The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Aaron Byörnson scanned the data pad he’d been handed. He sighed, and flung it back on the conference table. It slid across, as though slipping on a frictionless surface, and clattered noisily on the deck.

The woman standing before Byörnson glared at him, not bothering to pick up the pad. “I take it your answer’s no?”

The security chief chastised himself for his carelessness. The ship’s onboard gravity had been set to .7 gee so the crew would have time to adjust to Tau Lyra IV’s planetside conditions, but his natural reflexes needed only a moment to forget that detail. With Ancilla now in standard orbit, his job had become a nightmare : exploration surveys were under way, and requests for landing authorizations fused from all science departments.

“With all due respect, Dr. Nolann, we’ve got to set priorities. Tau Lyra is a charted system. No trace of alien artifacts have yet been found. I’ve got the Xenobiology section breathing down my neck, demanding priority flight clearance to the main continent. There are only so many orbital shuttles to spare.”

Kara Nolann frowned. At six-feet and a half, she had the lithe physique of a human bred in Salazaar’s low-gravity. Her vacc-proof skinsuit—civilian issue—stretched tightly over her body, its smooth metallic mesh taking on a near-liquid shine under the ship’s aseptic lighting. Her features were almost angelic, but with an hint of hardened determination lying quietly underneath. Her gold-white hair fell in an intricate braid down her left shoulder, and she stood defiantly before the officer, like a valkyrie poised to harvest souls on a battlefield.

Byörnson’s eyes wandered, noting the lean tautness of muscles hardened at one standard gee, and lingering shamelessly to her round, firm breasts. Kara recognized the crass attempt to coax psychological leverage, but was hardly bothered by it; the stifling, jungle-like conditions on her homeworld had done away with clothing as a rule, and the quaint cultural taboos associated with them.

Kara hands fell on her hips. “The previous expedition didn’t have the benefit of a trained archeologist.”

The security chief raised his eyes. “Your point being?”

“No field reconnaissance was done on TL IV. Need I remind you that my research points to extensive networks of underground ruins?”

Byörnson waved his hand impatiently. “Xenobiology suspects a host of unclassified organisms may inhabit the area. We don’t even know if it’s safe for field personnel down there.”

“You know as well as I do Xenobiology has already signed off on the contamination issue. As for the rest, its nothing standard survey equipment can’t handle. There’s no reason to restrict access, provided the usual precautions are taken. This isn’t exactly my first assignment, sir.“

Kara emphasized the last word with as much sarcasm as she thought she could get away with. The fact that she needed to wait for military clearance simmered unpleasantly inside her. She cast the officer a hard glare, daring him to challenge her field record.

Byörnson mulled it over, drumming his fingers on the table. “Humans have been searching through this whole sector for alien artifacts, and we haven’t found a thing. I wonder how you’ve managed to nail such a generous research grant from the Knowledge Institute on New Europa.”

He left the insinuation hanging, but Kara didn’t give him the benefit of an outburst. Instead, she offered a humorless smirk, as if to acknowledge a not-so-clever joke.

“This expedition is under civilian control, not Fleet Command’s. You are required to assist all departments in carrying out their assigned tasks. The other divisions are still busy with preparations, while I’m ready and standing by. Unless you can log a specific security risk, you must grant my request for a shuttle.

“Unless you’d rather I petition the captain for a review of procedures.”

The threat wasn’t idle—Nolann’s eyes burned like twin fusion reactors. For a moment he pictured her clad in thick leather and steel, sword raised in her fist as she rode one of the winged horses he’d seen in an old Earth painting. Valhalla for the others. But not for him.

Byörnson sneered in resignation, called up the landing roster on the desk’s data screen, and keyed in the changes.

“Geology will need three shuttles for the thalium oxide survey. That leaves one for the radiation belt study, and one for your survey. You’ll drop on TL IV with Dr. Hoshima—the xenobotany division can make itself useful for a change. While she’s busy collecting samples, you may conduct your research. I’ll assign officer Preston to ferry you there. He’ll be in charge of security during your stay.”

Dr. Nolann nodded. “Very well. But may I suggest...?”

“What?”

“Officer Delormier. I’ve gotten to know her since we left the docking ring at Albigensia. I believe she’s cleared for First-survey duty.”

For a moment, Byörnson fancied being a son-of-a-bitch, but a routine shuttle drop was a waste of Preston’s talents, and Essandre Delormier was up for rotation anyway.

“Fine. I’ll log the assignment. Report to Delormier at the beginning of the next duty watch.”

He watched Nolann slip out the cabin’s side hatch with the self-effacing manner befitting her rank, and convinced himself he hadn’t been intimidated. Odin dines in poor company tonight.

But he still grumbled as the door contracted behind her.

“Enslaver ruins my ass.”

Little meaning had been deciphered from the alien relics left behind on a dozen worlds throughout Human space. The structures, eroded over half a billion years of exposure to hostile elements, stood as the skeletal remains of a forgotten empire. Archeologists studying the runic fragments left behind still debated the significance of many symbols, but there was no disagreement over the name the ancient race had chosen for itself.

Enslavers.

The evidence was diverse. Apart from surviving ruins, numerous worlds within a hundred light-years of Earth showed traces of terraforming on a primeval scale. Fossil records testified to repetitive cataclysmic events which had wiped out the indigenous life forms, clearing the way for a new species. It was thought that the Enslaver domain had stretched beyond the boundaries of Human space, perhaps beyond Orion’s arm.

They had ruled over all sentient species they’d come in contact with. Theories abounded on their method of control : natural telepathic ability acquired through evolution was generally agreed upon, though others argued the use of organic technology. The question remained open, as Enslaver remains had not survived the eons well. Partial skeletal arrangements proved difficult without an intact specimen to work from, but it was clear they shared a bipedal physiology with humans.

Their rule had been absolute. No evidence of war or rebellion among the slave races had been uncovered. Star-faring conflicts scar entire worlds—fusion bombs, mass drivers and anti-matter devices, all of it technically achievable by an advanced civilization, yet unused in any instance. Not one of the habitable planets surveyed by humanity had shown the merest trace of conflict.

The mystery of their disappearance was complete. The Enslavers, at the height of their power, had vanished suddenly, without warning or reason.

There were no answers to be found elsewhere. The slave races, seemingly unable to go on without their masters, had quickly followed them into oblivion.

The whine of the shuttle’s landing thrusters died with a flick of the switch. Officer Essandre Delormier took a moment longer to double check her instrument panel, verifying their position on the southernmost tip of the planet’s second continent, before disengaging herself from the pilot’s couch. Tau Lyra was a bright speck in the sky, its ember-red glow filtered through the polarized windows of the cockpit.

She leaned forward to glimpse the desert-like terrain outside, and gave a satisfied nod.

“We’re settled, people. Let’s get started.”

Emiko Hoshima and Kara Nolann slipped out of their angled passenger couches and groaned as they stretched their legs. Ancilla was large for a survey ship, but its cargo bays were for supplies and equipment. The prospect of taking a shuttle down to TL IV wasn’t appealing merely for the sake of science; it would be good to enjoy the freedom of a planetside stroll.

“I can’t frelling wait,” Emiko grumbled, trying to massage a sore spot in her upper back; she struggled against the cumbersome EVA suit Essandre had insisted she wore during descent. Her normally cheerful demeanor had gone sour during the flight, owing mostly to her attempts to find comfort inside a standard-sized suit that didn’t quite accommodate her smaller frame. She hadn’t taken Kara’s advice to braid her hair, long and raven-black, which had led to entertaining moments when came the time for a helmet seal check.

Emiko wasn’t the most intrepid of spacers, it seemed. Unsealing one of her gloves, she finally reached the sensitive area by slipping her hand underneath the metal collar that secured her helmet into place. Her relief came in a muttered string of expletives.

Kara did her best not to laugh as she slipped out of her own suit, folded it into the compartment underneath her landing couch and donned a field jacket. “Well. Shall we?”

“Wait for a final readout of the atmosphere,” warned Essandre, feeling the need to nanny the others through the landing checklist.

Kara rolled her eyes and chucked. “Careful. You’re beginning to sound like him.”

Essandre’s serious expression crumbled into a smile. Fleet Command had its share of by-the-book C.O.’s, but Kara’s irreverence towards chief Byörnson was contagious. It didn’t help that there was a grain of truth in her allegations, but the uniform carried certain responsibilities; She did her best not to think along those lines, and didn’t tolerate such comments from the crew, of course, but Kara’s case was... different.

The fact that she was an outsider and a civilian counted for something, but there were other reasons for leniency, and Essandre had made up a few while spending a couple of her off-duty watches getting to know the archeologist. She was from Kaylee’s World originally, but had been stationed on Salazaar for two years, fresh out of the Academy; she’d taken to trading stories of Kara’s homeworld, sharing a lot of laughs and chatting for hours in the main galley. Halfway into the hyperwave jump, stern officer and irreverent civilian had formed an improbable but enduring friendship.

Thus, Essandre poked an unapologetic finger in the middle of Kara’s stomach, smirking without remorse when the other yelped in protest. “Settle down before I put you in a restraining harness. First-survey jitters aside, there’s still room for unpleasant surprises.”

She played the ‘ranking officer’ card with far too much enjoyment, knowing of Kara’s “respect” for authority figures, but before Kara could protest, the bioscan readout flicked to green, deeming the outside atmosphere suitable for human life.

“So much for occupational paranoia,” said Kara, barely containing her glee. “Now how about a hand in the storage bay?”

“Hear, hear,” Emiko seconded.

The trio headed for the back of the shuttle, nudging against the cramped confines of the cabin. Once they stepped through the swishing airlock and into the cargo hold, Kara and Emiko looked about and located their respective storage units.

“You’re not breaking out the heavy digging equipment yet, are you?” Essandre asked Kara warily.

“Nah. Only digital imagers for now. The deep radar maps point to a number of cavern networks in this area, and some of them might be sheltering artifacts. I’ll start with a visual record. If I find any preserved markings, I can always hook up a scanner to my translation unit. Might get us closer to deciphering the Enslaver language.”

Essandre helped her move one of the larger boxes. “Deciphering? I thought we’d pretty much cracked their language.”

Kara shook her head. “Not really. The written form is ideographic—which makes sense for a civilization of advanced telepaths. You don’t bother to develop alphabetic skills if you communicate by projecting thoughts into other minds.

“We have to process runic symbols through translation algorithms. If you can make some educated guesses, part of the whole begins to make sense. Unfortunately, no one’s yet found a translation matrix that’s anywhere close to perfect. We’ve had better luck with a few of the slave-race languages, but it’s still a mess. If we can find a rosetta stone, it would put an end to all the guesswork.”

“This is why I picked xenobotany,” said Emiko, fishing through her own set of storage units at the other end of the hold. “There’s no guesswork involved. We all work from the same book. Just grab your samples and head for the lab. Either it all computes, or doesn’t.”

Kara grimaced. “Wading through tons of alien algae? I’ll stick to Enslaver runes, thanks.”

“Tsk, tsk. Far too squick-prone, isn’t she?” said Emiko, with a wink to Essandre. “I bet she’ll be begging me for a look at my notes if I find molecular evidence of Enslaver tampering in the indigenous ecology.”

Essandre looked at her in surprise. “A whole Enslaver colony? Here?”

Emiko shrugged, lining up portable scanning units and vacuum-sealed containers. “Sure. Could be. Tau Lyra’s in dwarf stage; it’s been here for a long time. This planet is one of the few habitable worlds in the region—any space-faring race who thrives on oxygen is going to notice.

“Once I get my first samples analyzed, I can start looking for specific sets of amino chains. Enslavers favored certain kinds of non-indigenous flora, and seeded all potential colonies accordingly. Even if the terraforming process was interrupted, those traces remain on a molecular level.”

The sheer scale of it dawned upon Essandre, and she gave a long whistle. “Hard to believe a race would spread far and wide across the stars, only to vanish so suddenly.”

“Yeah. Well. Lucky for us,” muttered Emiko. “Imagine running into a live specimen.”

Kara remained cautiously silent as she checked out her equipment, but Emiko’s words slipped through her like silk. She suppressed the familiar tingle of arousal and summoned a mask of casual indifference in case the others glanced back at her.

They didn’t notice. No one ever did.

It had been easy to fool colleagues back on New Europa. Discussions there had remained clinical for the most part. Throughout her career, she’d shown nothing but a healthy dose of scientific curiosity when it came to Enslaver mind control; most of her peers had been too busy praising her dedication for the work to notice her squirm in her seat during ‘Slave species induction’ seminars, which she never failed to attend.

In truth, Kara was long past denying the unusual appeal of that aspect of Enslaver society. She’d had dreams about Enslaver control for years... disturbing fantasies about an alien intelligence overpowering lesser minds with a single telepathic command. It was strangely compelling, a kind of fascination that wouldn’t let go of her. Only when the persistent scenarios had begun to feature her as a victim of Enslaver mind control had she gathered the nerve to hack the personnel database of the Knowledge Institute, looking for red flags in her psych profile. Scholars and scientists were often expected to obsess over their work... but she doubted Quantum physicists masturbated while picturing a tachyon flux.

Or dreamed about being taken over by one, she thought presently.

Essandre, unaware of her friend’s musings, swore softly. “There are rumors that Fleet Command has been working on invasion contingencies for decades. It’s dismissed as preposterous, but the fact is no one knows if the Enslavers are really gone. I... I can’t bring myself to fathom what our fate would be like if they were still around.”

This time, there was a slight twitch in Kara’s neutral expression, and a warmer flush between her legs. The tremor in Essandre’s voice was so unlike the dry monotone of professors and colleagues.

“There’s little point,” Kara heard herself say. “If Enslavers were still around, this whole sector of space would likely be under their rule. None of us would be having this conversation.”

Her words made perfect sense. She had no scientific doubts in that regard. Her educated opinion was sound, and she tried to focus on cold facts, even as her mind veered off on a different tangent. In a heartbeat, she imagined the improbable mental picture that Essandre was surely conjuring : fleets of odd-shaped vessels, skipping across the sky of populated worlds... saucer-shaped landing crafts, setting down everywhere... green, shapeless, multi-headed things, slithering down massive ramps, their three blinking eyestalks staring at the crowds of frightened humans... their weird brains broadcasting mind-numbing telepathic commands... we are your lee-doors...

Despite the silliness of her musings, Kara’s own fantasies took over, quickening her pulse, making it race with longing and heat. She felt herself drift off, summoned, pulled into one of the dark and wet dreams that visited her in the heart of night, moistening her sheets and her sex. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the lightheadedness. The heat between her legs simmered deliciously, and she fought not to blush as her she noticed Essandre and Emiko, staring at her with puzzled expressions.

“Wha—?”

Essandre made a face. “Was it that stupid a question?”

“No, uh, I mean, what question?”

“How far was their reach? How far could Enslavers influence others?”

“The range was planetwide, we estimate,” Kara muttered quickly, taking a deep and sudden interest in a set of portable power cells. “Something to do with the world’s magnetic field. It’s... uh... it’s likely only a handful of Enslavers were ever present on a given world at any time.”

That seemed to surprise both Essandre and Emiko.

“Why only a handful? They couldn’t stand their own company?”

Kara sighed inwardly and gave up on the power cells. “Given the freedom afforded by their talent, it’s likely they expanded in small, independent groups, with a host of other races providing for them. Enslavers encouraged the creation of artificial belief structures to focus a slave-population’s desire and need to serve.”

Essandre shuddered. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction, and Kara wondered what her friend would think if she could read Kara’s thoughts just now : visions of alien temples surged in her mind, colossal structures, rising masses of marble bent in lop-sided shapes... Kara herself, colored into the eerie, alien landscape, clothed in white robes, staring with wide eyes, pliant and docile... hands outstretched towards a grotesque mass of flesh... a prayer rising on her lips.

Thanking It. Not for taking her mind, but for enslaving her race.

“It’s hard to believe,” said Essandre. “Being brainwashed to such an extent. Wanting to serve... wanting to obey so completely.”

“Hard?” said Emiko. “Try scary. It’s the kind of nightmare that can keep you awake at night.”

“Yeah, well,” Kara interrupted, desperate for a change of subject, “if you two are done disparaging my field of study, maybe we can step out of this shuttle and get started?”

The somber mood was dispelled by light cheer. Essandre equalized the cargo hold pressure and lowered the rear loading platform. The three humans donned polarized goggles to guard against the blazing light of Tau Lyra, stepped down the ramp, and took their first steps on the planetary soil.

Weeks spent inside the scout vessel had numbed their senses. They had to adjust to the crisp sound of their own footsteps and the silhouettes stretching behind them. The shuttle had come to rest on a flat, sandy stretch of ground, covered by patches of dried vegetation. A strong gust of wind came from rocky outcroppings west of the landing site, carrying the faint, acrid smell of the cobalt-rich ocean crashing its waves against a distant, unseen shore.

They took deep breaths, filling their lungs with air, slightly euphoric as they glimpsed the arching sky looming so far above them. They had lived in a box for weeks, and had finally been released.

It was some time before the camp was set up. Eventually, pressure tents, generators and solar panels were deployed. Survey equipment was piled next to the shuttle. Essandre tested the emergency comm unit with a brief message to Ancilla, while Emiko and Kara powered a sensor net that stretched over a fifty meter radius around the camp.

They wired proximity alarms for good measure, and all three strapped fleet-issue stunners to their hips despite the assurances of the xenobiology division—another standard precaution Essandre had insisted upon.

By the time Tau Lyra IV’s ten-hour daytime period ended, mounted spotlights illuminated the whole area surrounding the camp. The three women settled around a fire hastily built with snapped branches from surrounding shrubs, and shared a meal of field rations together; they gazed up at the night sky from time to time, dazzled by a host of new, unfamiliar constellations.

When the meal was done, they hurried once more. A tight schedule had been agreed upon, to make the best of their allotted time on the planet. Starting at sunrise, Essandre would take the shuttle up for low-level digital mapping of nearby islands, keeping a comm line open in case of trouble.

Emiko and Kara, for their part, would begin their own search for answers.

The guardian stirred.

It had not roused itself for uncounted millennia. There had been no reason to. Now, at last, it was waking from the long dream.

Its thoughts were filled with longing. The Masters had created it long ago, for one Purpose. They had instilled it with knowledge, working quickly, even as the End days were upon Them. They had brought it to an alien world, and They had left, never to return.

The guardian was a tool. And so it waited.

Suns drifted through space, stretching farther apart, growing cool as eons passed. The guardian had not been alone. Beings like itself had also waited on distant worlds, created for the same, identical Purpose. They had reached out with their minds and filled the void with thoughts, waiting for new sentient races to rise and populate the stars once more.

None came.

Millions of cycles passed. Time flowed like a river of ice, swallowing thoughts and memory. The Masters had long disappeared. Hope of a Second rise dwindled infinitesimally. Fate cheated guardians out of many promising crops of sentients, snuffing them out through natural selection and random catastrophes before they could rise to the stars and hear the call.

Ancient temples, erected by the slave races at the dawn of the Masters’ rule, all but eroded into dust, Their legacy dwindling into nothingness. The guardians endured for a time, even as the galaxy spun in lazy arcs, but they, too, were destined for the vanishing. Once numerous across the boundaries of space, they slipped away into the long dark one by one, winking out of existence.

The blackness became deathly silent.

The remaining guardian drifted into a long sleep. Its genetic structure was engineered, frozen against change. Cosmic radiation would not damage or alter it. There would be no deviation from the Purpose it had been given.

Then, finally, even as the sun in its sky fused the last of its hydrogen, the guardian sensed the presence of sentient minds once more. It felt their knowledge, their consciousness, pulsing in strange patterns and complexities. They came and studied this world from far above. They were still eager and curious when they left, and the guardian knew they would return.

It waited diligently, patiently, and sensed their return from a distant star. They scurried inside the long shapes of metal they had built, reaching out across the abyss of space to colonize worlds as the Masters once had.

This time, the sentients would journey to the surface.

The guardian stirred... and began to prepare.

“Still no evidence of ruins thus far. I’ve spent the morning checking outcroppings to the northeast—refer to grid seven for layout. Underground radar imager reports no discernible finds. I’ve decided to move to grid twelve right away, following a promising read off the EM scan. Recorder off”

Kara resisted the urge to chuck the recorder over her shoulder and storm off to base camp. Instead, she dropped her field bag into the dust, leaned against a shuttle-sized boulder, and called up her planned search pattern on her data pad.

Three days and still nothing to show for it. To hell with an orderly pattern. She’d poured over runes unearthed on Gethsemane and Clarke’s World, spending the better part of two years translating the runes into a set of galactic coordinates. She was convinced that her find held important clues that pointed to another location—a marker of sorts.

If she was right, then Tau Lyra IV was a major repository of Enslaver knowledge.

It took me two more years to convince New Europa’s Knowledge Institute, Kara thought bitterly. I picked the most promising dig sites. The place should be littered with relics.

She wiped sweat off with the sleeve of her field jumpsuit and readjusted her protective goggles. Advances in technology had sped up discoveries in her field, but rigorous, methodical habits were still required; yielding to the temptation of searching for the quick-and-easy find might leave her disorganized, grasping at straws.

Indecision gnawed at her. She reached in her bag and pulled out the scanning unit, flicking it on and wondering if she’d hallucinated.

There. The same electromagnetic pattern she’d detected this morning. A background ripple, barely readable over the usual static.

What the frell is that?

The unit suddenly chirped—a brief spike in the EM read—and Kara almost dropped it. She pushed off the rock with sudden excitement, and swung the device in slow arcs, trying to get a bearing. Her heart pounded as the scanner automatically locked onto the source : a steady pulse, twenty degrees to her left, roughly four kilometers away.

She resisted the urge to call it in right away—whatever ‘it’ was. She could live with Essandre and Emiko teasing her about jumping the gun, but Byörnson would call from orbit to press her for details. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of admitting to error.

She shouldered her bag and set off towards rolling hills at a brisk pace, scanner in hand. The terrain was uneven, but she didn’t mind the exercise, finding the planet’s gravity comfortably close to what she was used to back on Salazaar.

She trekked across a sandy expanse for half a kilometer, and reached a cluster of rising hills. Rocky formations jutted out of the charcoal-colored soil, offering a decent grip for the climb. She made good time, negotiating a path between rising boulders, pausing occasionally to update her position on the mapping grid. She pinpointed additional features, now visible from her elevated vantage point.

Dozens of dark, cavernous openings pockmarked the landscape, their smooth edges stretching into wide-open maws. Kara remembered the assurances from Xenobiology, but despite those (and the absence of animal tracks in the dust), she rested a hand on the grip of her stunner for reassurance.

She gave the nearest cave entrance a wide berth, and took additional reads off the scanner to avoid deviating too far off course. It wasn’t long before she reached a rocky plateau, and from then on she quickened her pace. She strolled for fifteen minutes—leaning into a brisk wind as she went—until she came across a steep gorge, cutting a swath right through her path.

To her right, she noted that the hillsides sunk gradually, leveling off after a few dozen meters, creating a natural basin. The scanner pointed straight at it.

Kara began a descent down a smooth slab of rock with renewed excitement. When she reached the bottom, she faced yet another cave entrance : its half-moon opening was fissured and crumbling to one side, slanted in the same shallow curve as the rockface.

She approached, getting stronger and stronger EM reads with each step.

This was it. She could feel it.

She called up Emiko on her chronocom.

“Frell! Hoshima here.”

“That’s... not the standard reply I expected.”

Emiko’s voice came through slightly garbled, but her annoyance was plain. “I’m in the middle of something.”

Kara broke into a smile as she pictured her colleague standing ankle deep in a writhing mass of purple algae, trying to keep her balance.

“I may have found something. Have you got a fix on Essandre’s position?”

“Twenty clicks out, somewhere South-East. She’ll fly the shuttle back to base camp in three hours.”

Kara glanced at the cavern entrance, and the gentle slope leading within. “I picked up on a promising lead. I’m going underground to check out a tunnel system.”

The voice paused. “Shouldn’t you wait for backup, just in case?”

Kara considered it for a moment, but the frustration of the last few days had taken its toll.

“Nah. I’m uploading my current position now. If you don’t hear from me by nightfall, signal the ship. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but this might be what I came here for.”

She expected a tense appeal for caution, but instead heard the xenobotanist mutter very nasty things about algae stuck to the rim of sample containers.

“Good luck at your end,” said Kara with a laugh. “I’ll be in touch soon. Nolann out.”

She flicked off the wrist comm, dropped her bag on the ground, and quickly assembled her gear : voice recorder, scanner, data pad, glow rod, mapping grid. She checked the power cells on each of the items, and smiled with satisfaction when they flashed green. Radar sweeps from the mapper would help her navigate underground—there was no way she’d get lost.

With a deep breath, Kara Nolann strolled to the cave entrance, flicked on the glow rod, and disappeared into the dark.

The guardian reached out with its mind.

It glimpsed knowledge from the sentient minds, images fractured and warped but recognizable. It examined their flesh-shape from afar, sensing feeble energy-pulses racing along the twisted arborescence of their nervous systems. They moved nimbly, scurrying like drones to catalog the environment. Their sense organs were oddly clustered, and underdeveloped for the most part.

But the guardian marveled at their strange tools fashioned out of metal, which they used to sense what they could not perceive naturally. Some of those tools were dangerous, and the guardian reached out carefully to avoid detection. It already knew of the shining hull that orbited high above the planet, and the fusion flames that would be unleashed upon the surface should the sentients learn of its Purpose.

It would have to act with great care.

Something like excitement sizzled through its writhing, elongated limbs. A trio of sentients journeyed to the surface, landing very close to the cave. Decades could have gone by before some of them approached near enough for the Guardian to fulfill its Purpose—surely this species had uncovered one of the markers left behind by the Masters.

The guardian focused on their minds. Evolution had gifted them with simple, primitive brains. A flurry of conflicting thoughts sizzled along animal nerve tissue, occasionally disturbed by ripples of emotion wired deep in their alien psyche. They lacked even the ability to share mind-thoughts.

Before long, one of the sentients had left the others to explore caves. It was a knowledge-drone, trained to study and learn things. The guardian sensed curiosity and thirst for Enslaver lore. It was odd to sample a mind so primitive and ignorant of simple truths, but the guardian persevered, growing more and more attuned to the shape and meaning of its thoughts.

In time, the guardian quivered with anticipation. It reached out. Slowly. Carefully. It had waited so long for this moment. Its Purpose would soon be fulfilled.

Soon, the sentient would become slaveflesh.

With her current luck, Kara had half expected an incline so steep that she’d have to turn back for climbing equipment, but her pessimism proved unfounded. Her descent into the heart of the cave was easy, but she took her time anyway, insuring a steady foothold. She swung the light back and forth along the cave walls, but there was little evidence of damage or collapse. Tau Lyra IV had long ceased to be geologically active; the underground tunnel system was likely intact.

The cavern floor became horizontal roughly ten meters beneath the surface. The beam of light from her rod reflected eerily along the walls, gliding along smooth stretches of polished bedrock. Her breathing made a tiny sound, which she noticed after a while; she slowed her breathing almost immediately, and then laughed, wondering why she felt the need to be so quiet.

The air was not stale or musty, despite the lack of a draft. She made annotations on her mapper as the corridor wound its way underneath the planet surface; she’d expected it to narrow as she went along, but it remained wide, almost accommodating. She checked the time at regular intervals, and paused for EM reads. The scanner now picked up a clear, steady pulse.

The tunnel branched off a number of times, but she followed the scanner, ignoring the other corridors. With every step came the urge to quicken the pace, but she controlled her impatience as best she could.

Finally, she reached a crumbled section of the tunnel, blocked by small boulders. She flicked the glow rod up and down, studying her options with care. The passageway remained accessible, provided she climbed atop the rubble, and steered clear of the collapsed section.

With careful steps, she ascended and reached the opening, stooping slightly to avoid bumping in the ceiling. She poked her head through, hoping for a good look at the cave within.

A rock slipped under her foot. She skidded forward with a yelp, stumbling into a cave chamber.

She swore loudly as she fell, then winced as she bruised her right knee. The pain throbbed all the way up her leg, but she gritted her teeth and scrambled to her feet. The stab of fear and disorientation dissipated as she focused.

She swung the light around her. Jagged shadows danced along the path of the beam, making it difficult to judge the size and shape of the subterranean cavity. The floor, however, stretched in a smooth slab of black rock, with nothing but a few cracks and fissures.

As Kara focused the light forward, she froze, noticing a familiar shape outlined in the dark. She took slow steps, favoring her stiff leg. Her pulse raced as the shadows became crisp and defined around the object, confirming her suspicions. She’d seen something nearly identical, on two very distant worlds.

An oblong shape, carved out of the bedrock, hoisted upright. Markings were etched in its rounded facade, arranged in three narrow, vertical columns.

An Enslaver megalith.

Kara’s hands shook as she approached the stone. She circled it slowly, her eyes fixated upon the runes. Some of them were new and unfamiliar, and her brain immediately went into analysis mode, trying to make sense of the symbol arrangements. A thick layer of dust covered some of the markings, but she brushed it away carefully, feeling a rush of excitement through her fingertips.

This was fashioned by alien hands.

Her galloping heartbeat finally snapped her out of her trance, and a sense of elation flooded throughout her body. Her mind reeled, the pain in her knee forgotten in the wake of personal triumph. Her discovery wasn’t accidental—she had correlated data from several different worlds, leading her to this specific location. How many more dig sites would she unearth? How far would her research take her?

Kara fumbled for her translator unit, and began to key in some of the runic sequences. She recognized some of the symbols, but their arrangement differed slightly from what she’d studied. She called up a few of the more reliable translation algorithms, keyed in the first runic sequence, and held her breath as the device computed the problem. The seconds stretched on interminably while she stared at the tiny screen, aware of the possible historic implications of the moment.

The gave a puzzled frown when the algorithm produced a single word, which flashed across her data screen.

Slaveflesh?

Kara tried a few other algorithms, but the result was the same. She was about to key in another sequence of runes when she stopped dead in her tracks.

Shadows were playing tricks with her eyes. She glanced upwards, towards the cave ceiling, flashing the light on a patch of darkness that had suddenly caught her attention.

Shock was her last, coherent thought.

The glow rod fell to the ground. It rolled aside, making shadows bank sideways as it flashed its round, moving spotlight across the wall to her left.

Kara ignored it, transfixed by the hypnotic impulse still echoing in her mind.

She blinked her eyes. Puzzlement filtered in her mind, but she found it impossible to concentrate. She had no idea why she felt the sudden need to remain still, but a pleasant thrill of excitement made her shiver as she rooted her feet on the cave floor.

Moments later she felt it again—a disembodied thought, winding its way inside her brain, bubbling up in her consciousness. It came to her suddenly, interrupting her sluggish reflections, and her eyes fluttered as she felt herself give in to it.

Obey.

Fear dissipated almost as soon as the strange mind-thought sank in. Excitement was overshadowed by the onset of desire: she swayed on her feet, while a pulse of hot pleasure flared between her legs. She thought of her dreams, of the warmth that invaded her loins when she dwelled on a favorite fantasy... it didn’t feel all that different from now. She wondered why she hardly objected to the onset of this strange bliss, but the disembodied voice continued its sweet whisper.

It was soon the only thought she could sustain. It was hot and exciting. She could feel herself surrender to it. It was a strange sensation—as if she were witnessing her own helpless struggle from a distance. She was floating now, caught in the fantasy, watching herself as she stood rigidly, her mind making feeble protests while an unseen, unnatural force quietly gained control.

Obey.

Kara moaned this time, sensing the clarity of the strange mind-thoughts, and the way they so easily suppressed her own. She was growing more receptive to the commands with each passing second.

She sensed a presence overhead, voicing the commands in her mind. Her legs quivered in anticipation as her eyes stared up.

She saw the creature, nesting right above her.

It radiated a faint glow, shining all along its tentacle-like arms, which stretched in a starfish pattern and adhered to the ceiling. Its skin appeared viscous, translucent, with a network of veins winding underneath. The multitude of limbs joined together in a throbbing mass of flesh—presumably the nerve center, though it had no discernible sense organs.

Shock and horror never registered in Kara. The mind-thoughts still poured into her brain, replacing fear with longing. She was standing in a deep underground cavern, isolated from her human colleagues, unable to call for help, aroused by an alien entity... and all of it made perfect sense. Listening to the misshapen thing hanging overhead filled her with increasing lust.

Obey.

Her mind screamed yes! before she even acknowledged the need to. Sweet delirium was overtaking her, making it hard to struggle. The awareness of her gradual slip into mindlessness felt almost as hot as the echo of the repeated command.

Kara’s body stiffened in pride at how well she was responding. She felt warm, almost feverish; the skintight material of her field suit stretched against her flesh, trapping heat and moistness.

She fancied stripping it off, but her arms wouldn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t...

Ooohhh

No. Of course. It was important not to question. Not to think. She had to fight the irrational loathing that still lurked in her heart, as she stared up at the thing above her. She needed to listen more intently to the voice in her mind. Only it could control her. Only it could order her to walk, to move.

To pleasure herself.

Kara imagined how that would feel—standing still as she received mental commands... then moving her hands in order to obey... slipping them along the curve of her breasts, tearing at her clothing in order to bare herself. Her nipples responded at once, poking hard through the fabric, throbbing with anticipation.

She trembled at the thought of what else might be asked of her, and glanced up in expectation at the creature, begging for instructions. She could still feel a vague sense of worry clouding her judgment—as though her desire to yield and obey the alien impulses was wrong and unnatural. She wanted to be rid of it.

That need for perfect clarity resonated inside her, and at that moment, a new thought buzzed in her mind.

She frowned a little. Something about her communicator. Yes.

Kara reached instinctively for the device attached to her wrist, but her movements were stiff. Like she was caught in a dream. She didn’t understand, and wondered briefly if she was resisting. More confusion obscured her thinking, but she couldn’t focus.

Her heart was racing for some reason. Her thoughts were muddled, slippery, but she sensed that it would only worry her if she dwelt on it further. Her fingers caressed the device’s display, and the emergency beacon underneath.

A last, struggling pang of worry surged up, but it quickly passed. She smiled emptily, unfastened the wristband, and breathed a sight of contentment as the device dropped at her feet.

She blinked again, trying to remember why she ought to feel so relieved. It didn’t matter. The voice was still in her mind, speaking to her, commanding her. More of her thoughts slipped away, evaporating, and Kara shivered as numbing acceptance replaced them all.

The guardian was pleased.

The sentient stood perfectly still. Its mind had proven easy to subjugate—the species was remarkably susceptible to induction.

The transformation from sentient to slaveflesh would soon begin.

Waves of mind-numbing submission cascaded down through the mind-link. To its surprise, the guardian perceived a complete lack of resistance. Obedience filtered back in response, as though the sentient had already felt the mind-touch of the Masters.

Yes... the guardian could perceive the sentient’s willingness to yield to probing. It studied the inferior mind, assimilating knowledge and perceptions, absorbing the specifics of its genetic structure and anatomy. Could this species really be tamed? Would they survive the bonding? Would it be possible to enslave others?

In a stream of images coursing up the mind-link, the sentient’s previously unfathomable racial and cultural axioms were quickly absorbed. The guardian tasted the rapture of fulfillment as clear understanding filtered through its consciousness.

It knew the sentients would make perfect slaves. Their biology had its share of peculiarities, but nothing that would not be overcome.

Deep inside the guardian’s womb, something stirred for the very first time.

It was accompanied by a tremor of worry. Although eggs could be laid quickly, the bonding process itself would take time. Symbiots matured differently, in accordance with their host; there was no telling how long it would take to bond with this species.

No matter. There was no choice but to keep the sentient here. The others who scurried far from the cave would expect a signal from the voice-device, but it was an acceptable risk. After the transition to slaveflesh, it would be a simple matter to deceive them.

Slowly, the guardian began to fill the sentient’s mind with instructions.

The command found its way into her mind. You will become slaveflesh.

Kara moaned deeply, while her thoughts warped and twisted, conforming slowly with the will of the creature.

“I... will... become... slaveflesh.”

It lacked the proper sensory organs to hear her, but she spoke aloud just the same, slipping deeper into her slave-awareness at the sound of her own monotonous voice. Repeating the dull syllables reinforced the truth of the creature’s dominance over her.

Perhaps it would sense her willingness to serve, and derive pleasure from it.

Her new thoughts came clearly now, sharp and crystal-like. She accepted her newfound purpose without doubt or hesitation. Her trance slipped into silken pleasure; she squeezed her knees together, shivering as sweet lust stroked her pussy and left her breathless.

The creature sensed her physical reaction. Puzzled over it.

“I... will... become... slaveflesh,” Kara said listlessly.

Perhaps the creature read her thoughts correctly, and understood her need to plunge deeper into mindless obedience. A moment later, her hands were freed from the hypnotic paralysis that held them to her sides; she unfastened the belt around her hips, and struggled as she slipped the lower part of her field suit down to her ankles.

The creature watched from above, its tentacle arms twitching.

Kara’s hands found her pussy, and began to play with it at once. She moaned louder, slipping two fingers into her cunt, dreaming of complete submission. She was already soaking wet, and her hips jerked violently when she found her clit.

“I... uuughh... will... beeecome...”

A cacophony of thoughts flowed in her brain, trickling down through the psychic link. Kara gasped through the fog of arousal, sensing that her dark corruption had begun in earnest. Her fingers slid deeper, hungry for the oblivion of mind-fucked pleasure.

Soon, she would be remade.

She watched, gasping, as goo dribbled down onto the cave floor. A pustule of reddish-colored skin had burst on the creature’s body, exposing an ovoid that remained partially lodged into its flesh. Kara sensed no pain through the mind-link, and gazed in blissful wonder as the octopus-like creature gave a mild twitch.

One of its limbs detached itself from the ceiling, and with surprising gentleness, reached out underneath itself. It pried the ovoid shape out of its own flesh, then swung down and deposited it carefully upon the floor. A thick, clear liquid coated its leathery surface, and some of it stuck in long, viscous strands as the arm withdrew.

The egg-like shape looked even larger up close—roughly two feet across. Its skin, much like the creature’s above, appeared translucent, and Kara could see a fleshy organism stirring inside. She continued to masturbate, aroused by the strange alien birth, and sensing darker implications for herself. Hot juices coated her fingers as she pressed them deeper and deeper in her pussy.

She nearly orgasmed when tiny, rubbery appendages slowly slithered out of the uppermost part of the egg.

They flailed about, twisting in the air as if searching for something to grasp. Kara held her breath, transfixed by their strange dance. They appeared connected to the creature gestating inside—perhaps some kind of umbilical device that attached itself to parent organisms...

Or hosts.

The thought made Kara moan louder. One of the tendrils brushed against her thigh, leaving a long, wet smear. She reached out tentatively, caressing the stickiness that covered her skin. It tingled on her fingertips, and she instinctively rubbed it over her labia.

The tendrils, sensing the heat of a warm body, angled out towards her and began to caress her thighs. They twitched with excitement, and Kara’s upper legs soon glistened with slime. She parted her knees, squatting over the ovoid, trembling with anticipation as the appendages probed between her legs.

There was a brief, sharp pain as they penetrated her.

She felt them slip deep inside, filling her pussy and ass, struggling to fill her. The pleasure was unlike anything she had dared imagine.

In that instant, Kara’s racial allegiances dissolved, replaced by devotion to the Creature and Its Will. Newfound Purpose filled her mind, like a syrupy substance seeping into her brain.

She was poised to become something else. Something pure.

The tendrils fucked her mercilessly, and her knees buckled as she came. She collapsed on the cave floor, but there was no room in her brain for pain anymore. The ovoid tipped over, but the tendrils stretched and held fast, wriggling madly as they pushed deeper into her flesh, bonding with her.

Kara’s mind was being altered... reshaped. The love and sympathy she once felt for her colleagues faded away, replaced with cold knowledge and warped memories.

With the last ounce of her strength, she spoke out to the thing that would soon hatch from its pod, bond with her fully, and destroy her mind forever.

“i... am... slaveflesh...”

Essandre took some time out of dinner to update Ancilla’s current orbital position so the comm station’s relay antenna would continue to track it when it passed overhead. In minutes, she found a twinkling pinpoint streaking across the black horizon. She worked quickly in the dark, warming her fingers with her breath. There was just enough of an incline in Tau Lyra IV’s axis to cause subtle season changes, and she thought her field jacket somewhat inadequate against the night chill that had moved in soon after dusk.

She took a look at the instruction log downloaded on her data pad, glanced at her chronocomm and made her way back to the fire. Emiko had returned to base camp on schedule, but they were still waiting for Kara to report in.

Shuttle radar should make navigation easier, she thought, expecting a blind flight over to the cave entrance Kara had radioed from a few hours back. She was sure she could manage it in an emergency, even though Tau Lyra IV had no moon to illuminate the landscape.

Perhaps excitement of a fortuitous discovery was behind Kara’s radio silence. The archeologist’s was only a few minutes overdue, but a technical breach of first-survey protocols wasn’t what worried Essandre. A talk would be necessary once Kara got back, to remind her of the dangers of isolation in a place humanity had yet to learn much about.

Emiko, her head buried inside the raised collar of her jacket, glanced up as Essandre joined her. She threw shrub branches on the fire, and offered the security officer a warm cup of Salazaarian tea.

“Any word?”

“Nope.”

“Frell. I should have told her to wait.”

“I’m sure she’s OK,” said Essandre, as much for her benefit as Emiko’s.

She sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and sipped the sweet-tasting concoction. The comm unit stuffed in her jacket pocket was already set to the ship’s emergency frequency—one call to Byörnson and two emergency shuttles would be planetside in under an hour.

The two took to discussing the days’ events, preferring to fill the worried silence while they waited. If Kara lingered, the regs would force the decision out of her hands. After that...

After that, Ancilla would go to alert status. Search parties would be organized. If it turned out that Kara had forgotten to call in, her field work would likely be over for the duration. Byörnson would confine her to the ship.

Both women jumped as their chronocoms beeped in unison.

Emiko yelled into her unit, “Kara! Where the frell have you been?!”

Kara’s chuckle came over slight static. “Sorry for the delay. Things got busy down there. I’ve stumbled across... something major. I couldn’t leave until I was done. Everything is fine now. Hope you didn’t worry on my account.”

Emiko grimaced, but her relief was obvious. Essandre smiled thinly as she opened her comm channel.

“Kara. Dear. Don’t check in late again. Ever.”

Though she couldn’t see Kara, she could sense the earnest sobering in her voice.

“Apologies, Essandre. It won’t happen again.”

The security officer nodded. “Are you still at the dig site coordinates? I’ll take the shuttle up and fetch you right away.”

“Negative. There’s still too much to do here. I need to insure everything remains the way it is. It’s not worth wasting your time ferrying me about.”

Essandre frowned. Splitting up a survey team for extended periods wasn’t specifically prohibited, but there was something to be said for the safety of base camp.

“Meteorology reports there’s a cold front coming in for the night. The temperature might drop quite a bit. You shouldn’t risk exposure.”

“I’ve got an emergency pressure tent, if it gets to that,” Kara’s voice replied over the link. “The cold doesn’t reach far underground anyway. It doesn’t make a difference, but I leave it up to you.”

Her tone was conciliatory, despite her reluctance. Evidently, she understood Essandre’s position, and despite the allowances of friendship, knew better than to question authority at this point.

“There’s plant life down there,” Kara added, filling the silence while Essandre weighed her decision. “A few different species—fungi mostly—but something I suspect Emiko will want to have a look at.”

Emiko arched an eyebrow as she spoke in her chronocomm. “I thought cave dwelling was your area of expertise.”

“I took the liberty to scan a few samples for you. Damn thing isn’t designed to process living samples, but you’ll get an idea—uploading now.”

Emiko reached for her data pad with skepticism. She linked to the radio feed and downloaded the information. A moment later, she sat up in sudden interest, as cellular scans flashed across her screen.

“Whoah. Where’d you find that?”

“Deep inside the cave. I can’t figure out what it is, aside from the fact that its alive. I’ll be damned if I know what it thrives on. You should really come down here and have a look.”

“You say it’s some kind of fungus?”

Kara’s voice hesitated briefly. “Something like that.”

“Tell you what, Essandre,” Kara’s voice proposed, “Why don’t you drop off Emiko at first light? We’ll hare a quick meal, and I can fill you in on what I found. I suspect I’ll be busy here for the rest of the day. I sure could use an extra set of hands. Or two.”

“Sorry,” Essandre replied, “I’ve just received my orders from Ancilla. I’m heading back up into orbit tomorrow to pick up a team of xenobiologists, and ferry them to the main continent along with some heavy equipment. I’ll be gone for most of the day.”

“Drop off Emiko then. The two of us should be able to handle things, and she’ll be around in case either of us gets in trouble. You can drop back to the dig site when you’re done.”

Essandre gave Emiko an inquiring look. How does that sound?

Emiko looked up from her pad, baffled by the data it displayed.

“Sure. I’ll prepare some sample containers in the morning.”

“Copy that, Kara. I’ll fly in Emiko at first light tomorrow. You’re sure you don’t want to spend the night at base camp?”

“I will be fine here. Breakfast will be ready by the time you get here.”

Essandre chuckled. “Okay. Stay put, and be careful. Out.”

The security officer breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was good to hear Kara’s voice. She still didn’t like the idea of breaking up the team, but everything sounded all right. There was no cause for worry.

“Okay,” she said, throwing the rest of her tea over the fire, “Let’s get some sleep. You can study those readings to your heart’s content tomorrow.”

She got up, pulled Emiko to her feet, and made for one of the heated pressure tents propped up next to the shuttle. Emiko didn’t object, following obediently along. Both of them crawled into their respective shelters, settled on soft mattresses, and fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

Tau Lyra was already halfway up the sky when the shuttle floated off its landing point near the dig site. Emiko watched as it retracted its gear, and shot upwards in a deafening roar; a dust cloud blew up and she buried her face in her shoulder. She waved, though the shuttle was already a streak flying in the distance, and made her way back to the hastily improvised camp next to the cave entrance.

The hillsides around her were barren and desolate. Rock formations stood grimly across the landscape, like funeral monuments in an abandoned cemetery. She spotted a few shrub specimens growing out of the cracks and fissures in the ground, but nothing of interest.

In short order, she’d reached the bottom of a shallow crater. Kara greeted her with a smile, kneeling beside the cave entrance, already assembling her gear.

“Too bad Essandre had to leave. I could have used her help.”

Emiko crossed her arms in mock annoyance. “I’m standing right here, you know.”

Kara smiled in apology. “Right. You and I can get started. Essandre can... help out later on.”

“When she can. We’re the field specialists, remember? And she’s the one who has to answer to Byörnson.”

Kara shrugged, and busied herself with stuffing equipment into a shoulder bag. Essandre had unloaded a few crates of extra equipment at her behest, but there was no sense in moving all of it underground just yet.

Emiko rummaged in her own containers, opting to bring portable scanners for the most part. She packed an extra glow rod and a couple of standard rations as an afterthought, which would avoid a needless trip back to the cave entrance if both of them decided they were too busy for a lunch break on the surface.

“Let’s set up a couple of signal relays while we’re at it,” Emiko suggested. “It’ll avoid delays if we need to contact someone on the surface right away.”

Kara nodded, but didn’t say anything. She’d grown somewhat laconic since the day before, though she had shown a brief spark of emotion as she told her friends of her megalith discovery over breakfast. She was very thrilled about it, and couldn’t wait to lead her friends down to the cave. Not even Emiko’s insistence upon going for a brief survey of the (nearly non-existent) outdoor flora had dulled her enthusiasm; Emiko could see the spark of excitement in Kara’s eyes, even through the ruby tint of her protective goggles.

“It’ll get hot soon,” Kara said as she stood up. “This whole area is baked by the sun during the day. Best get underground right away.”

“Give me a second, " complained Emiko, hating to rush. She checked her bag one more time and grabbed a glow rod. “Right. Let’s move.”

They entered the tunnel, with Kara in the lead. Emiko quickly zipped her field jacket, expecting dampness and humidity, but the air remained surprisingly dry, and without the trace of a breeze. Kara walked a slow pace ahead of her, illuminating the path and warning Emiko to keep her footing steady.

In short order, they had removed their protective goggles. Emiko rubbed her eyes and blinked in the dark.

“I hate those contraptions. Can’t believe colonists would be willing to sign up, move here and wear ‘em for the rest of their lives.”

“Don’t worry. It’s much better to work down here. You’ll see.”

“Just as long as I can take some of those samples you scanned yesterday. I had another look this morning, and I still can’t classify them. I doubt it’s a plant at all—the cell structure patterns appear simple enough, but there are complex subtleties I can’t figure out. I think...”

“What?”

Emiko hesitated. “I think they could be of Enslaver origin. Something we haven’t seen before.”

Kara gave her an odd smile. “That could be.”

“I’ll have to spend some time in the lab before I can give you a definitive answer. I hope I can figure it out.”

“Don’t worry. Everything will make sense, in due time.”

“You seem awfully optimistic.”

“I have every confidence in you. Watch the rubble over there.”

Emiko deposited a signal relay device on the floor, activated it, and carefully stepped over a crumbled section of the tunnel wall. “Yeah. Well. I suppose I’ll have to share the discovery with you if it turns out to be anything important. Maybe I can stumble on a chamber full of Enslaver artifacts, while you’re not looking? I could claim credit for that—should make us even, don’t you think?”

Kara laughed softly. “Truth be told, the artifacts are meaningless. There’s something much more important down there.”

Emiko frowned in the dark, baffled by the strange note that crept in Kara’s voice.

“Funny. Ever since we met on Ancilla, it’s been ‘artifact this’ and ‘artifact that.’”

“I know. It’s hard to explain. Come. It’s right over here.”

The tunnel forked off a couple of times, but Kara seemed to know her way without the need for a mapper. Emiko left signal relays at each intersection, flashing her light on her companion as she did so. Despite herself, she thought back to the Enslaver scenarios they’d discussed shortly after landing. Her reaction was textbook paranoia, of course, but Kara’s behavior was definitely creeping her out.

“What did you find in there?” she insisted.

Kara didn’t answer. Instead, she paused at the entrance of a cave chamber. Emiko could see that the rock ceiling had partially collapsed, but most of the rubble had been cleared away, allowing easy passage.

“It’s in there.”

“The megalith?”

“Yes. Have a look.”

Emiko peeked inside, flashing her light left and right.

“Can’t see a frelling thing.”

“Here. Let me show you.”

She led Emiko gently by the arm and stepped inside. Kara seemed thrilled about something, but Emiko started to worry. If organic remains had been uncovered, xenobiology would want to have a look at it first. She took out her scanner, fiddling with settings to detect harmful pathogens, and prayed Kara hadn’t stumbled on something nasty.

The reading was negative. Emiko looked up and noticed the megalith, erected in the center of the cave. She’d seen three-dee images of similar finds on other worlds before, but couldn’t really tell if this one was any different.

She gave the runes a cursory glance. “Is that it?”

“Never mind that,” said Kara. “Look over there.”

Emiko flashed her glow rod towards shadows on the right.

“There,” whispered Kara. “Do you see them?”

Emiko froze at the sight of large, egg-shaped pods, resting in puddles of smile on the rock floor. Their surface exterior was greenish and translucent, with a rippling, half-moon pattern that covered the entirety of their leathery hide.

She stifled a yell when one of the ovoid shook with tiny tremors. Shining the light directly on its surface, she glimpsed a sluglike creature, writhing inside—she couldn’t tell for sure because it was partially submerged in fluid.

A living organism. A xenomorph. Perhaps ready to hatch. There was no telling what to expect.

Emiko reached for her chronocom. Her heart was racing, but she was a trained observer, capable of controlling the fear and revulsion that was to be expected when coming into contact with strange alien species.

“Kara... let’s step out for a while. We have to call the ship right away. Xenobiology needs to know what we’ve foun—”

Emiko gave a small cry of surprise as the stunner charge struck her in the middle of the back.

She twisted as she fell down, and didn’t feel much of the impact as her shoulder hit the ground, her muscles too numb to register any sensation. Her eyes, however, became wide with horror as she saw Kara standing behind her, weapon in hand.

Her limbs twitched once or twice, and became still. In the aftershock, her mind began to spin. She struggled with all her might to remain conscious, but awareness was slipping away.

“Whaz... goinon?” she uttered with difficulty. She was looking up at Kara, bewildered and afraid, trying to understand without going hysterical.

“Don’t worry” Kara said, holstering her stunner. “You’ll understand. Soon. Very soon.”

Emiko willed her muscles into frantic action, but to no avail. Kara began dragging her inert body; she remained limp, unable to move, arms trailing back, head wobbling while her assailant pulled her by the feet. She came to rest after a few meters, and though she couldn’t turn her head, Emiko could see Kara looming over her out of the corner of her eye.

A tingling sensation began to needle her extremities. Her fingers and toes were twitching back to life. Sensations were beginning to filter back—pain, mostly—and Emiko surmised that Kara’s stunner had been on a low setting.

Her heart raced with renewed hope; if the effect wore off quickly, she’d be able to activate the emergency beacon on her chronocomm...

She breathed deep, trying to clear her head. With great effort, she concentrated on moving her wrist. There was some shuffling over to her right, but she ignored it; with any luck, Kara was too busy to notice her.

Busy doing what? Emiko wondered a second later. She risked a brief glance, struggling to turn her head.

She instantly wished she hadn’t.

The sight of Kara, naked below the waist, froze her. She stood tall, shrouded in darkness, but the glow rod she’d dropped flashed its light against a nearby wall, outlining her silhouette.

“i didn’t resist when It took me,” Kara whispered, as if uttering a prayer. “There was fear and doubt at first, but only because i didn’t understand. Truth is, i wanted it to happen. i craved it. i knew i was betraying everything that i was by giving in, but i didn’t care. i was meant to be enslaved.”

Emiko focused, fighting hard to keep the rising fear from her voice.

“Listen to me, Kara. Whatever happened, you are still you. We spoke this morning. You’re the same person you’ve always been. No one is forcing you to do anything. For frell’s sake, think about what you’re doing!”

Kara’s smiled widened, and she breathed a soft sigh. She brought her hand up... brought it between her legs. Darkness shrouded her body like a veil, but Emiko could still see the movement of her hand, pressing against the flesh... playing... caressing...

“You don’t understand, Emiko. i was remade. i am slaveflesh. i live only to obey, and to fulfill my Purpose. Soon, you will live for it as well. The Guardian has laid its eggs. It has fashioned a drone out of me and Its task is complete. Now the bonding is upon you. i will watch while you are taken.”

Kara knelt down gracefully beside her; Emiko caught a glimpse of the shining wetness dripping from her friend’s nether lips, and looked away in revulsion. She let out a whimper as Kara reached for her belt, unfastened the bottom half of her field jumpsuit and peeled off her leggings and panties. No amount of struggling helped.

When Kara’s hand reached out and cupped her pussy, she jerked her hips and tried to roll over.

Kara’s eyes were full of tenderness. “Don’t fight, Emiko. It’s useless. You will thank me for this. Just lie back and relax. It will be over soon.”

“Kara... please... don’t do this...”

Kara reached over to the ovoid nearest to Emiko’s feet. She tipped it over carefully, leaning the uppermost part between her friend’s knees. Prehensile feelers instantly sprouted from the leathery tip, stretching forth, climbing their way up Emiko’s body.

“It needs to bond with a host body first,” Kara explained. “It absorbs samples of the genetic material, and matures accordingly. Once it is able to thrive off the body chemistry of the host, it hatches from its egg and merges fully with it. It is fortunate that human females are ideally suited to host them without arousing suspicion.”

Emiko’s body went rigid as she fought the residual paralysis in her limbs. “Oh... uhhhh... don’t... stop... don’t want to... STOP!”

She screamed as the tendrils eased their way into her cunt, contorting like snakes, stretching her pussy and asshole in their haste. Kara smiled and shushed her sobs, cradling her head against her breast.

“That’s it... accept the change... embrace it... you have no will of you own... you have no wish to resist...”

“Ohhh... please... uhhhhh.... help me... Kara... uuhhh!” Emiko struggled madly, but her body refused to respond coherently. Her eyes began to glaze over. Strength ebbed from her body, weakening her efforts.

She blanched in horror as she felt her hips begin to jerk in rhythm with the push of the tendrils. “I... ooooohh... I... this can’t... can’t be happening...”

“Surrender your mind to it,” Kara commanded, “just as your body surrenders.”

“No... sick... I’m not... won’t... have to fight... uuuuuughh!”

Emiko moaned helplessly, unable to resist the fire of arousal blooming in her cunt. She had to fight it off... get away. She struggled to rise up on her elbows and brace herself, her chest heaving, her nipples hardening, her thighs spreading wide in acceptance as pleasure overwhelmed her.

To her horror, she began to fuck the tendrils squirming between her legs.

“I... uuuh... can... feel... inside... mind... thoughts... inside me... please... oooh... deeper... oohhh yesss... deeper... uuuhhhhhhh!!”

Kara pressed her mouth against Emiko’s ear. “There is no stopping it. You must become host. You must become... slaveflesh.”

Emiko’s eyes rolled back in her head. She thrashed in Kara’s arms, engulfed in the rapture of bonding. She could no longer resist the power of those words.

“I... uughh... I must... become... must... become...”

She bit off the last word, but it was already too late. The tentacles eased their way deeper, dripping slime and juices, pulsing against her flesh.

Fucking her cunt... fucking her mind.

“i... must... become... slaveflesh...” she whispered at last.

She climaxed, over and over, screaming incoherently while Kara held her close. When she finally collapsed into unconsciousness, Kara settled her gently on the floor. The tendrils continued to writhe in her pussy, bonding with her, and Kara made sure their access was unrestricted.

The ovoid would hatch soon. Very soon.

She brushed her lips against Emiko’s forehead in a loving kiss, fell back on her haunches, parted her own legs, and began to finger herself.

à suivre...