The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Millions of miles from Earth, Wednesday

The view was nothing short of incredible. Uncountable stars filled the sky in every direction. The glow of the Milky Way filled the spaces between them. The rings of Saturn drifted by, almost close enough to reach out and touch. On every inhabited planet and moon in the galaxy, every child who ever dreamed of being an astronaut dreamed of this very sight a thousand times.

Q’nan turned his back on it all, stretched, and made a point of yawning as loudly as he could. “B’nak, are we there yet? I am BORED.”

He eased out of his space-chair and trundled over to the science station, where his companion was tinkering with some old equipment. “B’nak, I am bored to death. Are we close?” Behind him, Jupiter filled the row of portholes. “We’re in a planetary system, so that tells me we’re close. Are we… stop pretending you can’t hear me, B’nak!”

The shorter alien smiled in a way that only the Kzzrks themselves would even recognize as a smile. “We’re almost there. I checked the nav computer. We’ll be in orbit soon.”

“Great. When are you going to tell me what the big secret is?” He glared at his friend, eager to express the betrayal he felt inside at being led to… wherever this was. “To be honest, had I known we’d be this far out, I would have stayed home. I hate deep space.”

“You say that, but…”

“I am going to steer this ship into the nearest star if you don’t tell me what we’re up to!”

“Fine.” The shorter alien continued to tinker with the pile of snaking wires, space-blasted metal parts, and electronics that covered the entirety of the science station. “I guess we’re close enough now.”

“We were close enough when we cleared Om-Sin. That was three cycles ago!” Q’nan stepped forward, his bare toes clattering on the metal deck. “I cannot believe I let myself get sucked into another one of your weird adventures. Let me guess, are we hunting for Tomesh again?”

B’nak grinned further. “You were convinced it was a Blarn expedition earlier.”

“Blarn live in deep space. We’re almost in orbit.”

“True, true.” B’nak hopped off his stool and, ever the showman, took his place in front of Q’nan as if he were standing on an invisible stage, delivering a presentation for an investor crowd larger than one. “Do you remember when my family would tell stories about the slavers of the old days? My Uncle D’vak going from galaxy to galaxy, hoping to pick up humanoids to enslave?”

Q’nan raised his green arms to his head and wrapped his stubby fingers around his antennae. “The only thing your Uncle hoped to pick up was another bottle of Z’amfir, the more potent the better. He never found a single humanoid.”

“But—”

“Because there aren’t any humanoids! Those resources were all locked up ages ago! There’s no humanoids anywhere in the galaxy for the taking. No free humanoids, at least. So unless… Pkrar, you’re not planning on stealing any, are you? The cartels would eat us alive!”

“No, we—”

“Literally eat us alive, B’nak!”

“Will you just listen to me? We’re not going to steal anything. We don’t need to steal anything! What if I told you that there are free humanoids still running around? Potential slaves in the making?”

“And you? You? Of all Kzzrks in the spheres, you alone have this information? That no one else has ever heard of? Ten trillion citizens in the Empire? Space probes and expeditions going out for as long as anyone can remember? Not for nothing, B’nak, but… look at you. You’re practically a nobody. We’re both nobodies! They are going to repossess this ship if you don’t—”

“Okay. OKAY. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Q’nan.” B’nak reached down and opened a panel. Reaching inside, he pulled out a worn-looking rectangular object and placed it on the broken holo-table. “See?”

“Space junk. Great.”

“That’s what everyone else thought, too.” B’nak’s response carried more than a bit of triumph. “So the story is, some random government freighter found this hunk of space junk floating around in deep space. I couldn’t even tell you where—they said it was a classified mission. Once they decided that it was worthless, they sent it to our research lab. That’s where I found this.”

Q’nan examined the object. It was flat, like a plaque. It had a slight gold color, and was covered with markings. Lines. Circles. Gibberish. And off to one side… “those are humanoids!”

“Male and female.”

Q’nan was no longer bored. “But what does that mean? Who sends something like that into deep space?”

“Probably something from an old slaver ship, right? That’s what I was told when it arrived. But look at these markings.” He traced his stubby fingers over the pitted metal. “Q’nan, it’s not a drawing, it’s a map! A map to a place where there are humanoids. Female humanoids! Untapped, untouched, and unknown by the entire galaxy. All for the taking. All for us! That’s the plan. That’s where we’re headed. And we’re almost there!”

“So that’s your plan, B’nak? Fly to the edge of the galaxy and scoop up… I mean—” he swept his arm across the room—“you’re not exactly a slaver ship or anything. I doubt that we could fit twenty in here. We have no containment cages. Slaves, even humanoids, generally don’t prefer being enslaved. There’s only two of us, and we only have those two X77s.”

“Two X77s annnnd a fully functional, last-generation, stolen-right-from-the-archives brain smoother!” A delighted B’nak pulled back another panel to reveal a mass of wires and instrument panels. “The ship can hold twenty? We’ll come back with twenty perfectly conditioned, perfectly obedient humanoid female mind slaves. Each worth a fortune. Enough to buy a bigger ship and go back for more. Even if the cartels eventually catch on and muscle us out, we’ll be the first ones there. We’ll have enough to retire to Mraaaqup for the rest of our lives!”

Q’nan looked at the dirty piece of space junk. “You’re always full of big, unworkable plans, B’nak. But this one… well I guess even a broken drzznkr is right once in a solar cycle.”

“Trust me, you won’t regret it!”

Somewhere over Middle America, Wednesday

“Watch out!”

B’nak spotted the satellite just in time, banking just enough to let the primitive space-box pass beneath the hull. He grunted. The humanoid planet’s atmosphere was filled with junk like this. But they hadn’t seen any settlements on the planet’s moon, and there were no ships coming to investigate their arrival. He checked the scanners again. Plenty of humanoids down below, but not a single sign that they’d even been spotted at all.

His companion jabbed at the nav computer. “Did you say I wouldn’t regret this? Because I’m starting to regret it, B’nak!”

“Just find us a place to land before there’s no ship left to repossess!”

More jabs. The nav computer churned for a bit—like everything else on board, it was bought second-hand and was horribly outdated—before displaying a map with several promising red circles. Q’nan pointed to the largest one. “We’re almost over this one. No major populated areas, flat terrain. Looks like they’ve done some terraforming.”

“Fine, I’m taking us down before the junk or the meteors take us out. And Q’nan?”

“Yes?”

“When we pull this off, our families will be telling stories about us someday.”

Somewhere in Middle America, Wednesday evening

“Oh look Charlie, there’s another one!” Nicole pointed at the sky as the tail end of a shooting star faded into the darkness.

“I see it. That was a good one!”

She shifted her position again, trying to find a comfortable spot in the back of Charlie’s pickup truck. Every time she thought she’d found it, some part of her body—most recently, her legs—inevitably decided that they were unhappy with the status quo. Finally settling on another temporary arrangement, she leaned back until her head was resting against one of the sandbags Charlie was using for pillows. He hadn’t brought any actual pillows.

“This is so nice,” she continued. “I can’t believe that we’re the only ones out here.”

“The guy on the news said it was going to be too cloudy to see anything.” Charlie moved as well, until his body was pressed against hers. “Ooh! That one was kinda greenish.”

She let out a soft “huhhnn,” happy that she was here, that he was here, that they were able to spend such a beautiful evening together. “See? Isn’t this better than Arizona?”

“Mmmhmm. And I’m gonna have to fake two weeks of Arizona tourist pics now, thanks to you.”

“You could just tell your parents you didn’t go.”

“You know how my stepmom is.”

Nicole tried her best Selene impression. “Charles Thorpe Junior! I am a total control freak and if you tell me you’re going camping in Arizona, I expect you to be there for exactly fourteen days!”

“With daily phone calls.”

“With daily phone calls,” she nodded. “Why don’t you just tell her that you’re a grownup and you can do whatever the fuck you want?”

“Because she got me out of two weeks of classes, and there’s no cell phone service at the campsite so I can’t call her, and it’s a lot more fun to hide out here in the back of my truck, fucking you senseless.”

She laughed. “So that’s why you were so interested in coming out here. Not the night sky, not the meteors.”

“I’m more interested in seeing Uranus.” He ran his hands along her firm ass.

“Really? You’ve waited for what, hours to use that one?” She sighed, letting his body heat wrap around her thin frame. It was definitely getting into October now. “If you’re into cheesy lines,” she said, her hand caressing his crotch, “I see you brought your telescope tonight.” She rolled onto him, and her lips found his.

Just then there was a flash of light, much brighter than any space rock. Nicole assumed it was headlights. Her first instinct was to duck down, to hide below the level of the truck bed, away from the farmer or the cop or whatever nosy asshole was about to interrupt them. The gate to the field had been unlocked, but the land almost certainly belonged to someone. Fuck, she thought. But the light was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, and they were plunged back into starlight.

“Hoooo-leeee shit,” Charlie whistled. “Babe, that was a fucking meteor! A huge one! Oh, sweet! I bet it landed right near here!”

She shrugged. “So let the astronomy nerds chase after it.”

Charlie rolled her over and sat upright in the truck. “No, seriously… we could find it! Make the news. Maybe sell it, if it’s one of the rarer ones.” He looked at Nicole, who crossed her arms and frowned. He placed his hand on hers. “Okay look, dumb story, but when I was ten, my Uncle Jimmy had this big iron meteorite at his house. It was so cool, and I wanted it more than anything! But he gave it to my brother instead of me, and like a month later, Chris traded it to this kid down the street for a couple of joints. I was so fucking pissed!”

Nicole rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay fine, let’s go resolve one of your childhood traumas.”

“Really?”

She was sitting up now, too, pulling her thin jacket around her and throwing its hood over her head. “Really. I mean, it’s not like this happens every day, right? A meteor landing right near us?”

“You’re the best fucking girlfriend ever.”

She responded with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you ever forget it!”

Unfortunately, Charlie’s definition of ‘near here’ turned out to be optimistic. They made a beeline for the nearest grove of trees, expecting to find a smoking crater almost immediately, but found nothing but dense underbrush and a fresh carpet of autumn leaves. Ten minutes of scratchy branches and deer trails later, they emerged to find themselves in a second, larger field. It was just as dark and devoid of meteorites as the one they’d left. Charlie sputtered, his optimism finally spent.

“I coulda sworn,” he said between huffs, “that it was… whew… it landed right near us.”

Nicole put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll come back in the morning, okay? It probably landed back in those trees and we just didn’t…”

It took Charlie, checking his jacket for rips and tears, a few seconds to register the unfinished sentence. “I have a flashlight in the truck,” he offered. “We can… hey, babe, what’s wrong?”

She raised a quivering finger in the same direction as her bulging eyes. “L-look,” she said, her voice shaking as much as the rest of her body. “Oh my God Charlie… is that real?”

Charlie followed her finger to the edge of the field, where there was a green light that slowly brightened and dimmed, over and over again. It was this light that had caught Nicole’s eye, but it was what was attached to it that made their jaws drop. A silver, saucer-shaped… thing. They looked at each other, and then back at the… spaceship?

“Hoooo-leeee shit,” Charlie’s voice was barely a whisper. “Babe, we have to check it out.”

“Charlie NO!” she hissed, but it was too late. He was already trotting across the field. Trotting. Directly towards whatever that thing was. She rushed to catch up. “Charlie! We don’t even know what it is! What are you doing?”

They reached the edge of the clearing, and by now there was no doubt that it was a spaceship. Or at least an extremely realistic prop from a movie studio. The silver surface was smooth and featureless. An odd humming noise seemed to fill the air and the ground. There were no aliens in sight.

“HELLO,” Charlie yelled, ignoring Nicole’s death stare. “WE COME IN PEACE. WE ARE EARTHLINGS.”

There was a loud noise behind them. Nicole tried to spin on her heels and lost her balance, one leg turning faster than the other, leaving her crouching on muddy knees as she peered into the darkness. Something was coming towards them, barely visible in the undulating, hypnotic green glow of the spaceship.

“They must be off hunting for cows.” He reached the spaceship and placed a tentative hand against the hull before pulling back in surprise. “Fuck! It’s ice-cold! That’s crazy, huh?”

What’s crazy is that we’re still fucking standing here and now we’re going to get busted for trespassing by this asshole farmer. That was her planned response. She got no further than “What’s…” before the approaching ‘farmers’ got closer. The rest of her rant died in her lungs, replaced by a steady, high-pitched whimper.

It was an alien. A fucking alien! It was short and stocky, rising only a foot or so above Nicole’s crouching body. Its skin was smooth, like the aliens in the movies, but a mottled green instead of the expected grey. A Martian, complete with little antenna nubs sticking out of its head, like an old cartoon come to life.

“Ch—Char—Charlie…” she managed, slowly rising to her feet, afraid to frighten the thing in front of her. She managed to do so anyway, her sudden increase in height causing it to startle and back away quickly. Behind it was a second, slightly shorter alien, colored much like the first. They both made a second approach, more cautious this time, like squirrels approaching offered food at a park. They looked at Nicole, then Charlie, then at themselves, then back at Nicole again, as unsure of how to proceed as the humans in front of them.

Charlie saw them, too. “HELLO THERE.” He waved his arms like a rude tourist demanding assistance from the locals. “WELCOME TO EARTH. ME CHARLIE.”

The aliens looked at each other again. “Tik ick kack kak,” said one.

Charlie waved and gave them a goofy grin. Nicole looked at him, afraid to move, afraid to startle the Martians again. “Charlie, this is dangerous!”

Before he could respond, the second alien held up a comically oversized raygun. A blinding green light came from the tip, but nothing happened. Charlie stood there, mouth open in shock. Nicole worked up the courage to move to his side, only to realize that she couldn’t move her foot. Or her hands. Or her head. Oh god, a freeze ray! This is how people get captured in the movies. Taken into the spaceship, laid out on a metal table, probed and raped and impregnated with alien babies!

The first alien, who by now had also produced a raygun, walked up to the frozen Charlie. “Nik bal glip glip.” It poked Charlie with the tip of the gun. Without warning, it reared back. The tip of the gun glowed red, and within seconds Charlie was glowing red as well. And then… he was gone.

“Nag gr.” The second alien fiddled with his raygun before pointing it at Nicole.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmyg—

But instead of a red tip, the gun produced a soft pink cone of light that washed over her. Nothing… I’m still here, it’s not… it’s not… not… The cone of light began to spin, slowly at first, then more quickly, forming a pretty spiral pattern. Spinning… faster… faster… spinning… so pretty…

It wasn’t long before she stopped thinking altogether.

B’nak switched off the mind ray and adjusted the X77. He disabled the freeze ray, and the humanoid’s arms fell limply to its sides. It continued to stare blankly ahead. The mind ray’s effects varied from creature to creature, and this was a brand-new subject, but it looked to be deeply entranced. Safe enough to handle, anyway.

He glared at Q’nan, who was poking at Charlie’s ashes with the tip of his X77. “We should probably figure out which one is the female before you go blasting them, idiot.”

“Whatever, that one was loud and annoying,” Q’nan shrugged. “If it was a female, we’ll just get another one. It’s a big planet.”

“You’re impossible sometimes, Q’nan. Did the loud one say enough to get the translator to work?”

“Say something to its companion, and we’ll see.”

The shorter alien turned to Nicole and spoke in his own language. The mangled, awful sounds that followed were the translator unit’s doing, as it struggled to turn his words into whatever primitive gibberish the locals could understand. “Humanoid. Remove your outer covering.”

The device seemed to work, as Nicole blinked several times, her face still smooth and blank. “I… uh… what? I don’t… under… stand.”

“Your, I don’t know, your fabric coating.” B’nak grunted with annoyance. “The thing that covers your body. Remove it all. Now.”

That seemed to work. “Yessssss,” slurred Nicole.

To the alien’s amazement, she had fabric coatings under her fabric coatings. And yet another layer under that. All of which were in separate pieces that the humanoid laboriously removed, one by one. Finally they lay in a pile at Nicole’s feet.

B’nak and Q’nan stared at Nicole’s shapely, fit body, and then at the golden plaque. Q’nan could barely contain himself. “B’nak, we’re going to be the wealthiest Kzzrks in the galaxy!”

Later

“Humanoid female, step forward,” commanded B’nak. Nicole obeyed immediately, and he smiled. The mind ray seemed to have a powerful effect on these humanoids. “You will answer all of my questions now.”

“Yes.”

“How many humanoids inhabit this planet?”

“Seven billion.”

“And how many are humanoid females?”

“I… half?” Her eyes narrowed slightly, struggling to think.

“What are you thinking? Don’t make it do calculations, B’nak.” Q’nan put himself between his partner and the humanoid. “You’ll either melt its brain or wake it up.”

“I’m sorry, are you the expert on humanoids now?”

Q’nan ignored him. “That answer is sufficient, humanoid female. What alliances do your fellow humanoids have with other planets?”

“I…” she shook her head, a frown creeping across her face, as if she were about to break free of the X77’s effects. The two aliens braced themselves for the possibility. If the humanoid females could not be dominated mentally, their slaving time on earth was about to become much shorter. The brunette’s head drifted from side to side, her brown eyes rolling into her head as she fought the commands that held her free will in chains. “What are you… you’re doing… something… to me… what’s… sssstop…”

“I’m going to powder it,” Q’nan declared. He reached for the nearest X77.

“Just watch.” B’nak placed his hand over the raygun and pressed down hard, denying its use to Q’nan. “Humanoid female,” he began, “you are the ambassador of your people. It is a great honor to obey us.”

“To… to… o-obey?” She shook her head. “N-no, that’s…”

“You are the ambassador of your people. You’ll answer all of our questions. It’s a wonderful honor.”

“Y-yes. Answer your questions. I’m an… I’m… am… bassador.” Whatever resistance that had been building collapsed on its own, and her face resumed its usual placid state. She stared at them with wide, dull eyes. “There’s no life on other planets. Aliens have never been here. Unless you believe the weirdos.”

B’nak opened his mouth again, eager to know what that meant, but Q’nan shot him an annoyed glance, and he changed course. “So you’re alone and have no alien allies?”

“Yes.”

“Except for the humanoids themselves,” said Q’nan. “Have you seen some of these transmissions? They’re in open warfare all over the planet. Some of their weapons are powerful enough to powder us, the ship, and every living thing near it. Seven billion against two, when the two are armed only with some old X77s? If they so much as notice us…” He pointed to Nicole. “And then there’s this one. The mind ray may wear off soon. We should place her into the brain smoother now.”

“Well, we could. But I’ve been reading up on slaving and I think I have a better idea.” B’nak held up an iridescent, circular object. “The Ouiaiia invented this thing. They say that it allows for mind control from any distance. It’s how they maintained their armies in the war.”

“I’d sooner trust this humanoid than trust the word of an Ouiaiian.”

“Do you trust me?” B’nak held out the object, his face begging for validation.

“No. Not one bit.” Q’nan reconsidered. “Maybe a little bit.”

“I’ll make you a deal. Worst-case scenario, it doesn’t work and we have to powder her when the mind ray wears off. Best case… humanoid female, extend your arm.”

Nicole swung her arm upwards. B’nak placed the object on her skin and watched as it snaked itself around her wrist, forming a loop that tightened itself until it was snug. “According to the manual, she is now completely under our control. Not as mind-wiped as the slaves that come out of the brain smoother, but that’s to our advantage. Instead of risking detection capturing new slaves by ourselves, we can have her do all of the work for us!”

He held up a small rectangular object. Like the wrist bracelet, it was iridescent. He jabbed at the screen. “This is the control unit. I can direct her every action from right here. Humanoid female, do you hear me?”

“Yes,” said Nicole. Her voice was no longer sleepy and dull; every word was firm and strong, but her face remained blank. Her arm remained pointing straight out.

“You will serve as an instrument of the Kzzrk Empire.”

“I hear, and obey.”

“You will return to the other humanoids. You will not let them suspect that you serve the Kzzrk Empire.”

“I hear, and obey.”

“Tomorrow at this time, you will bring a humanoid female to this place. You will use any means to bring her here, but you will tell her nothing of us.”

“I hear, and obey.”

B’nak laughed. “And to think, Q’nan, just ten cycles ago I was a poor scientist in the bottom of the galaxy! Now let’s finish programming this humanoid female and wait for our retirement fund to come to us.”

Somewhere in Middle America, Thursday evening

Nicole obeyed.

She’d woken up in her dorm room that morning feeling confused, as if she’d just had a nightmare that she couldn’t remember. It made her wish that her boyfriend was there in bed with her, to hold her in his arms until she fell back to sleep again.

Charlie. And with that came the memories of how Charlie, the fucker, called her from Arizona to tell her that he was breaking up with her. How he told her that he’d been cheating on her for months. How she’d been so angry that she’d thrown her brand-new phone into the river and taken a long walk outside of town to clear her head. How it didn’t help any. That fucking bastard.

She’d gone to class, but English Literature really didn’t seem to matter all that much in the face of such betrayal. Besides, there was something else that she had to do. Something always on the tip of her tongue that would retreat back into her brain the second she began to say it. It was annoying, like a song from the radio that wormed into your head.

Now she stood in the field, facing the spaceship from the night before, and the mysterious thought finally crept to the edge of her tongue and crawled out.

Obey.

Q’nan stood before her. The hatch opened, and B’nak awkwardly climbed down to the ground. Earth’s gravity had proven to be a poor match for the Kzzrkian physique. The two aliens approached Nicole and her companion, who was now frozen stock-still by Q’nan’s X77.

B’nak scowled. “The… you’re kidding… oh for Dwarg’s sake! Humanoid female, what is this?”

“I serve and obey the Kzzrk Empire,” Nicole droned. B’nak cringed at her mangled pronunciation.

“Humanoid female! What is this… creature that you have brought me?”

Nicole looked over at the elderly woman next to her. “Ms. Brown, my faculty advisor. I must bring a humanoid female to this place. I will tell her nothing about you. I must serve and obey the Kzzrk Empire.”

“Nice work, B’nak.” Q’nan could barely suppress his laughter. “Surely we will become rich selling off the oldest and frailest sex slaves in the galaxy.”

The words had their intended effect. B’nak seethed, turning his X77 towards the humanoids. Before he could stop himself, he’d switched the raygun’s settings before aiming directly at the old woman. In an instant Nicole was alone, standing next to a pile of ash, swaying mindlessly in the breeze. Her long brown hair drifted across her blank face.

The taller alien swept away the ash pile that was formerly Ms. Brown with his foot. He smirked at B’nak. “Oh, I see. It’s okay when you powder them.”

“Like you said, it’s a big planet. This one says there are seven billion of them. So, seven billion minus one, I don’t see the problem!”

“Problem? What happens when the other humanoids notice that she is no longer around?” Q’nan’s smirk quickly faded as the reality of what they now faced set in. “This humanoid female will be asked about it. She may have been seen coming here. And if the others decide to start a search…”

“Bah! You don’t…” But B’nak knew immediately that Q’nan was likely correct. He cursed, pointing the X77 at Nicole. “This should have been so easy! This… why are humanoids so stupid?”

“Of course they’re stupid. Have they even left their own galaxy? No wonder they make good slaves. Dumb as brumtarts. Just pets. You can’t depend on them to do anything important. You’d have better luck asking a brumtart to program a nav computer. Why don’t we just brain-smooth this one and go home?” His smile returned as he imagined cruising back to the safety of their own galaxy. “A single slave is still worth plenty.”

“No! I can do this!” B’nak turned to Nicole. “Okay. Humanoid female. You will return to this place in three Earth solar cycles. You will bring a humanoid female who is of your own age, and who is considered to be as attractive as you are, if not more so. Do you understand?”

“I hear, and obey.”

“Go. Go back to your domicile. GO.”

Nicole turned and began the silent walk back to town. In frustration, B’nak threw down the control unit. “Pkrar! You never heard about any of this in those old stories!”

“You never hear about them waiting three solar cycles to collect new slaves, either. What on Kzzrk were you thinking, giving her an order like that?” Q’nan kicked the ash pile again, scattering bits of Ms. Brown to the breeze. “I’m already tired of this planet as it is.”

“You said it yourself. If a humanoid goes missing, the others might get suspicious. The more that disappear in a short amount of time, the worse it will be for us. If the humanoid female is correct, and there are no aliens on this planet… Q’nan, can you imagine what would happen if we were discovered? If we were captured? We’d never escape! We leave, we hide behind one of the other empty planets in this system, and we give the humanoid enough time to bring us a real slave.”

“Is three solar cycles enough time?”

“Better than a disappearance every cycle. Besides, I think I know how we can cut our collecting time in half.”

A pair of lights appeared in the distance, accompanied by a low grinding noise. “More humanoids in a land-craft,” Q’nan warned. “We’d better get out of here before they get closer.”

They climbed up the shaky ladder as quickly as their bodies would allow. In a few minutes, they were hundreds of miles above the Earth, plotting a course for the far side of Mars.

It wasn’t until later that the thought came to B’nak. He bolted from his space-chair.

“Q’nan, what did I do with the control unit?”