The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The airlock cycled and Jane let her nostrils flare. Shipboard air was canned and metallic right up until the moment you boarded a station, at which point shipboard air was an odorless joy you longed to return to.

Nish’luhok station belonged to the uhluhna, which meant that humans had built it and humans were most of the crew and by far the largest part of the inhabitants and most of the stationside properties were owned by humans—and the station smelled like humans, sweat and soyfood—but the uhluhna had a space station they could claim as their own and, within limits strictly defined by treaty, call the shots on.

The uhluhna had wiped out ninety-eight percent of their own species via thermonuclear war a couple of centuries before the expanding human sphere stumbled upon the miserable remnants, so most sentients thought the uhluhna had gotten a pretty good deal: a client species that not only ran their own homeworld and a (single) colony, but had been given their own space station. Jane wondered how good an idea it really was to give a space platform to a species that had come within a hair’s breadth of wiping themselves out, but maybe they had learned from the experience.

Jane had never been to Nish’luhok station before. She wouldn’t be here now, except for this mysterious and urgent diversion from her current mission in the Nash sector. Sometimes it seemed that her superiors in Security and Safety relished tossing her into time-critical situations about which they could tell her nothing.

She stood outside the shuttle’s airlock and watched a small group approach.

The one in front was an actual uhluhn. “Cohanda Du-ake. Welcuhn to Nish’luhok station.” It extended a forearm.

Jane took it, clasped it, and let go. “Thank you.” She looked at his companions—a largish euro-orig man and an even larger eastais-orig man, both in black flexsuits, flanking the uhluhn on either side. They looked like bodyguards rather than advisors. It was even less probable that the uhluhn himself had been behind the missive that brought her here. Not with its priority. Uhluhn didn’t rate that high in S&S, unless perhaps they were about to nuke themselves again. So, someone else wanted her here.

“Commander Drake.”

Jane turned around to find herself facing a remarkably tall, remarkably striking woman. General human blend, perhaps a touch more eastais than not, easily two meters tall. Large grey eyes, dark hair swept up into a knot; wearing a station-suit that was not quite fashionable enough to disguise the subtle up-armoring.

And Jane hadn’t heard her approach.

The woman proffered her hand and Jane shook it. “And you are?” she asked.

“Your contact.” The large eyes swiveled past Jane’s shoulder. “Station master, thank you for your time.”

“Ny puh-leashuh. A puh-leashuh to neet you, Cohanda Du-ake. Gentuh-nen.” The uhluhn turned, a slightly complex maneuver involving six legs, and receded down the corridor, flanked by the black-clad guards.

“An actual uhluhn,” Jane remarked.

“Met many?” the woman asked. Her voice was cool and melodic, like the voice of shipboard AIs in entertainment vids.

“A couple dozen. None that I got to know.”

“Mm.”

Jane looked at the woman, who was clearly waiting for something.

“Should we talk on the shuttle?”

“No. A moment longer.”

Jane waited, hand on hand behind her back.

The woman’s earcomm chimed—barely—and she nodded. “Okay, the route is clear. Come with me.”

Jane followed as the woman walked briskly into the docking bay ring corridor, then down a side tube. “Having the Station master come down here let us clear the area for a few minutes.” A door, a right turn into a corridor, another door, and then they were in a small room. Three people were already waiting inside, two men and a woman; the woman turned and smiled.

“Commander!”

“Perseus.” Jane smiled, and gripped the slender woman’s hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise, Commander.” Her eyes slipped to the tall woman standing next to Jane, then back. “Get your briefing. We can catch up later.” Jane nodded.

“Commander Drake,” the woman said, stepping forward, “Specialist Perseus you know. This is Operations Supervisor Chandrasekha and this is Director Iglesias, both of the regional S&S.”

Chandrasekha was a small, southais-orig man with an intense look in his eyes. Iglesias was afro-orig, mostly; he managed a smile as Jane shook their hands in turn. “A pleasure.”

Perseus had already crossed to the closed door and was examining it with a handscan. “I think we’re clean,” she announced.

“Then we can get down to brass tacks,” the tall woman said. “The reason you were diverted here, Commander—”

“And you are?” Jane interrupted.

The woman raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “I’m sorry. I am Liandra den Vos. I am heading up this operation.”

“Not the Director?” Jane looked at Iglesias.

He shook his head. “I’m just liaising. She ranks me, and that should tell you something.”

Den Vos clasped her hands together. “Commander Drake, you were diverted here... Hm. Let me start from the beginning. Commander, have you ever heard of the iquari?”

“The human-mod telepaths? Most people think they’re just a legend.”

“And you?”

“I find that keeping an open mind helps me survive.”

“Interesting. The iquari exist, Commander, but they are not telepaths. Iquari do not read minds. They control them.” Den Vos’ expression did not change an iota. “I am one.”

“Control minds?”

“Precisely. Iquari can, with simple eye contact, completely override the will of any non-iquari human. After a minute or two their subject will do anything the iquari tells them to.”

Jane pursed her lips. “Interesting. And you work for Security and Safety?”

“No. There are very few iquari, Commander. I will not say precisely how many but a hundred would not be far off. We were lab created by the ZRC over a century ago, and are the culmination of seventy-eight generations of research. You are familiar with the ZRC’s methods?”

Jane nodded. “I had a couple of missions on Shou Hu-Lai. I met... some descendants of their labs, there.”

Den Vos continued. “We iquari were created on a station in the Rhodos system. When the ZRC was anathematized—quite properly, in my opinion—the Advisory Board found itself saddled with us. They could not let us loose into human space, but we were sufficiently innocent that they did not want to simply throw an asteroid into the facility. We were victims, too.”

“And they could use you.”

Den Vos smiled a bit at that. “Yes. I forgot for a moment your own somewhat intimate history with the Board.”

“I’m still their woman. Go on.”

“The surviving iquari were formed into a special branch, reporting only to the Advisor for Human Security. We act as troubleshooters, we keep ourselves to ourselves, we don’t ever use our abilities on the general public. And in return, we get to live.”

“And the AHS gets himself an extra special commando team. A whole company of... super-hypnotists.”

“Just so.”

“So what does this have to do with me being here?”

Den Vos frowned. “One of us has gone rogue, Commander. She’s here on Nish’luhok. And I need your help to bring her in.”

Jane shifted on her feet, moving her hands from behind her back to meeting in front of her belt.

“Bring her in, you say. That means alive?”

“Yes, if at all possible. But she must under no circumstances be allowed to escape us again.” Den Vos turned and took a few paces to the side. “We have actually been chasing this woman for the better part of a decade, Commander.” She sighed. “You need to understand the ramifications of what iquari can do. After two minutes of looking into her eyes, you would eagerly hand over any or all your possessions. Anyone—anyone—she comes into contact with is effectively her slave. She has any bank account for the asking, any ship she desires, any access she wants is granted the moment she meets the person with the right permissions. If she told you to kill your best friend, you would do it.”

“That powerful?”

“Yes. I have compiled video for you. Of her, and how she works. And how fast it is, and how easy. You need to see and understand exactly what we are dealing with.”

“This affects humans only?”

Den Vos looked surprised. “Hrm? Yes, humans only. Iquari powers do not work on any xenos.”

“And you can do all this too.”

Den Vos stared at her for a moment; her grey eyes were large and inscrutable. Jane’s skin did not tingle. “Yes. Any of us can. But we do not, Commander. We iquari have sworn to use our powers as little as possible. Preferably never, although sometimes what we do for the Board demands it.”

“Why would you swear to that?”

“Because we don’t want to live in any of the universes where we didn’t.” Den Vos turned and steepled her fingers. “We have thought this through, Commander. We have thought very hard about what would happen if we went out and used our power more openly, with less restraint. If the general human universe found out the truth about us.” She paused. “I could tell you about the gratitude we feel to the Board, or how we enjoy the work we do for them, or how well-compensated we are—and we are very well-compensated—but iquari are just people, Drake. We all have different opinions, different reasons for doing things. The one thing we all agree on is that breaking our covenant would be bad. For all of us.”

“All of you with one apparent exception. What’s her name?”

“Her name is Arriket. Arriket Den Vex, although she has not used her proper surname in many years.”

“’Many years’. You mentioned a decade. How long ago did she go rogue?”

The woman’s lips tightened. “Years ago. This is the closest we have ever gotten to her, and I do not intend to let her slip away. A... series of fortunate coincidences has suddenly put her within our grasp. Hence the urgency of your summons.”

Jane pondered for a moment. “So why me? I presume I can be dominated as easily as anyone else.”

“That’s true. From what I’ve read of you, Commander, you are extremely strong-willed. Given that this is true, it would be three minutes before you did exactly anything she told you to, rather than two.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you’re extremely competent. Because you appear to be lucky. Because you’ve been working on the other side of human space so she doesn’t know who you are. Because you’re interesting. And because you’re a lesbian.”

Jane shot a look at Perseus, who looked away. “And that matters because?”

“Because, Commander Drake, Arriket enjoys enslaving pretty, interesting women, and turning them into her sex slaves. I need you to be our bait.”