by Renee Bond
So. Think. Think!
I sat on the edge of the bed.
It had been a few days since I’d actually had any autonomy. The notion of being able to leave the room if I wanted almost felt weird.
“Is there a way off this ship?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the drone. “There are shuttles and spacecraft capable of ferrying passengers to the ground. There are also combat exoskeletons, which would allow you to safely jump to the ground, assuming you have the skill to pilot one.”
“Would any of those things follow my orders?” I asked, crossing my fingers. “The shuttles, I mean.”
“I… yes, of course,” it said.
This drone sounded... confused.
Curiouser and Curiouser.
I wanted to ask it why it was deferring to me. Karkan had made it clear that I was to be confined to these quarters, much less the ship! But, I didn’t want to mess around with this strange new ability to be listened to. I had no idea how long it would last. Anything I said might make the thing come to its senses and stop obeying me.
Just then, I had a rather profound idea.
“How many human prisoners are on this ship?” I asked.
“I’m afraid that information is classified,” said the drone.
“You were obeying my orders a minutes ago,” I said, confused. “Now tell me how many fucking human prisoners are on this fucking ship!”
“I… not including yourself, four hundred and thirty-one,” it said.
Again, the drone had that second of hesitation. It was as if it was conflicted about doing what I told it to. Regardless, it seemed like giving it orders would work where requests wouldn’t.
“Ok,” I said. I took a deep breath, trying to summon the courage to do what my mind was screaming at me to do. “Open their cell doors. Now.”
“I… at once-”
“No! Don’t do that!” I shouted.
“I… alright.”
Shit. This was getting very complicated, very quickly.
Karkan, Lenth and Sandora would not like it if I freed their prisoners.
To put it mildly.
And yet, there were still hundreds of resistance prisoners on this ship. And I, apparently, somehow, now had the power to set them free. Or to give them a shot at escaping, anyways. As such, I felt a nearly overpowering obligation to do… fucking something!
But if I did do fucking something, what would that mean for my status as a Domann mate?
Well fuck, they wouldn’t, like, demote me. The Domann needed women like me! Even if they were angry, it’s not like Karkan and his guard would throw me back in a prison cell.
Would they?
Just then, I realized that I was actually worried about damaging the fledgling relationships I’d begun developing with Karkan, Lenth and Sandora. I was actually conflicted about doing something that the Domann wouldn’t want!
Yet another strange feeling.
I took a deep breath.
Shit, hadn’t the three of them just revealed to me that they thought of me as an intelligence asset first, and a mate second?
Or… was I being too hard on them?
They did have duties to perform, after all. Orders, and all that.
But so did I!
I was still a member of the human resistance!
Shit. I was feeling more and more overwhelmed by the second.
“Tell me if there are any prisoners named Kara, Damien, or Garth,” I told the drone.
“I… there is a woman named Kara Melborn,” it replied.
Hm. Kara was still on the ship.
“Take me to her cell,” I ordered.
Even if I was going to try to engineer some sort of mass breakout… hundreds of suddenly-freed prisoners would surely raise some sort of alarm, whereas a small handful might not.
Right?
Shit! I was grasping in the dark. The truth was I had no idea what would happen.
But just then I decided that I definitely had to do something. Karkan, Lenth and Sandora had managed to put some sort of alien love spell on me, twisting me around their fingers, and then their cocks, in just a few shorts days. But I’d been a member of the resistance all my life! I couldn’t abandon that. I couldn’t just forget about my people.
“I… at once.”
The door to the living quarters slid back open as I followed the drone out.
Chapter 32
Liza
“Holy shit! Liza!”
Kara was surprised to see me. Well, actually, maybe ‘shocked beyond imagination,’ was a better phrase to describe the expression she wore, right after I stepped into her cell, my new little drone servant in tow.
“You have no idea,” I said as I walked towards her, “ how glad I am to see a fucking human face!”
She rose from the pile of loose bedding in one corner of her cell, then all but ran over to me. We embraced in a fierce hug.
Then, just as suddenly, she broke away from me.
“How the fuck did you just walk in here like that?” she demanded, eyeing my little drone servant. “You some kind of fucking collaborator now?”
“I can explain,” I said, swallowing hard.
“You damn well better!” she said.
“You know…” I started, suddenly very self-conscious, “...how some women are able to have... alien babies?”
Kara’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Apparently the little metal aliens,” I said, jerking my thumb at my drone, “have to do what I say now.”
Kara, very clearly, didn’t know what the fuck to think. She stared at me, her mouth slack, for long seconds.
Then she hugged me again.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” she said, her tone deeply consoling. “Whatever those fucking bastards did to you, it’s not your fault, ok?”
Hm. She was, of course, assuming I’d hated every second of mating with my Domann.
“To be honest…” I said, before breaking off.
How much could I tell her? How would she react to hearing that Karkan, Sandora and Lenth had been the best lovers I could have ever asked for, had given me the best sex of my life by several dozen light-years? What would she think of me if I told her that, as dominant as they were, they all had a gentle side, a caring side?
That… I was actually falling in love with all three of them?
What would she think of me if I told her that a big part of me was actually glad I’d met them?
“I’m fine,” I insisted, flashing her a big, cheesy grin. “Fucking Damien prepared me for the worst anyways!”
Kara cracked up, before regaining control of herself.
“Ok,” she said. “I’m glad you seem… ok. But you can talk to me, you hear? If you need someone to listen. A shoulder to cry on. I’m here for you. I mean… if I can be? Are… are you still, like, a prisoner?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “My… the aliens, told me to stay in one place. And I don’t think they know that I didn’t do that. Because apparently, I can boss around their drones now. And I don’t know if they’re aware of that either!”
I stopped talking.
Kara was eyeing me funny again.
“So, you just got fucked by a bunch of fucking alien scum,” she said, suspiciously, “but you’re fine. And you can give orders to their drones. Can you see how this is starting to look from my perspective?”
“Like I’m a fucking traitor and an alien-lover?” I asked.
“Like maybe you were the one who led them to our fucking base in the first place,” Kara said.
“I didn’t!” I insisted. “I would never - look,” I said, taking a deep breath. “There are too many things I don’t know for us to be having this discussion right now. This drone here might realize that I’m supposed to be somewhere else any minute-”
“I’m fully aware that you are supposed to be confined to the captain’s quarters,” the drone interrupte
d.
“Shit!” I swore. “See? We’ve got a limited window here, and if we don’t try to get the fuck off this ship-”
“OK!” said Kara. “Since my other choice is staying in my fucking cell, I guess I have to trust you. For now. But if this is some kind of set-up, so help me, Liza, I will fuck you up.”
“If this is a set-up, I’ll help you do it,” I said. “Now let’s go!”
“Um,” Kara said, “go where?”
Shit.
“Shit,” I said. “That’s a really good question.”
“I’ve just received a recorded transmission for Liza Strong,” said the drone suddenly.
Kara and I froze.
“Would you like me to play the recording now?” It asked helpfully.
Kara glared at me. Backed away a step.
“Play it,” I said.
A tiny holographic image of Lenth appeared, as if standing atop the drone’s metal shell.
“What I’m about to say,” Lenth said, “stays between you and me. If Karkan or Sandora hear about it, it will mean big trouble for me. So I’m trusting you to keep this little message to yourself. Anyways. I just thought you deserved to hear the whole truth about why we’re pressing you so hard for information on the resistance - and about why you need to give us that information as quickly as possible. You see, there are different factions among the Domann leadership. Those factions used to agree that hunting down resistance groups and taking as many prisoners as possible was the best course of action. But many in our government are growing impatient. And that impatience is leading to growing support for an alternative strategy to combat human resistance. And that strategy… is to wipe every city that harbors resisters off the face of the Earth. Starting with Atlanta.”
I gasped. Kara did likewise.
“Orbital bombardment has proven to be an effective deterrent to armed resistance on many dozens of other worlds that our race has conquered,” Lenth continued. “The reason it hasn’t been used yet is that we’ve been striving to forge a more peaceful relationship with humanity. For the record, Karkan, Sandora and I are absolutely against destroying whole cities in order to show humanity the folly of resistance, for a wide variety of reasons. But we’re under pressure to show that we can actually shut down all resistance in the city of Atlanta… and, if we can’t do that through non-lethal means, our leadership will eventually turn to more extreme measures. And if that happens, every human in the city will die. And not just in Atlanta, either. If this strategy is adopted, our leadership will likely target every city with a heavy resistance presence - New York, Mexico City, Singapore, Perth, Capetown, Paris. Imagine a billion dead humans, and you get the picture. And that picture is not a pretty one. So, now you know. Obviously, this information is highly sensitive, and even more highly classified. Karkan, good captain that he is, wouldn’t break protocol so that you might understand our urgency. But I have a funny feeling that you might be more willing to work with us if you know what’s at stake. So please… help us. I don’t care how. We need the resistance in Atlanta to end - and so does every man, woman and child living there. The sooner, the better.”
The holographic image winked out.
For a long moment, neither Kara nor I spoke.
“That… didn’t sound good,” she finally said.
I couldn’t help but agree. Vehemently.
“We have to get out of here,” I said. It did feel good to know that the reason Karkan, Sandora and Lenth were still treating me as an intelligence asset was that they were actually trying to save human lives. It gave a context to our last conversation that made everything they’d said far more sympathetic in my eyes.
But this was bigger than me now. Bigger than one woman falling for three aliens.
If there was a chance that the Domann might start turning cities into craters, the resistance had to know about it.
“Do you think that was… true?” asked Kara. “Could have been a lie, to try to get you to talk?”
“No,” I said. “Since becoming a Domann mate, I’ve… spent some time, with them. Including that one. Lenth - that’s his name - is a simple man. Alien. Shit, you know what I mean. It makes perfect sense that he would think that sharing that information would be the simplest way to get me to talk, and that he wouldn’t give a shit about whatever regulations prevented Karkan from telling me directly. In other words… it checks out to me.”
“Karkan?” asked Kara, her eyebrows slowly rising.
“We don’t have time for this!” I insisted. “We need to get off this fucking ship, ASAP. I don’t know what the resistance would even do about orbital bombardment, but they won't be able to do anything if they don’t know it’s coming!”
“OK,” she said. “I’m with you. But I’ve got my eye on you, Liza.”
I had no more thoughts of staging some sort of mass escape. The more people that got out, the higher the chance that we would all be caught. And this information was too damn important. We needed to maximize our chances of getting this intel back to the resistance.
Even if that meant leaving hundreds of comrades in enemy hands.
I ordered my drone to take us to the nearest shuttle.
After ten minutes of half-walking, half-running down nearly empty corridors, we reached a small hanger. There were just two ships inside of it, those long, skinny, almost fragile-looking Domann transport ships.
“Tell me you can fly one of these!” I said, addressing my drone.
“I can fly one of these,” it replied.
“Good! Then - wait.” I stopped. Thought about the wording of that last order. “Tell me if you actually can fly one of these.”
“I am able to interact with the ship’s autopilot functions,” the drone said.
“Good! Get us on one of them!”
“I… at once.”
We boarded the ship.
Managed, after some awkward experimenting and several halting explanations from my drone, to strap ourselves into the oversized seats in the ship’s cockpit.
A few minutes later, we took off.
When we cleared the hanger’s protection field, I was surprised to find that we were only about a thousand feet off the ground. Here I’d assumed that we’d been in space this whole time.
“Where would you like the ship to-” the drone started to ask.
“Just get us on the damn ground! As fast as possible!”
“I... at once.”
Chapter 33
Sandora
I knew Lenth was going to send Liza some sort of message.
Serve alongside a man for decades, and you almost get to know the inside of his brain. Combine Lenth’s preference for straightforward simplicity with his disdain for protocols, and it was pretty obvious that he would try to give Liza a little context for why she really did need to help us find the resistance in Atlanta.
So when he sent his message, and the AI programs I’d set up to monitor our comm network replayed that message for me, I was less than shocked.
I thought about informing Karkan.
Then I had an even better idea.
I excused myself from the bridge, where Karkan was busy speaking with a contact from the admiralty concerning our fuel resupply schedule.
Then I ordered the first drone I came across to allow Liza to have unrestricted access to our communication network.
You see, I’d been thinking.
What if one night of passionate lovemaking, wonderful though it was, simply wasn’t enough to turn a hardened resistance fighter like Liza Strong into a Domann sympathizer? What if the threat of orbital bombardment was enough to make her try to contact someone in the resistance? All we would have to do is trace her message and pinpoint its recipient. Knowing the identity and location of whoever Liza would contact with such an urgent piece of intel would give us an excellent lead on tracking down the next resistance cell in Atlanta.
I just hoped she would be smart enough, and bold enough, to try to use our own comm syst
ems to send a message to the resistance.
I waited, for a time, after Lenth’s message to Liza went through.
Then I checked a camera feed of our personal quarters.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered it empty.
Quietly, I ordered the ship’s main AI to access every camera on the ship at once. Told it to find Liza’s location.
Imagine my further surprise when I discovered that she was fucking taking off in a fucking transport!
I ordered the transport ship to return to its hanger.
Imagine my unfathomable shock when the transport’s onboard AI reported to me that I lacked the authority to reroute it!
Which, I might add, I most certainly did not lack.
Somehow, Liza Strong had broken out of our personal living quarters. Freed one of her fellow prisoners. Commandeered a transporter. And I was, for some reason, unable to stop her from leaving the ship!
She was a hell of a woman, all right. It was as if she was some kind of idiot-savant, only her singular genius talent was disobedience. Nevertheless, the Domann race could only benefit from the addition of her genes to our gene pool. She had grit, determination, and fearlessness to spare.
I rushed back to the bridge. All but panicking.
An escaped prisoner was one thing.
An escaped Domann mate was many orders of magnitude more serious.
Back on the bridge, Karkan was still arguing over some insignificant aspect of timing, or fuel amounts, or fucking something. Lenth was standing behind him, back from recording and sending his supposedly private message.
I took the liberty of cutting Karkan’s call short.
He turned to me. Surprise painting his face.
“Would you care to explain-” he began.
“We’ve got a problem,” I interrupted. “And that problem is rather large.”
Chapter 34
Liza
Drone Face - that’s the name I gave my drone, in my head - set the transport ship down in a small park, which occupied a plot of land surrounded on all sides by low brick buildings. The ship was so long, it damn near stretched from one end of the park to the other. Sounds impressive, until you realize that the park couldn’t have been bigger than half a block on each side.