tered for an in­stant be­fore clos­ing heav­ily once more. Her head lolled un­til her chin came to rest on her chest. Ex­haus­tion owned her, but not for long.

  Li­don pulled her body away from the bed so it hung sus­pended over the floor. Then he went to the work­sta­tion where a hypo of stim­u­lant waited, left by De­gorsk. It would wake Cas­sidy with­out negat­ing the ef­fects of the ex­treme weari­ness on her mind, leav­ing her vul­ner­a­ble to sug­ges­tion.

  Li­don in­jected her and tossed the hypo away. He counted down the sec­onds it took for the stim­u­lant to work its way through her body, ad­mir­ing her pale, lush fig­ure as the shack­les held her spread-ea­gle in the air. He walked around her, drink­ing her in from ev­ery an­gle be­fore stop­ping at her side.

  His breath warm­ing the del­i­cate cup of her ear, Li­don whis­pered, “Time to wake, my pet.” His hand swung and con­nected with one fleshy cheek of her but­tocks, mak­ing a sat­is­fy­ing smack.

  * * * *

  Cas­sidy cried out at the sharp pain that came out of nowhere, jerk­ing her out of sleep. Heat ra­di­ated from her hindquar­ters. She pried her weighted lids apart to see Li­don stand­ing over her. She was shocked to find her­self up­right and hang­ing in mid-air.

  Li­don pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Good morn­ing, Cas­sidy. Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

  She stared at him, her brain foggy. Had she re­ally slept the night through? It felt as if she’d only just closed her eyes. Her head throbbed with heav­i­ness.

  Li­don moved, and three ex­plo­sive slaps warmed her bot­tom. Cas­sidy yelped in sur­prise at the sud­den, un­ex­pected hurt. Dear God, was the alien spank­ing her?

  The Nobek kissed her cheek again. She stared at him, ex­haus­tion bring­ing tears to her eyes. That and some­thing else up­set her to the point of weep­ing. For some rea­son, Li­don was dis­pleased with her. He must be an­noyed or he wouldn’t be swat­ting her back­side like a dis­ap­prov­ing fa­ther.

  She didn’t like that. She also didn’t like that Li­don’s un­hap­pi­ness felt like a bad thing. Anger joined her dis­tress.

  What­ever made him put out with her enough to war­rant this pun­ish­ment wasn’t read­ily ap­par­ent. Fight­ing the ir­ra­tional urge to apol­o­gize for mak­ing him dis­sat­is­fied, Cas­sidy yelled in the Nobek’s face, “Don’t hit me! You have no right!”

  At odds with his ac­tions, Li­don’s ex­pres­sion was pa­tient though his pur­ple cat eyes were in­tense. In a gen­tle voice he said, “I asked you a ques­tion, pet. It is im­po­lite to not an­swer your mate. Such dis­re­spect war­rants pun­ish­ment.”

  In her dazed state, she couldn’t re­mem­ber his ques­tion. Cas­sidy’s lip trem­bled as the hot sting of her rump spread. She bit back the pa­thetic sobs that wanted to es­cape, pulling her lips back in a snarl. “You are not my mate,” she whis­pered.

  Li­don smiled. He ca­ressed her breasts, his hands rough and achingly pleas­ing. Her sex clenched, adding to the heat down be­low. Cas­sidy caught her breath.

  Stop want­ing him. He’s a mon­ster.

  “I think it would be nice to start our day with love­mak­ing,” Li­don said. “You would like that too, wouldn’t you?”

  Cas­sidy ig­nored the heady com­bi­na­tion of fear and de­sire his words in­cited, con­cen­trat­ing on her moral duty. “No.”

  The Nobek’s smile grew, as if he’d hoped for her dis­agree­ment. The next in­stant he started spank­ing her again. His heavy palm smacked her but­tocks hard and fast. Cas­sidy jerked in her bonds, writhing to es­cape the pun­ish­ment. There was nowhere to go.

  “You bas­tard! Stop!”

  He didn’t stop. No part of her soft back­side was left un­touched. Li­don’s spank­ing was thor­ough, and her rump turned roast­ing hot un­der his at­ten­tion. The sharp whacks and her en­raged screams filled the room.

  Even as hurt con­sumed Cas­sidy’s ass and fury filled her mind, the heat of the blows ra­di­ated and trans­mit­ted de­li­cious sen­sa­tion to her sex. Know­ing Li­don could end the spank­ing and take her any­time he wished com­pounded the arousal, mak­ing her wet with need.

  When he stopped, Cas­sidy hung limp in the shack­les, sob­bing as much from fury as the ache throb­bing from her hindquar­ters. Hu­mil­i­a­tion was there too, in large quan­ti­ties. What was wrong with her to find plea­sure in pain?

  “The cor­rect an­swer to my ques­tion is ‘yes, please.’ I will ask again. Cas­sidy, would you like me to make love to you?” De­spite the vul­gar­ity of his words, Li­don’s tone sug­gested he was the most rea­son­able man in the uni­verse.

  Her soul was at stake. Nev­er­mind the agony her body was tak­ing per­verse de­light in. She had to be strong. She had to deny the in­nate evil of her na­ture as a woman.

  “No. You can rot in Hell.” Cas­sidy tensed for the com­ing pun­ish­ment.

  Li­don spanked her again. Her but­tocks clenched in agony against his open-handed blows, but her devil flesh re­sponded to the harsh use with re­newed de­sire. Honey crept down her in­ner thighs.

  The spank­ing lasted longer this time, and Cas­sidy’s cries were ragged with com­bined pain and want. A part of her slug­gish mind con­jured the fan­tasy of Tra­nis tak­ing her while Li­don con­tin­ued the dis­ci­pline. Her se­cret flesh flexed, thrilling to the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of her cap­tiv­ity.

  Li­don ended the pun­ish­ment, and she hung limp in the cuffs. Wan­ton whore a voice whis­pered in her mind. De­praved slut. Like all other women. Like HER.

  No.

  “Cas­sidy, would you like me to make love to you?” The Nobek’s voice was as gen­tle as some­one who would never hurt a fly, much less pun­ish a help­less girl.

  She couldn’t an­swer, be­cause she was afraid of the con­se­quences of her re­sponse. Say­ing yes was a sin. Say­ing no would pro­long the de­li­cious chas­tise­ment and make her de­sire Li­don all the more. Heat throbbed all over; her ass, her pussy, deep in­side her gut.

  Cas­sidy’s yearn­ing for more dis­ci­pline at the big alien’s hands was as shock­ing as the de­sire to say yes so he’d bury his sex in hers, re­liev­ing the need that drove away all sense and prin­ci­ples. Ei­ther way damned her soul. So Cas­sidy hung in the anti-grav cuffs, groan­ing help­lessly as crav­ing warred with ethics.

  When she didn’t an­swer, Li­don re­sumed the spank­ing. She no longer strug­gled against the blows, though she couldn’t help but cry out at each painful crack of his hand. Her be­ing was cen­tered on the lus­cious feel­ing of be­ing at the gor­geous alien’s mercy. Arousal swelled in her lower re­gions, grow­ing with ev­ery sweet strike on her hot flesh. The feel­ing in­ten­si­fied as the pun­ish­ment con­tin­ued, the de­mand for re­lease about to be re­al­ized. As in­sane as it seemed, Cas­sidy thought she might achieve cli­max from the spank­ing.

  Be­fore plea­sure over­w
helmed her senses, Li­don again halted the dis­ci­pline. This time when she sobbed, it was from loss. She had been so close…

  “Cas­sidy, would you like me to make love to you?”

  She gasped for air, try­ing des­per­ately to calm the in­tense arousal. “Stop do­ing this. If you beat me black and blue, I will never be your Matara.”

  “I have no in­ten­tion of bruis­ing your beau­ti­ful white flesh, my pet. How­ever, it is a most de­li­cious red right now. I sup­pose I could turn it a deeper shade, since you in­sist on be­ing so dis­agree­able.”

  Li­don spanked her again. Cas­sidy no­ticed he was hard, his erec­tion strain­ing his form­suit. Her or­gasm loomed, the first tickle of com­ple­tion tight­en­ing her sex.

  Just one more strike from Li­don’s big, won­der­ful hand…

  He stopped. “An­swer the ques­tion.”

  She groaned, the sound a bereft ex­ha­la­tion. She’d been right there, and she ac­tu­ally hurt from need. Cas­sidy never knew de­sire could be­come painful. Her head throbbed in tan­dem with her nether parts.

  “Last chance, pet. Yes or no?”

  “Yes, damn you.” She couldn’t re­mem­ber what she was agree­ing to. All she knew was the ter­ri­ble need would be sat­is­fied by any touch Li­don gave her.

  “I’m so glad to hear you want me as I want you.”

  In­stead of giv­ing her that last sweet blow on her throb­bing cheeks, Li­don’s fin­gers brushed her en­gorged cli­toris. It was all Cas­sidy needed. She arched with a de­lighted scream as the or­gasm fi­nally crashed against her. She rubbed fran­ti­cally against the Nobek’s cal­loused hand, the pres­sure rip­ping spasm af­ter spasm from her over­wrought body. Af­ter a mo­ment’s star­tled hes­i­ta­tion Li­don took over, cap­tur­ing her strain­ing bud be­tween his fin­gers to bring her anew. His arm cir­cled her waist, hold­ing her still while he mas­saged her wet flesh. His gaze riv­eted on her face as she gave in to the sweet shat­ter­ing cat­a­clysm.