The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Weapon Ready’

(mc, f/f, sf, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS:

Captives of an alien race embark on a desperate plan.

* * *

‘Weapon Ready’

Part Five

The tube released her and Candaes staggered forward. She opened her mouth to gasp, but the air didn’t come, and she dropped to her knees. Although her lungs burned to inhale, she squeezed hard and vomited up clear slime. She clenched again, and again, and then sucked in a clotted chestful of wonderful, breathable air.

Coughing, wiping her mouth, she looked up. Metal surfaces, hard corners. Ninety degree angles. Overhead lighting. Constructed from steel and plastic and vacrete. It was... a human room. Ship’s interior.

She staggered to her feet as behind her the tentacle’s orifice unclenched and disgorged Csina. The taller woman tottered forward; Candaes caught her and held her as she spattered slime onto the floor.

There was movement outside the open rectangular doorway. A slugsuited woman clumped by naked on her black hooves, head slightly bent to avoid the ceiling.

The woman paused, then took a few steps back and looked into the room where Candaes still held a gasping Csina. Candaes stared back at her.

Had they reached ahead? Were the slugsuits waiting for them up here?

The woman looked at them for a moment, then a corner of her mouth crooked upward and she turned away. Candaes listened to her clumping away down the corridor.

The tentacle puckered again and out came Wei-Li. She stepped out lightly, purposefully. Her eyes caught Candaes’ eyes, then she turned her head and barfed out oxygenated slime.

Csina crossed to the doorway and peered up and down the hallway. She looked back into the room. “She’s gone. No one out here.”

Candaes nodded. “I’m ready, let’s go.”

Wei-Li drew the back of her arm across her mouth. “I too am ready.”

Csina drew herself up slightly. “I... before we go, I have to ask. Wei-Li: can we trust you?”

Wei-Li looked down at her body. At the grey blobs clutching her breasts, coating her sex. She looked back up. “I think so. If I feel... if I feel myself going over to them, I will speak up. I will try. It feels...” she closed her eyes, inhaled, opened them again. “...feels so good. But I don’t think I have become... like Anni. Not yet.” Her eyes were dark and inscrutable, but Candaes could feel the pain in her voice.

Candaes put a hand on Wei-Li’s shoulder. “Thank you, Wei-Li. We need you. Neither of us know where we’re going.”

“Up,” Csina said. “The reactor will be near the core.”

“That is correct,” Wei-Li replied. “Although it’s near the core, but not at. The actual rotational center of the station is hollow. And the path to the reactor is... complex. There are many systems in the way, most of them closed. The lifts will be out of commission, but I can recall with some clarity the access shaftways. I should be able to get you there.”

“’Us’,” Candaes countered. “Get ‘us’ there. We’re not naked and helpless anymore—this is a human ship, with humans on it. We’ll reach help and get that stuff off of you. They will have tools, medical facilities. We’ll get you free.”

Wei-Li shuddered, and bent over. She inhaled and stood back up, her legs wobbly.

“My mind wants that,” Wei-Li said, shivering. “But my body emphatically does not. Pray let us hurry.”

* * *

They moved swiftly down corridors and up access ladders. There was little speaking; each of the women seemed to need the time with her own thoughts.

Candaes’ were a jumble. She felt a great sorrow about losing Perrix; somehow having the free woman captured was worse than being recaptured herself, or even if one of the others had been recaptured. But there was nothing they could have done against so many of the slugsuits. Not to mention the antennae woman.

She put a hand on a ladder rung. Being on board the human ship felt... strange. Reassuring, yet somehow alien; she had grown used to the wholly organic world of the Omphalids during her few days out of the pod.

Out of the pod. How long had she been a captive, anyway? Unconscious, floating among so many hundreds of others. Washington Station... it had been well inside human space when Berengaria was attacked. Where was it now? The frontier? That meant that so many worlds had fallen...

And where were the men? And what did the Ompahlids want with a human space station, anyway, that they would capture it in this strange way? Encyst it, like grit in a pearl?

So many questions. Perhaps it was all just a strange dream, a fantasy she was having as she lay dying in the Berengaria’s hallway. And yet- she had hope. She had woken up with no goal, no purpose, other than to avoid recapture, and now she could consider escaping at least temporarily the Omphalids’ clutches and returning to human company. And Perrix had felt that there might even have been a way out, off the ship and back to human space, further down the line.

Perrix...

Candaes focused and looked around. She should have been paying attention to where she was; now she was emerging from an access shaft without remembering what the room below looked like.

She looked around now. Wei-Li was leading, already in the room; Csina was below Candaes on the ladder. The room they were entering was a small mechanical stores room of some sort; it had metal shelves with lockers. Many of the doors hung open, revealing that whatever had been stored here was now gone.

Wei-Li had crossed to the doorway. Most of the doors lacked power and had to be slid open manually; this one was no exception. She slid the door open slightly, then stopped. Her eyes flicked to the other women and she beckoned with her head.

Candaes and Csina crept up to the door, and peered through the small gap.

The room beyond was large, some sort of atrium, two stories tall with a balcony encircling it on the upper floor. The lower floor had several large planted areas and Candaes was a bit surprised to see that many of the plants were still alive.

More pressingly, the room was full of slugsuits.

There were at least fifteen of the women-in-jelly present in the room, some walking around, some standing in place. Candaes quickly scanned for, and did not see, any antennae women; neither were there any drones or rubberdolls. It was just the slugsuits. The clear flesh of their suits made it look a little like the ones walking around were floating. A number of them were sitting or even lying on the floor; many of them had grey slime on their bodies, on an arm or a leg or smeared across their torso, which was puzzling.

After a further moment of consideration, Candaes realized that it was an infirmary.

Of the women lying down several were obviously injured, at least one seriously, her eyes closed, her breathing labored. Apparently the grey slime was acting as a wound dressing—it enfolded limbs and was daubed on the torsos of several of the women on the ground.

As they peered through the crack, two additional slugsuited women entered, one limping, garish red blood visible in large smears beneath the clear flesh of her suit. Two other women who had been standing around on their hooves hurried over to assist; they draped the injured woman across their shoulders and carried her behind one of the planters, where Candaes could not see.

There was fighting going on. The humans were still resisting.

They would have to go through the fighting, to reach the human hold-outs.

Candaes realized with a start that one of the slugsuited women was looking at them. She was one of the wounded, seated on the floor, her leg wrapped in grey slime. Her face displayed the same vaguely interested amusement as had the woman who had peered in on Candaes and Csina earlier. She did nothing, and a moment later looked away.

The floor shuddered.

The women looked at each other.

“We should go,” Csina whispered. “Right through, right now.”

“I agree,” Wei-Li replied.

“Let’s do it,” Candaes concurred. She and Csina stepped back, and Wei-Li slid open the door.

They walked out into the room and began to walk. Slugsuited women turned to look at them, most from where they lay on the floor. None of them moved to intercept them, though.

On the other side of the room, a woman moaned in pain. The three of them kept walking. As they passed by a gap between planters, Candaes saw with consternation that there was an antennae woman in the room; she was on the far side, facing away, looking down at a woman on the floor. The woman who had just been carried in.

A door opened to their side. Candaes let her eyes flick over to look, while the three of them kept walking. Some other drones—no, some drones—entered the room carrying strange grey bundles, lumpy and organic but not wet-looking like the slime. They passed behind Candaes, Wei-Li, and Csina.

They kept walking; a little further and they would reach a door on the far side, the door through which the injured slugsuit had entered. Most of the room was now at their back. Candaes dared not turn her head to see if the antennae woman had noticed them.

They reached the door. Wei-Li pulled at it.

It did not open.

Csina, with her augmented strength, smoothly stepped forward and pulled at the door. It bowed slightly, but did not move.

They were caught. Candaes turned around and found a slugsuit standing directly behind her. Her gaze traveled up the woman’s nude body to her face.

With a jolt, she had a flash of recognition.

It was Lieutenant Razka.

Younger, by ten years or so, but unquestionably her. Candaes felt frozen, a fly in amber. Her emotions were an indecipherable swirl. The woman towered over her, face lit with mild amusement, her body’s smooth curves draped and flared with the smooth clear flesh of her suit.

Lieutenant Razka was hot.

Lieutenant Razka was a bug.

“Lieutenant?” Candaes whispered.

They were caught now. This woman who had been Vira Razka would extend a long needle from the back of her hand, and stick Candaes with it and then Csina and Wei-Li and that would be it. They had failed, would wind up back in those pods, because of a simple, stupid coincidence. Because Candaes happened to wind up face to face with a former friend of hers.

A corner of Razka’s mouth crooked into a smile. Then she formed her lips into an ‘O’, and expelled a smooth stream of clear slime, turning her head so that she didn’t hit Candaes.

The stream of slime finished and Razka smacked her lips a few times; then the tip of her tongue pushed past her lips. It stretched out impossibly far. Candaes’ eyes widened. The tongue withdrew.

Razka winked at Candaes, then took a step forward, passing her. She leaned over and pulled the door open, muscles both peach-colored and clear flexing and shining in the light. Then she turned to Csina.

“You need yoh sheath, sistah,” she said, then stepped back. “It completes us.” She looked at Candaes. “Nice toh see you, Candaes. Good luck.”

* * *

They walked down the hall in silence, until the door closed behind them.

“You knew her,” Csina said.

“She was on my ship,” Candaes replied dazedly. “She was there when we were attacked. My leg was broken; she picked me up. We... went down together. Were captured.”

“And now she’s in a slugsuit.”

Candaes nodded.

“Candaes, I-”

“Hold me, Csina,” Candaes said, stopping suddenly. “I feel weird and I need comfort.”

Csina opened her arms and held her. For a moment, Candaes pushed out all the thoughts, the fear and the hope and the confusion, and simply focused on being held. The warm (nude) body of Csina, pressed against her own nude body. She focused on each point of contact: upper leg, belly, breasts, inner arms, cheek. For a moment, Candaes let it all go, and enjoyed the feel of... her love.

“We should go,” Wei-Li finally said.

“How far now?” Csina asked over Candaes’ head.

“I’m not sure, but it cannot be much further. I think there are some water reclamation areas just ahead, and then the start of general engineering. The fusion core was only a bit beyond that.”

Candaes stepped back. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m ready. Let’s find some free people.”

“Some other free people,” Csina corrected.

They passed through another doorway—this one opened easily—and crawled up another access shaft. Candaes was very aware of the decreasing gravity - centrifugal force, linear acceleration, whichever formula you liked best—and she was careful to use a minimum of force on each metal rung.

The shaft opened into a giant space. The ceiling was twenty meters above; they were emerging from one corner. Huge metal tanks filled the room, reaching almost to the ceiling, easily six meters in diameter. They were arranged in a grid, with perhaps a meter separating them at their closest points. Candaes counted six tanks across and more than twenty stretching away down the room. The room as full.

“Water reclamation,” Wei-Li observed as she emerged from the shaft. “They keep it up high so it’s easy to pressurize the system.”

“Looks like we can walk abreast if we go down the middle,” Csina said, pointing. “The tanks aren’t as close together there.”

They walked through the tremendous room; there was a passageway of sorts down the middle, three giant tanks standing on either side. The metal floor was cold beneath Candaes’ bare feet. One advantage of living floors, if you were naked...

Csina held up a hand, and they froze. Then Candaes heard it too.

A clanging sound.

Hooves on metal.

Getting louder.

They looked around quickly. At the base of one of the tanks was a complicated array of tubes and instrument panels, some sort of circulation control. The three of them scurried to it and crouched down behind.

The sound of hooves came nearer, mingled with the much quieter brushing sound of other feet. A slugsuited woman walked by down the central corridor. Behind her came a procession of drones. Drones carrying burdens.

Cocoons.

No one said anything as they watched the nude women walking by, carrying between them gel-filled sacs containing naked people. Those doing the carrying were all young, tight-bodied women, faces blank, legs moving in perfect syncopation. Those in the cocoons...

Were men.

Candaes blinked. She hadn’t seen a man since she’d awoken.

There were two of them, and a single woman. An older woman. All three were unconscious, their hair drifting loosely in the slime that filled the cocoon.

The group passed by quickly, six drones bearing their human burdens, then four more drones walking mindless and empty-handed. Then they were past, the last of them a second slugsuited woman, striding by with her strangely-jointed gait, her hooves ringing metallically on the floor.

The three of them slowly stood up.

“Fresh captives,” Csina whispered.

“It seems that way,” Mei-Li observed. “But can we do anything? There are no sphincters here to trick them into. They are on their guard. And we still have neither tools nor weapons.”

“We don’t know where they’re going; there’s no way to ambush them,” Csina added.

Candaes nodded. “We don’t even know what they do with the men; there’s probably an entire other section of the Hive for them. They’re headed somewhere we know nothing about.”

“We’re making excuses,” Csina said curtly. “We have to decide: are we here to save ourselves? Or to help those humans?”

“We must choose quickly,” Wei-Li pointed out. “Follow them? Or continue towards the reactor?”

They shared a look, and the matter was decided.

“For Perrix,” Candaes replied quietly as they turned around and walked quickly after the departing Omphalids.

* * *

At the end of the room there was a large metal door, tall and wide enough to pass a vehicle through. The edges of the door remained in place; the center was just a hole now, the edge a glossy smear where a cutting beam had made the lock irrelevant. The large metal plate that had been the door rang under the hooves of the slugsuits.

Candaes, Csina, and Wei-Li waited for the raiding party to pass through into the next room, then scurried quickly to the cut-open door and peered around it. The room beyond was long and large and filled with tubes and piping. A number of large tanks were spaced around the interior, much smaller than in the previous room, and clear rather than metallic. They seemed to be full of mucky water.

“Organic filtering and reclamation,” Wei-Li whispered. “Washington Station has a to-the-fifth-place recovery rate in their water and waste handling; the system is a combination Coriolis/YKR installation, which is why the maturation tanks are clear but the tubing is opaque. My audit...” She stopped, then chuckled quietly. “Never mind.”

On the upside, it would be easy to remain hidden from the raiding party in a room full of tanks and tubes and valves and other apparati. On the downside, it would be easy to lose them, to get so far behind that they failed to see a turn.

Csina darted into the room. Candaes followed, then Wei-Li. They ducked under a white meter-thick tube and crouched behind a spherical vat; then scurried down a path through a forest of thin vertical pipes. Emerging from that, they slipped between a variety of floor-mounted machinery and pressed up against a large tank of muck.

They peered around the edge of the tank. They were falling behind; the raiding party was almost thirty meters away. The far wall of the room was not far beyond them, and that wall had multiple doors in it.

Csina raced across the open central area and pressed up against a tank on the other side. Candaes was just about to follow her when she hesitated. Down the room, the raiding party had stopped.

Then there was a thunderclap.

Candaes and Wei-Li, and across the central path Csina, stared in surprise as explosions tore open the large tanks on either side of the raiding party and they vanished in a sudden burst of water and sludge.

The piled sludge drained rapidly, water sheeting across the floor towards the concealed women. Not only all the drones but even the slugsuits had been knocked to the floor; one of them was struggling to rise. Weapons fired and she fell back down.

From beyond the ruined tanks, figures waded out into the sludge. Most of them had two-handed projectile guns; all of them wore clothes, which gave them a strange, baggy look. Some of them started digging around in the muck. A cocoon was raised up and leaned against a shredded tank wall.

Candaes looked at Wei-Li. The resistance! Free humans. But how could they approach them without being mistaken for drones, and quite possibly shot?

There was movement at the wall just beyond Csina—a door opening. A slugsuit stepped through. Then another. Candaes saw with relief that the slugsuits couldn’t see Csina from where they were, but as a third joined them her worry mounted regardless.

“There are more here,” Wei-Li hissed at her. Candaes looked past Wei-Li and sure enough, more Omphalid warrior women were emerging from another door in the wall on their side of the room.

There were now six on the side of the room past Csina. As Candaes watched, their clear suits flexed and curved transparent plates slid out over their breasts, bellies, and faces. All their human flesh was now covered in glass-like armor.

She had to warn them.

Candaes stepped out from behind the tank and began to walk quickly down the open center of the room. Dirty water spattered under her feet.

“Hey!” She yelled, waving her arms. A drone wouldn’t do that. Hopefully the humans would know.

“Hey!” she yelled again, walking faster. Csina rolled out of cover and fell into step behind her; Wei-Li was with them as well. The smallest of phalanxes.

“They’re coming!” Candaes yelled. The humans were pointing their weapons at her; she had their attention.

She broke into a run. “Dozens of them! Behind us, along the walls! You’ve got to get out of here!”

They didn’t shoot her.

The sludge was up to her shins now and she was spraying it everywhere, high-stepping at speed towards the leveled barrels of the projectile guns. “Go,” she shouted again, “they’re right behind us!”

A decision was made and the humans were suddenly moving again, snatching up the cocoons, forming a firing rank with weapons ready. Candaes and Csina and Wei-Li splashed up to and then among them; there were a dozen or so, all in dirty dark blue fatigues. A man—a man!—stepped up to Candaes. He had a neatly trimmed beard and red cheeks.

“I assume you’re escaped captives?” he demanded.

“We are,” Candaes replied. “Perrix DaSilva rescued us.”

“Perrix! Where is she?”

“She... she was captured.”

He gave her a look of frustration—then the rifles started going off.

“Go go go!” another man shouted.

The bearded man thrust a finger at Candaes. “Follow me, and move fast,” he said.

“R-Roger that,” she replied, but he had already turned away.

Looking back down the room Candaes could see the advancing slugsuits; the weapons were knocking them down but they were getting back up, their armor deflecting the bullets. She turned her attention back to the man and found that he was was already at the end of the hall, just behind the six people carrying the cocoons.

Candaes raced to catch up; Csina and Wei-Li were right with her. Behind them the firing line folded up with a coordination that spoke of long practice, and came running after.

They stopped at the end of the room by an open doorway, not the main door but an access shaft next to it. The people in the rear kept firing, slowing but not seriously harming the slugsuits, who were closing in steadily.

The humans dropped into the access shaft; Candaes followed the man as quickly as she could, using the ladder’s verticals to slide down rather than descending rung by rung.

At the bottom they emerged into some sort of low-ceilinged utility corridor, lined with pipes and conduit. The bearers were already well down the hall, carrying the cocoons. The man waited just long enough for Candaes’ feet to touch the floor, then turned and hurried away.

Candaes followed. She looked over her shoulder to see Csina hurrying after, and smiled.

Gunshots continued as they raced down the hallway. Then, suddenly, there was shouting and gunfire ahead of them.

Candaes entered a small room, some sort of junction, full of conduits and pipes, with a corridor leaving in each of the compass directions. The cocoons had been dropped, shoved to one side, and the people who had been carrying them were firing weapons down the hall ahead of them.

Csina darted into the room, followed by Wei-Li. One of the men was shouting to another, voice just audible above the gunfire.

“We’re fucked,” he shouted. “They’re in the escape route.”

“What about there?” the other man—the one who had spoken to Candaes—said, pointing at one of the other passageways. “We can loop around.”

“Not as a rearguard action, it’s too long. We’ll be out of ammo real soon now.”

“So lock the doors!”

The first man, who was older and had a shaven head, grimaced. He pointed at the door that just now the rearguard was running in through. “We can lock that one,” he said, then turned. “But the pneumatics on that one are broken. There’s nothing to hold it with.”

“I’ll fucking hold it! You get out of here.”

“We’re not leaving you,” the bald man snapped. “That’s guaranteed capture.”

Candaes watched as the rearguard swung shut a heavy metal door and spun the crank. A grim-faced woman lowered a metal bar and it gave a hiss of pressurized air as it dropped into place. The humans kneeling in the open doorway fired another volley.

“You have no choice Neerath! Shut that door! I’ll hold it! Better one of us than three, or all! Get them out of here!”

“I’ll hold the door,” Wei-Li shouted at them.

Everyone—including the people who were firing down the planned escape route - stopped to look at her.

“I... I’m not going to last long anyway,” she said, gesturing at the grey goop adorning her body. “This stuff is affecting my mind. I’m... I’m just a few moments away from becoming a slave and betraying you all. Please, get my friends - get everyone out of here. I will hold the door lock.”

“Wei-Li, no,” Candaes said. “We can... get it off...”

Wei-Li turned to her. “Candaes. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for giving me this moment of meaning. This suit consumes me; already I am tipping into obedience. Please allow me this last act as a free woman. I can stop them here. Run.”

She turned back to the shaven-headed man. “I was captured months ago. Being captured again is... Just go. Lock the door and I will hold it closed as long as I am able.”

He looked down at her, then looked at his team. “Lock it up!”

The six at the door fell back and a moment later it swung shut with the solid sound of metal. One of them lowered the bar into place. There was no hiss.

Wei-Li walked to the door. She pushed on the bar, depressing it into the indentation made to hold it.

“Like this?” she asked.

“Yes,” a man said. “And... thank you.”

Wei-Li smiled. “Go.”

The former rearguard had already picked up two of the cocoons and were moving away down the hall. The man who spoke with Candaes and the one with the shaven head took the third cocoon and walked out of the room.

Candaes followed, then stopped. She turned around.

Wei-Li was standing at the door, leaning on the metal bar. Her head was down, her eyes closed. She was trembling.

Candaes ran across the room and pressed herself into Wei-Li. Wei-Li raised her face and Candaes kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed.

Something struck the door, making it ring.

“Go,” Wei-Li whispered to her.

Candaes looked across the room; the humans were all gone. Csina was alone, waiting for her.

She ran.

* * *

Clothes felt weird.

Itchy and confining and over-warm... mostly it just felt like someone Candaes didn’t know was touching her very lightly in all sorts of irritating places.

But the food was nice.

She raised the spoon—utensils!—to her mouth. Tomato soup. The most delicious thing she’d eaten since waking.

Across the table, Csina smiled at her. She looked great in the dark blue jumpsuit. But then, she looked great in anything. Candaes smiled back.

“We made it,” Csina said.

Candaes nodded. She thought of Perrix, of Wei-Li...

Csina saw. “Yes. But this is what they wanted. Candaes, they won. We’re here, so they won. And now we can work to free them, somehow, someday. We’ll do it, Candaes. I don’t know how, but we will.” Csina slid her hand across the table, and Candaes took it, squeezed it.

She stood up and leaned forward across the table, as Csina did too, and they kissed above two bowls of tomato soup.

A man cleared his throat.

“So,” he said, “what’s your story?”

They slid back into their chairs. Candaes looked at Csina, who looked back. Candaes turned to the bearded man standing in the doorway and began to speak.

She told him of waking in the pod room. About the corridors of naked, entranced women, and how easy it was to pretend to be one of them. Of the strange chairs that were programming the women, of the woman with the antennae who had almost hypnotized her. Of being rescued by Csina. She described the rescue, the women with the blobs on their heads, one of whom was Yashina, and then about Wei-Li, and Anni, and J’anna. She talked about getting separated, and wandering up through the coil where women were turned into rubberdolls, and the reunification with her friends. How Perrix was captured at the base of the big green tentacle, and how they entered Washington Station. About meeting the former Lieutenant Razka. And watching the cocoons get carried by.

“And then we met you,” Candaes concluded.

The man nodded. “Wow,” he said. “That’s... wow. Well. I’m Kurt. Kurt Weiss. I’m the personnel officer around here; I keep track of people. I won’t lie to you, losing Perrix and Yashina... it’s a blow. A hard blow. But we’re glad to have you, Candaes. And you, Csina. You’re not the first women to make it here, but it’s a big morale booster to know that you’re not alone down there. A lot of people would like to meet you.”

He leaned back against the doorframe. “But that’ll come later. I’m gonna go report to the Lieutenant, and write my report. Eat as much as you like, and if you want to get some sleep you can do that too. This room is yours. You’re sharing it with Gwendoline; she’s the other woman who escaped from down below. But she’s got somewhere else she can be until you’re ready for company.”

Yawning, he rubbed at a cheek. “Oh, before I go, I have another set of questions for you. Before you were captured, what did you do?” He pointed at Csina. “I have twelve credits riding on you being a marine.”

Csina smiled. “Sure am. Six Allied States Fleet-Associated Marines, Second Galactic Spinward Division. The uncivilized and unbeatable Cloud Tigers. Grr.”

“A SASsy,” he said.

“You got it. Why, are we at war?”

He gave her a strange look. “None of the human powers in this quadrant have been at war for a long time. Not since the Omphalids hit.”

Csina shrugged. “Makes sense.”

“You qualified on power armor?”

Her eyes lit up. “You’re damn right I am. Got any?”

“Sadly, no.”

She slapped her hand on the table. “Don’t toy with me like that, man!”

He looked a little worried, until she laughed. Then he laughed as well, a little uncertainly. Csina winked at Candaes.

“Uh, and you?” he asked, turning to Candaes.

“Well, I’m an American,” she said. “Fleet Engineer First Class Candaes Curry, formerly of the Berengaria.”

“An engineer eh? Which systems?”

“Propulsion.”

Suddenly his face went serious. “You’re a nuclear engineer?”

“Yes,” Candaes replied. “Why?”

He walked into the room and leaned over, his hands flat on the table. “Fleet Engineer Curry, we really need you.”

* * *

Candaes rubbed her eyes. So much for getting some sleep.

She leaned back and stretched. Around her, vidscreens were covered in glowing amber lines. The detailed schematics of Washington Station’s fusion reactor.

It had been pleasant to discover that she remembered her training. Some small part was worried that her life, pre-pod, would be hazy and indistinct; but in the event she found everything coming back to her.

Five hours later and she had a pretty good grasp of how the reactor was working, or at least how it was supposed to be. The mystery phase shifting that the now deceased Aaron Hardway had performed with the shielding was still a mystery; but that wasn’t the problem.

The reactor kept readying itself to shut down.

It had plenty of fuel, it was operating well within standard parameters. But for some reason, some automated system wanted to shut the reactor down. Left alone, it would begin a thirty-six hour countdown at the end of which it would initiate shutoff procedures. The resistance had been escorting people to the control chamber and resetting the countdown for weeks; the last time they did so, all three were captured.

Only the humans could access the control room, only the humans had the security codes. The Omphalids were unable to get through the security doors.

But the area between the control room and the shielded living quarters was contested; the humans didn’t have enough people to keep it clear.

Candaes rubbed her eyes.

She hadn’t solved the problem. Perhaps somewhere in the operating manuals it would explain why a perfectly healthy reactor was auto-shutting down. It might take her days to find it.

But find it she could, she felt fairly certain.

If it was in the manuals.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice asked.

Candaes looked up. A woman with freckled skin and rich brown hair had entered the visualization room. She appeared to be in her fifth decade of life, the lines on her face lending her distinction and accenting an intelligent beauty.

“Hi,” Candaes said, turning her chair around.

“Hello,” the woman said again. “I’m Riesa McCort. Lieutenant McCort. I’m what passes for leadership around here. Is this a good time?”

“Sure. I think my brain needs to decompress, and I’m not going to get any answers until it does. You’re the commanding officer? Come in, come in.”

McCort stepped in through the doorway; she was followed by a tall, thin redhead, like McCort dressed in the dark blue jumpsuit that seemed to be standard issue. She seemed slightly familiar but Candaes couldn’t place her.

“This is Gwendoline Torrea. She’s the other woman from down below.”

“You were in the Hive?” Candaes asked.

The redhead nodded. “It’s nice to meet you. Yes, I woke up in a pod several weeks ago. I can tell you how I got here later, I think the Lieutenant has some questions first.”

Candaes blinked. She had just placed Gwendoline’s face. “You were in the rescue squad.”

“She set the bombs,” McCort said. “Gwendoline seems driven to make a mark around here.”

Gwendoline looked at the floor. “I just... I want them to know. I want them to know that they didn’t make me a slave.”

The lieutenant put her arm on Gwendoline’s shoulder. “I think that’s pretty clear, Gwendoline.” She looked at Candaes. “So, Curry. Any progress on those schematics?”

Candaes nodded. “Yes, actually. I have a pretty good overall grasp of the system. I worked on a Reichart-Chen-Chang reactor at university, so it’s pretty familiar. Though this one is a lot newer.”

“Any idea what’s causing the shutdowns? Er, the countdown?”

“None whatsoever. But I should be able to figure it out in... a couple of days. Maybe sooner.”

“Great, great.” McCort took a few steps over to a flat console and seated herself on it. “Not having to send people over there all the time will be a big relief.”

“If I can ask...” Candaes ventured.

“Absolutely. Ask away.”

“Where are your engineers? I mean, Perrix had said that Hardway was dead, but surely there were other nuclear engineers down here.”

McCort sighed. “You’d think. Actually, we had three until a couple of weeks ago. But then... they got captured. We almost lost our holdout entirely. We hadn’t expected...”

She rubbed her face with a hand. “Curry, until three weeks ago we had only seen slugbugs. The bugs, the ones we’ve been fighting. Then they launched a major attack- using human women.” McCort shook her head. “Women... human women, in those suits, working for the Omphalids...” She rubbed her forehead. “No one expected that. How could we shoot them? But of course, they had no compunctions about sticking us with those needles. It surprised us, badly, and they got almost half of everyone here. Including the former commander. Including the nuclear engineers.”

The woman looked at Candaes with an intense stare. “Curry, I’ll level with you. We’ve been on the ropes. You and Ceroux’s arrival has been a badly needed morale booster. Makes people think there’s hope.”

Candaes blinked. She hadn’t known Csina’s last name.

Lieutenant McCort was still talking " ...then, when we learned that you were an engineer... well, as I say, morale booster.” She looked over at the redhead. “Especially for Gwendoline here.”

“For all of us,” Gwendoline said.

“I want you to understand something, Curry. May I call you Candaes?”

“Actually, I’d prefer it,” Candaes replied.

“Candaes, then. Candaes...” McCort paused for a moment and pursed her lips. “Candaes, it has suddenly become very important that we survive. Not just that we survive, but that we escape this impossible trap we have found ourselves in.”

She stood up, and began to take slow steps around the small room. “Before they came at us with slave humans, before we knew what was in this Hive, we were expendable. It would have been great to survive, to escape, but our loss wouldn’t have mattered much beyond the loss of Washington Station, and that already happened. But now...”

She fixed Candaes with her brown eyes. “Now we know what they’ve been doing, Candaes. To you. To all of their captives. Candaes, we’re the only ones in the galaxy who know that the Omphalids have turned humans into their slaves. Are using us as their new weapons.”

“The two of you are exceptions. From what we’ve deduced, this hive could have a million slave humans on it. All of them apparently willing to fight to the death for their Omphalid masters. To kill, to die, to do anything.”

Her voice dropped. “Think of what they could do, Candaes. As infiltrators. As agents in the general population. Think about what happened to us, suddenly faced with having to fight people we might have known. Hell, just the effect on morale this could have, if the public learns about it at the wrong time, in the wrong way.”

Candaes looked at Gwendoline, but she was watching McCort. Candaes looked back at the lieutenant.

“We have to get out, Candaes, because we have to tell people. To ready human space. No one else can do this, because no one knows. So it has to be us. We must do everything we can to get out and get a message back to human space. For the survival of our species.”

Suddenly she yawned, and stretched. “And for us to do that, you have to keep that reactor from shutting down if suddenly we can’t get to the controls for more than a day.” Her mouth quirked into a smile. “So no pressure.”

“I’m fleet, lieutenant,” Candaes replied. “I work better under pressure.”

McCort smiled again. “Good to hear it. And call me Riesa.” She looked at her wrist. “Okay, look—you’re tired, and we shouldn’t have any problem getting to the control room for a couple of days. Get some sleep. I’ll leave Gwendoline to take you back to your room.”

McCort—Riesa—walked to the doorway. She turned. “And Candaes?”

“Yes?”

Riesa smiled. “A real pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, Riesa.”

The lieutenant walked out. Candaes looked up at Gwendoline.

“She’s certainly... intense,” Candaes observed.

“She’s wonderful,” Gwendoline breathed, staring at the space Riesa had vacated. She blinked, and seemed to realize what she’d said. “A wonderful commander,” she added hurriedly. “She saved us—saved them, I wasn’t here yet—she saved the base, during the big attack. Took command.”

“I can’t imagine a tougher assignment.”

“It’s... a lot,” Gwendoline said. Her voice seemed naturally quiet. “Eighty-nine people. Before the attack, she was a communications tech.”

Candaes blinked.

Gwendoline turned from looking out the doorway to face Candaes. “It’s true what she said earlier. I’m really glad that you’re here, Candaes. I... it’s wonderful to know that I’m not the only one.”

“The only freewilled captive?”

Gwendoline nodded. “Exactly. I thought, maybe, it was just me.”

“Not by far. We... we lost a few free women, getting here.”

The redhead nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard. I’ve already talked with Csina, she’s very nice. They hustled you up here so quickly I didn’t get a chance to meet you.”

“Yeah, they seemed excited. So... where are you from, Gwendoline?”

“An SAS colony world. Fei Wo.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“It was pretty small. I was captured nine years ago.”

“Yeah I...” Candaes exhaled and looked at the ceiling.

She had looked it up. The date of the attack on the Berengaria.

Fourteen years.

She’d been in a pod for fourteen years.

“Candaes?”

“Sorry,” Candaes said. “I’m just tired.”

“Can I walk you back to our room? I’d like that.”

“I’d like that too,” Candaes said, smiling and rising to her feet.

* * *

They walked down squared metal hallways and stepped through bulkhead doors. It was all seeming more and more familiar to Candaes, the days spent down in the Hive becoming a little unreal. She had lived for years on shipboard; she had been awake and out of her pod for what was probably less than a week. Now it was the Omphalid spaces that were beginning to seem strange.

The clothes, however, were still uncomfortable and Candaes planned to get out of them the instant she had some privacy.

“So...” Candaes ventured, “You like Lieutenant McCort?”

“She’s a great leader. So strong, so smart. Without her none of us... well, none of these people would have held out.”

“Does she...” Candaes blinked, and smiled. “Oh. That’s why you didn’t have any trouble finding a place to sleep, when Csina and I arrived.”

Gwendoline blushed, a delicate pink confirmation.

Candaes changed the subject. “So you were the one who planted the bombs in that ambush that saved those captives.”

The redhead nodded.

“That was pretty brave. Were you a soldier? Before?”

“No. I was a dental hygienist. But... I want to make a difference. I want to help.”

And you want to impress a certain tough lieutenant, Candaes thought, but said nothing.

They were walking down the corridor corridor between the visualization room and the dormitories. Candaes stopped suddenly. Through a clear section of wall that they were passing by, she had glimpsed a room containing a dozen nude women. Turning to look confirmed it. Drones, standing around blankly, hands at their sides.

what the?

Gwendoline saw what she was looking at. “Oh. Yes, they’re drones. Here, come with me.”

She walked a few meters back down the corridor, and swung open a door. She beckoned to Candaes to follow her.

The room had been something else, storage or something, but was now a barracks. Six bunk beds stood against the walls.

The drones turned to face Gwendoline and Candaes. Their faces were blank. Other than rotating in place, they made no move.

“After I showed up,” Gwendoline said, “they tried to rescue more women. Snuck out and grabbed a bunch of drones. They thought, maybe, away from the brainwashing they could deprogram them. But...” she waved her hand. “They’re just drones. I don’t think they can be deprogrammed.”

Candaes took a few steps towards a woman with straight dark hair and brown eyes. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman.

“I am liara-drone. I am a slave. I must obey.”

“Obey,” all the drones echoed softly. The sound made Candaes shiver.

“Liara. Do you remember your life before the Hive?”

“I am a drone. I remember nothing. Liara was harvested and her essence extracted. I am a drone. I must obey.”

“Obey,” all the drones echoed again. The soft sound of it gently stroked between Candaes’ legs.

She looked at Gwendoline. Gwendoline shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do for them,” she said. “We can only rescue the freewilled. The drones are... just drones.”

Candaes looked back at Liara-drone. She couldn’t resist.

“You have to obey,” Candaes breathed.

“Yes,” Liara-drone replied. “We are drones. We must obey.”

“Obey,” they all said, and it tingled in Candaes’ spine.

She turned to Gwendoline. “Let’s, ah, let’s go,” Candaes said.

“Yes,” Gwendoline replied, her eyes wide.

* * *

Candaes’ room was only a few minutes further. Gwendoline bid her goodnight at the door, requesting and promising more time to speak later. Candaes didn’t ask where Gwendoline was going to sleep.

She closed the door.

“So,” Csina’s voice said from around a corner. “Saviour of the station?”

“Not quite,” Candaes replied, “And not yet. But I...”

The words stopped. Csina had stepped around the corner.

In a lacy pink negligee.

Candaes could feel her heart pounding in her throat. She had never, ever, seen anything she wanted more.

“You like it?” Csina asked quietly.

“Csina...” Candaes husked. Her voice cracked. Her mouth was open but nothing else came out.

Csina turned, raised her arms to lift her hair, arched her back, and posed.

Her mouth was out of commission, but Candaes’ hands still obeyed the tiny fraction of her brain still operating. They rose to her jumpsuit’s zipper and began to slide it down.

Csina smiled. “You do like it.”

“I... have never... seen anything...” Candaes managed. “I want you so much.”

“I am yours to have,” Csina replied. She lowered her arms. “I... I was thinking. About what I said back in that observation room, about what’s happened to us. And I realized that I... I just need you, Candaes. I love you, and want you, and- and fuck why. Make love to me, Candaes.”

“Forever,” Candaes breathed, stepping out of the puddled jumpsuit. Her hands fumbled at her functional white bra.

Csina pulled a satin ribbon between her breasts and the negligee fell open. Candaes dropped the bra to the floor as she put her mouth around Csina’s nipple, rubbing it with her tongue, sucking, and sliding her hands down to cup Csina’s ass then running them up and down her back. Csina moaned and pushed into Candaes; Candaes’ mouth came off the dark nipple with a pop and closed with Csina’s mouth and they kissed, sucking at each other, clutching, tongues pushing in and dancing around each other.

They stumbled back to a bed and Candaes pushed Csina back down—as though she could push Csina—and Csina lay back, spreading her legs, offering her glorious sex to Candaes’ eager mouth. Candaes attached herself, tasting pussy for the very first time, licking up and down and then sliding down to gently push a tonguetip inside. Csina arched and ran fingers through Candaes’ hair.

Candaes moved upward to suck on Csina’s labia and her clit, flicking, rubbing, lapping gently, until Csina threw a forearm across her mouth to muffle her sharp cries of orgasm. Her hips bucked and shivered and she gently pulled Candaes’ head up with fingers laced in her hair.

“Swing around,” Csina rasped. “Feed me your sex.”

Candaes was startled to find the white panties still on her body, the crotch soaked through, and she slithered out of them and crawled onto the bed, turning, throwing her right knee over Csina’s head, and Csina reached up to take hold of her hips and draw her down until lips and tongue took control of Candaes’ sex and it felt so good so good nothing ever better-

They didn’t fuck forever, but they tried.

* * *

“I found it,” Candaes announced.

It was a mess hall; like most of the rooms in the holdout it had been built to serve some other function, but now there were four long tables down the middle of the room and people took meals there; a recreation room was set up in the adjacent space, with an honest-to-goodness pool table, and a simulation station for various card, dice, and bone games.

The mess hall was mostly empty, but it did contain Lieutenant McCort and two of her officers, Corporal Fung and Corporal Gutierrez, along with three other men and Gwendoline. Candaes stood in the doorway.

“It’s a mandatory attention reset. There’s nothing wrong with the reactor, it’s just built to demand periodic evaluations by technicians. If you don’t get someone from the corporation to come in and service it, the reset keeps going off. But there’s nothing wrong with the reactor, it’s just a way to force a technician visit; to turn off the reset you just have to know how. At school we called this sort of thing a ‘maintenance required light’, though I’m not sure why. There’s no light involved.”

“Can you fix it?” McCort asked.

Candaes nodded. “Yes. It shouldn’t be a problem. If I can take a datapad with the schematics, I should just be able to turn off the reset. It’ll take maybe twenty minutes. Of course, this will all happen again in a year.”

The Lieutenant looked at her companions, then back at Candaes. “I think we can accept that, Curry. Great work. Jacopo, what’s the situation in no-slugs-land?”

“Quiet,” Corporal Gutierrez replied. “No one there as far as we can tell. We control to the perimeter, all entrances are locked down.”

“Fantastic. Curry, I want you to get over there and turn this damned maintenance light or whatever off A-S-A-F-P. Take your marine friend with you. We control the whole area right now, so you shouldn’t encounter any problems. Take a communicator just in case. I’ll send a guide with you as well.”

“I’ll go,” Gwendoline said.

McCort nodded, then frowned. “No. Sorry, Gwendoline, but I don’t want all three of our escapees going together. You’ll stay here. Shirvajji has been over there a lot and he should be rested right now. Curry, get to your quarters, get your datapad, get your friend, get ready. I’ll send Mr. Punaga by in twenty minutes.”

* * *

Reaching the control room turned out to be as easy as promised.

Shirvajji Punaga was a small man with a wide smile in a dark face. He talked and joked during the twenty minute walk to the control chamber through empty corridors and echoing rooms.

“And this was munitions for the Kucharnov Array. I hear they actually used that when the Omphalid ship came and hugged ol’ Washington’s face, but I guess it didn’t do much good. We moved all of these out of here about a week after we stabilized the area - well, not all of them, there’s two over there—and we were gonna use the area for some indoor rec or maybe some extra fab storage, I don’t know what, but we moved them and a month later we decided to make this area a free-fire zone, the bugs were pushing pretty hard, although I don’t think there was ever a firefight in here—and a good thing too, seeing as how we forgot those canisters and I’m pretty sure the Cook-your-charn-off—that doesn’t even make sense, does it—anyway I think those munitions are pretty radioactive...”

Candaes was mildly curious how Punaga managed to talk without actually appearing to inhale at any point.

And then they were there. There was a heavy metal door whose frame was badly warped, which opened into a small room with what appeared to be a guard post. A man standing behind a multi-barreled gun in a doorway, tripod mounted behind some jury-rigged metal sheeting, stood up as they entered.

“Hey Tommy,” Punaga said, raising a hand. “Tommy, meet Candaes Curry and Csina Ceroux. Girls, meet Tommaso Shen.”

“A pleasure,” Shen said. His ancestry appeared as mixed as his name, and his face was lined, his hair mostly grey. “Shirvajji, we’ve got action at the Apache stores and access corridor H. Pretty heavy. You folks need to do what needs doing and get out of here.”

Instantly, Shirvajji was ice-cold. “Got it. Ms. Curry, that’s the door to the control room.” He gestured at a nondescript metal door. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t lock from inside, it locks from the guard station. We’ll be in there. We will keep the control room door locked; if the bugs come anywhere near we will lock the guard room, too. In either case, you won’t come out; we will come in to get you. Worst case, and the incursion is serious, there’s a water dispenser and food pellets for almost a month in there. We’ll have the same in the guard room.”

He looked at Shen, who nodded. Shirvajji turned back to Candaes. “There’s a commlink directly between the guard room and the control room so we can talk. Get on in there, do your thing, tell us when you’re done, and we can get back to the comforts of home.” He stuck out a hand. “Good luck, Curry.”

She shook it. “Thanks, Punaga. This shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

“See you in thirty then. And call me Shirvajji.” He took Shen by the arm and the two of them walked around the barrier and into the guard station. Candaes heard a radio crackle to life.

Csina touched her shoulder. “Go on, Candaes,” she said. “Save the day.”

Candaes hugged her, and they kissed for a long moment. “I’m turning off a pointless alarm,” Candaes said. “Hardly saving the day.”

“Then turn off the pointless alarm. I’ll be in the guard room.”

“I bet. I saw you ogling that... that machine gun they have there.”

Csina smiled. “Get in there,” she said. “We’re wasting time.”

Candaes walked over to the metal door and pulled it open. It was as thick as her forearm was long, and had huge holes for the titanium locking rods that extended from the doorframe. Candaes stepped through.

Beyond it was... a reactor control room, done small. Maybe three meters by eight. Lots of lights and consoles and control boards, flat surfaces with displays pulsing in quiet colors.

Candaes walked in, pulling out her datapad. Her worry dipped a notch; everything looked just the way the schematics had promised. She had feared the usual last-minute changes that corporates loved to make in their installations, but it looked like the map was the territory in this room.

The door swung shut. She could hear the locking rods slide into place.

“Ms. Curry, can you hear me?”

There was a small vidscreen and a speaker on the far side of the room. Candaes walked over to it. She could see Shen, Punaga, and Csina looking back at her.

“I can hear you,” she said.

“It’s looking like this is a serious incursion,” Shirvajji said, his face flat. “The area we came through is no longer safe. They’re assembling a squad to repulse the bugs, but we’re going to lock the doors anyway. Nothing they have should let them get in here; our squad should be able to drive them off within the hour. I just wanted to keep you apprised.”

“Got it. I’m gonna get to work,” Candaes replied.

“Great.”

She met Csina’s eyes for a moment, then smiled. Csina smiled back.

Then it was time to get to work.

* * *

The system software was a little less standard than the hardware, but not by much. Twenty minutes?

Fifteen.

Candaes leaned back in the chair and stretched. She had found the reset, tested it in the simulator, and was just about to commit the update. She looked at the vidscreen to the guard room, but couldn’t see anything from this angle. Getting up to ask their final okay seemed silly. She was the nuclear engineer.

Then, with several loud clangs, the locking rods drew back in the control room door.

Great, they’d gotten rid of the Omphalids. And this gave Candaes a chance for a dramatic press-the-button moment. She sat up as the door swung open.

Csina strode in.

She was nude.

Csina walked in, stiffly, then swiveled in place. Her eyes were wide and glazed as they alighted on Candaes.

Then Terry-instructive walked in.

Candaes’ insides turned to ice.

“Hello, Candaes,” Terry-instructive said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Csina...?” Candaes stammered.

Terry-instructive looked at Csina. Csina stiffened a trifle, then looked at Candaes.

“Candaes,” Csina said in a flat voice. “Everything is the way it should be. You will listen to terry-instructive.”

Candaes looked at the keyboard, the console. She could... what could she do? Explode the reactor? Not possible, given the failsafes. She had no gun, not even a knife or a flashlight. Sabotage? That would be stupid... She looked at Terry-instructive, her liquid black eyes, and then whipped her head away. No, she mustn’t let herself be mesmerized, she’d never be able to free Csina...

“I’m not going to hypnotize you,” Terry-instructive said. “I just want to talk. Look, I’ll even turn around. You can look at my pert little ass instead.”

As she said it, Terry-instructive turned around and faced the wall. “There. Can we talk?”

“I don’t... set Csina free. Then we can talk.”

Terry-instructive’s laugh was like tinkling chimes. “Oh, Candaes. Candaes, Candaes. You have this all wrong. I’m not doing anything to Csina. This is who she is - what she is. An obedient drone. More obedient even than you know.” Terry-instructive wiggled her ass a little. “But I don’t want to make things hard for you, Candaes. You’ve done such a wonderful, wonderful job. The Hive is immensely pleased with you. I’ll explain and make everything clear. Then you can shut the reactor down, and we can all go home.”

* * *

The membrane snapped shut, and J’anna exhaled.

It was a room full of pods. A small room, not like the giant chamber she had first found herself in; there were only two dozen or so, all hovering just above the floor, connected to a flesh-stalk that ran horizontally from one wall to the other.

J’anna sighed again, and let herself slide down the wall to the floor.

How long had it been? Two sleep cycles? Three? And all the while J’anna had expected to come back out into the void any moment, or to find a coil full of rubber dolls and follow it upward.

But each door opened into a new corridor, a new room, some other part of the Hive. She passed through corridor after corridor, room after room, drones walking by mindlessly in their tens and in their hundreds. She had seen types of bugs she hadn’t seen before, and bug-women with the antennae, and those demon soldier-women, and the big-tittied rubberdolls, and she hadn’t ever found her way up to the void, to the cables that would let her catch up with Csina, and Wei-Li, and Candaes.

She was finally beginning to doubt that she ever would.

The sphincter she’d jumped into to get away from the demon soldiers who had grabbed Perrix and Anni had sucked her down a long way, so far she had been afraid she was going to pass out from not breathing, but then it let her out and she was back in the Hive. And Perrix had said she only needed to go up, so she’d gone up.

At least, she’d tried to.

J’anna sighed a third time. At least it was easy to blend in, and food and water were not hard to find. She was tired again and this room seemed as good as any to sleep in. She didn’t know where the drones slept; Candaes had said something about a green area where the drones slept against the walls, but J’anna hadn’t seen that.

Yet.

If she was going to get some sleep, she should be sure the room was safe. Wearily, J’anna rose to her feet. She walked down the line of pods to the end of the room, then got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the stalk to the other side. She walked back towards the front. Other than the pods, the room was empty.

Something caught her attention.

The woman in the pod... average build, perhaps a little on the angular side, squared shoulders, pale skin with short dark hair. A pretty face with barely freckled cheeks that caught the eye. Very pretty, but nothing unusual about her.

But...

J’anna walked over to the next pod.

It was the same woman. The same body, the same cheeks, the same face.

She frowned, confused. Twins? She walked on to the next pod.

It was the same woman again.

Startled, J’anna walked back to the beginning of the row. Her walk became a run.

They were all the same woman.

She crawled back under the stalk, ran along the line of pods on the other side.

All the pods held exactly the same woman. Except for the one in front, the pod right by the door.

That pod held a woman who was exactly the same as well—except sprouting from her forehead were two shiny black antennae.

J’anna sat back down. Her legs would not support her.

* * *

Her words. She must be able to hypnotize Candaes even without using her eyes. Candaes put her hands over her ears.

A doll walked into the room. Candaes hesitated.

“Candaes,” Terry-instructive said, “This is someone I’d like you to meet.”

The rubberdoll turned to face Candaes. Her enormous breasts hung heavy in front of her, her bald, pink head reflected the overhead light. Her wide eyes were perfectly white, perfectly blank. She looked just like every other doll, obscene, hyper-feminized. Mindless.

“This husk was once the human named Candaes Curry.”

It felt like she was inside a great bell, a church bell that had rung so loud around her that she was deaf. But Terry-instructive’s words crawled into her.

“You’re a clone, Candaes. A duplicate. You’re not even the first candaes-drone. You’re number seven. You were grown in a pod to have this woman’s body and to possess her memories. To be a nuclear engineer that the humans would trust, so that you could shut down this annoying reactor for us.”

Candaes’ hands were slowly falling away from her ears, and she could not stop them.

“You are Hive, Candaes. Candaes-drone. You were grown in a pod, from a seed. Your body is made from Hive-stuff, as is your brain. The very cells of you exist to obey the Hive, because they are the Hive. You have never been a human. You are one of us.”

Terry-instructive had turned around. Candaes stared at her liquid black eyes and felt her mouth coming open.

The tight-bodied bug-woman smiled. She began to walk forward. “Candaes Curry was captured fourteen human years ago. She was brought here, to this great Hive. She was placed in a coil and everything that she was, was extracted. Her memories, her experiences, her skills, her DNA... her very self. Extracted from her human body and placed in the Hive’s mind cluster, enriching the Hive and adding to its power. All that is left of Candaes Curry stands here before you: an obedient husk. This is the destiny of all humans. They will all become obedient husks.”

Terry-instructive had reached Candaes now, who stared stupidly up at her.

“You are a clone. You were grown in a pod and your brain was imprinted with the memories of the Curry-human. Your purpose was to turn off this reactor, which has been interfering with our acquisition of the final non-slave humans on this station. And you have obeyed perfectly, drone. You overcame the obstacles we placed before you, to give your identity verisimilitude. You gained the trust of the humans. You, in concert with the csina-drone, gained access to the reactor—both the guard room and the controls.”

The instructive put her hand under candaes-drone’s chin, bent down to kiss her on the lips.

“And now, drone, you will turn this reactor off.”

“i will obey,” the candaes-drone replied.

* * *

In the yellow emergency lighting, a drone stepped into the hallway.

She had shed the blue jumpsuit the humans had given her; she had no need for pockets, the atmosphere did not require protective garments, and modesty was a pointless human conceit the drone no longer shared.

The drone was pleased to see the human males who had been guarding the reactor room were being encased in cocoons; their uniqueness would be extracted, enhancing the Hive, leaving only obedient husks.

The males would be taken to the rightward lobe of the Hive; the Omphalids had evolved without sexual reproduction and saw no benefit in it; it was simpler to keep the assimilated races that possessed gender in mono-gender groupings. Easy enough to alter their sexual desires to focus solely on their own gender.

The drone left the chamber where the other drones were performing the cocooning. Behind her came the instructive she currently obeyed, along with a second drone and a husk. They turned right, headed for one of the many tubules connecting the human station with the Hive.

It was time to return to the Hive; the drone had obeyed, and obeyed well. Without the scrambling radiation the warriors—motives and their coupled sheaths—would easily overrun the last defenses. Particularly with the sabotage the gwendoline-drone was assuredly carrying out. The Riesa human in particular would have been neutralized; if the gwendoline-drone had sufficient time for brainwashing, the Riesa human might even be obediently assisting in the humans’ capture.

The thought pleased the drone, and the pleasure led to introspection.

Until the terry-instructive had awakened its core brain, the drone had believed entirely in the Candaes persona. Now that it knew its true nature and purpose, it found itself analyzing its true identity.

A hive drone first, of course. Flesh and mind were Hive. Obedience was purpose.

Yet the candaes-drone was also... candaes. The drone’s flesh and mind, although Hive, had been grown in the image of the human woman. The drone could still feel the human’s emotional responses, although they were disconnected from the drone’s own needs and purpose. It found itself looking at the world through the lens of the human’s emotions and experience.

The csina-drone, for instance. The candaes-drone felt... attached to her. It. No, her. The drone was a copy of a female and thus, female.

For a moment, a smile twitched the corners of the candaes-drone’s mouth.

It was an interesting experience, being a copy. So much to discover. Candaes-drone looked forward to a obedient and pleasurable life.

Now it—she—would be retasked. Perhaps she would be used again as an imitant of the Curry-human; perhaps she would simply be used for labor.

The drone did not worry. She would serve the Hive, for that was her only desire and her only purpose. As it was for the original Candaes, now a mindless husk padding quietly behind.

In a way, both of them had been reborn—the husk, fourteen years ago. The drone, only in the last span of moments.

The instructive touched its mind and the drone obeyed, turning left and entering an access shaft. The Hive was downward.

The drone was happy to return.

* * *

END

Chapter Five