The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Josephine Wilson could only just make out the base of the wall in the dark. The wall: she knew was only there to fool the tourists, for intimidation only. It had not greatly impeded their escape. A few steps away stood Pola Wells, whose presence was only betrayed by her breathing. ‘Damn,’ she thought, ‘the bitch is going to give the whole thing away with all the CO2 she’s throwing off.’

It was the many faceted electronic net which surrounded this place, and not the formidable looking, seamless, metal wall, that made it the inescapable prison it was, or had been until now. For three months, three weeks, and nine hours now, the two prisoners had been working to change that.

Partnering with Wells had been a choice made only out of necessity. She had physical ability and access to resources, but the two had grated on each other from the start, and now the bitch was threatening to blow the whole thing because she apparently hadn’t meditated enough, and learned to control her breathing.

All around them were sensors, working silently in the dark, detecting body heat, motion, perspiration, and respiration, everything a living thing might give off, and sending the data to a super computer which would look for rhythms and patterns which would indicate that an escape was in progress and take steps to neutralize it.

It was an infallible system, but Josephine Wilson—or, as the Protectorate Penal Authority called her, Wilson 1138—had been well-trained to overcome the infallible. She and Wells moved using practiced, arrhythmic steps in order to seem (to a computer algorithm at least) like anything but two prison escapees.

Wilson reached down, uncoiling her rope—which had been painstakingly braided from bits of fiber from lint screens in the prison laundry and other fibers which wouldn’t be missed—while Wells moved toward a junction box they knew was there, but couldn’t see. The box joined inputs from several key sensors and was the weak link in the hardwired system. Finding the uplink cable and inserting two needles attached to wires which were themselves attached to a power cell made from metal squares cut from cans and separated by salted, wet cloth, she waited. Hearing the soft swish as the rope found its mark in a tree, she moved back toward Wilson. The low voltage electrical current would overrun sensor inputs in the area for a time, but both escapees knew it would also bring patrols to inspect what would be a suspected malfunction, so they had only minutes, or less, to move.

The tree, one of thousands planted by the Protectorate around its facilities and townships in a massive beautification project, bowed downward as it was pulled down over the razor wire fence. Outside lay freedom, if they could only get over.

Wells went first. Improvised climbing claws on her ankles and feet, she scrambled up the bent branches and tumbled onto the ground on the other side of the fence. Instead of staying down as planned, she looked back briefly and set off at a run.

“Bitch”. Wilson muttered, seeing the betrayal that wasn’t entirely unexpected come to pass, and set herself to climbing. Without someone holding the makeshift rope, the sapling began to rise while Wilson clambered over the fence and dropped to a crouch on the other side. She closed her eyes just as the strobe light swept the area, momentarily seeing a frozen Wells standing a few meters away.

Turning her head away from the light, Wilson opened her eyes, and then began to move. “How many times did I tell you not to look at the light?” she breathed as she passed the transfixed form of Wells.

“I obey and await collection,” Wells was repeating over and over.

While mind control was technically illegal for use on prisoners of the Protectorate, an exception was made for escaping prisoners, and now, locked in the grip of the pulsing light, Wells’ mind was theirs.

“Fool”, Wilson had time to mutter before the rumble of motors made her take cover in a stand of brush not far away.

Two motorcycles rolled to a stop near Wells, and riders dismounted crisply, examining the mesmerized captive through their protective goggles.

Watching the guards from concealment, Wilson almost felt her mind slip and soften in the still pulsing glow of the now multiple strobe lights. Almost too late, she caught herself about to start speaking. With the compulsion to stand and await collection taking seed in her mind she shook her head and decided to move.

The guard nearest Wells started to turn, hearing a rustle and a thud. Then all went black for her as she felt her companion’s stun wand pushed against her side.

First, Wilson put on the goggles she’d taken from the first guard, and then she set about quickly removing her prison uniform. The guard uniform was tight fitting, a black turtleneck under a leather riding suit, with boots that were too small, but wearable. In the dark, Wilson looked like just another one of the guards.

“I obey and await collection,” she heard the guard she’d stunned start to repeat. The woman had awakened, and her mind was now being retrained, emptied, and filled with whatever the flashing lights brought with them.

“Beautiful” Wilson breathed, straddling one of the bikes. Indeed, they were: Miles-Handley forty-four hundreds; pure brute-force machines, streamlined perfection with everything a motorcycle needed and nothing it didn’t.

“Protectorate!” Wilson spat. “Such a crime against humanity to waste a thoroughbred like this on guard duty. How about we escape together, baby?” She patted the fuel tank as the engine rumbled its response to her kicking the starter. Both bike and rider disappeared into the night.

Standing quietly still, with the engine just barely idling beneath her, Wilson could see her pursuers pass by on the road below: two of them, riding side by side past the hill she had backtracked onto. She tugged at the turtleneck of her borrowed uniform, thinking, and looked up at the twin moons hanging low in the sky. The two bright ovals glowed back at her like cat’s eyes in space. She checked the fuel tank—again, the third time tonight, using a small light attached to the cuff of the riding suit—and found it slightly above three quarters full, enough to make her destination as long as she didn’t have to push things. Avkrok, a small township to the southwest with an out-of-the-way spaceport was, she surmised, her only chance. She would need to steal a spaceship, and it would have to be a fast one, but one whose absence wouldn’t be noticed for some time. Her target was the Protectorate impound yard, where she hoped that, with a three-day holiday just getting underway and some careful flying, she might slip away.

She guided the big bike back onto the road, lights on this time, in hopes of being seen as just another patrol out searching for the escaped fugitive. She also hoped that most of the search would be focused on the larger cities where a person might disappear among the population.

Lieutenant Thania Bishop strode purposefully around the corner to the left, her polished uniform boots sounding loudly off the sterile walls of the narrow corridors, and, as she approached a guard post, she paused briefly. The guard was slow to salute the newly-minted officer, which, if she hadn’t had more pressing matters to get to, might have merited more of a response than the frown the man got.

At the salute, she let her ID badge fall back to her tightly uniformed chest, dangling from a chain around her neck.

Two more corners and she entered an alcove, away from the main hall, where several people were gathered at a row of large observation panels. She recognized two of them: Warden Fox, a woman whose prematurely gray hair and cement-etched frown made her look older than she was, along with her assistant ... something Doubleday, she thought. Briefly, she sized up the unknown man who looked as uncomfortable in his slightly ill-fitted suit as she felt in her stiff, polished uniform.

“Sergeant ... ah, excuse me, Lieutenant Bishop.” Warden Fox extended a hand. Doubleday looked at her briefly and went back to watching through the windows as the unknown man sized up the new arrival for just a bit longer, his eyes trying not to stay too long on her tightly jutting bosom—which the uniform seemed to accentuate—then he, too, turned to the windows.

“Wells,” the warden gestured to a naked woman strapped to a hospital bed, wearing a ... Bishop couldn’t tell what it was on her head, “and the two unfortunate motor patrols.” There were two other women, also naked and strapped down, with the same something, a sort of translucent, rubbery-looking tree trunk which gripped the top each woman’s head like a bony hand, and covered their eyes with its palm. Bishop noticed that, in the slightly darkened room, she could see a faint flashing glow against their faces from underneath the ... thing. She said nothing, but shifted uncomfortably where she stood. “As you can see, they were all exposed to the full force of the light, for a very long time,” the warden continued.

“In time, " Doubleday began with a breath—Bishop noticed that Doubleday had sweat beading on her skin and was trembling ever so slightly—“they will come back to us as fully loyal and completely obedient.”

“Yes, Petra,” the warden said softly, “yes they will.” Doubleday seemed to twitch, and let go a sigh at the mention of her name.

‘A programmed slave,’ Bishop realized, silently. The woman wasn’t uncomfortable, she was spellbound, ecstatic at watching three new converts fall under what was probably the same process which had been used on her. Bishop shifted again, uncomfortably, at the thought.

“Your guards?” the man spoke at last, eyes roaming over Bishop one more time.

“Completely blank slates,” the warden answered. “Right now, they’re being retrained. They won’t ever be free-thinking individuals, but they’ll remain useful just the same.”

“Legalities?” the man seemingly didn’t hear another sigh from Doubleday.

“We have signed waivers from both of them,” Warden Fox answered, “so, technically, they’re ours and we can do anything we want with them. As for convict Wells, she’s ours, too, now, and we can and will find a use for her, and she’ll feel nothing but pure bliss at the reality.”

Doubleday seemed to shiver on hearing that.

“Which brings us to Wilson,” the man said, “and to you, Lieutenant.”

Bishop was suddenly at attention, trying to shake off her queasiness at what was happening around her.

“This is Captain Lucas,” Warden Fox said. “Captain Lucas, Lieutenant Thania Bishop.”

“Captain,” Bishop spoke crisply, saluting.

“At ease Lieutenant,” Lucas brushed the salute aside. “You are to take command of a shuttle which will be bringing Wilson and twenty-two other prisoners to a new facility on the planet Spärra-In.”

“You have Wilson in custody then?” Bishop asked.

“It’s only a matter of time, Lieutenant, only a matter of time, and you will take personal responsibility for the transfer.”

She looked as he held up a data pad displaying a star chart with a course plotted on it.

“That’s very close to Sundara space, Captain; is that safe?”

The Sundara, as they were called, were currently expanding, absorbing entire systems wherever they went and absorbing the inhabitants along with them. Unlike the Protectorate, the Sundara, it seemed, had no restrictions on the use of mind control. They were a collective, acting entirely with one purpose. The thought that she would be traveling so very close to their space sent a chill down Bishop’s spine.

“Your ship will have a trained crew and every precaution will be taken, Lieutenant.” Lucas said, almost as if annoyed. “Consider it as something special on your first day out.”

Bishop said nothing. Whether it was a dig, directed at her or whether it wasn’t, there was no reaction she could have that wouldn’t make it worse. She had been promoted ahead of a number of others, and there was something unspoken among the force that there had been favors involved.

“Chief assistant Doubleday will see that you’re briefed, and that you have everything you need, Lieutenant,” Warden Fox said, then both she and Captain Lucas walked briskly away, leaving Thania Bishop and a very attentive Doubleday alone in the dim alcove.

The checkpoint came up suddenly as Wilson topped a hill. It was too late to turn around, so she slowed and approached, ready to gun the throttle if things went badly. The guard motioned her to stop. Wilson stopped, her throttle hand tense and ready while her other hand was ready to slip one of the stun wands she’d taken from the patrol guards out from her sleeve.

“Good morning Ma’am,” the guard saluted, “In the coming dawn, Wilson realized that she was in the uniform of a second lieutenant.

“Any sign of the prisoner, Corporal?” she asked crisply.

“No sign, ma’am,” the guard answered, looking her directly into her eyes,” your identification, please.”

Well shit, Wilson thought, and while the guard seemed to lean a little closer, and Wilson saw the hand on her machine pistol tighten slightly, the stun wand slipped smoothly out of concealment and into her already moving hand. In one quick motion, the guard was down, convulsing as sparks dissipated across her midsection. Wilson gunned the throttle and avoided a gate that was swinging into place. Two cycles appeared behind her as a scout car sped into view to her front. They were converging on her, trying to cut her off. A low rise to the left caught her attention and she gunned the throttle more, heading toward it. There was a small drainage canal beyond the bank, and if she was lucky ...

The motorcycle lifted suddenly airborne, its engine revving wildly as the wheels left the ground, and flew in an almost perfect arc over the canal, to land very hard on the other side. Struggling to keep upright and climb the cycle up the muddy embankment, Wilson looked back to see her pursuers stopped on the opposite bank, apparently trying to bring guns to bear … too late as she was lost to view on the other side of the bank. She made her way overland toward a fence and beyond it a road stretching across the distant side of a barren field of stones and sand.

From her left and right she heard motors and a siren. Four more cycles and two scout cars were converging on her track, half outside the fence and half inside. Aiming for a rise in the ground, she gunned the throttle. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was the only chance, so the bike leapt airward one more time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t high enough to clear the fence, and both cycle and rider were thrown forward violently as the rear tire grazed the top wires.

Wilson came to a stop, just a short distance from the still revving bike, and rolling slightly to face the guards who ran to her with their guns raised, she put her hands up and smiled at them.

“Got a smoke?” she said through the smile.

Bishop rubbed her eyes slowly after looking up from the view screen. For some hours she had been reviewing the list of criminals she was to have charge of, and see transported to a new facility. To her, it almost seemed as though the Protectorate was preparing to abandon this part of its territory. It made sense strategically, in that this sector was a bulge in the line between Protectorate space and that of the Sundara. There was, she noted, a strong defensive line of freestations and manned asteroids a small distance away, so, while there was no way she was going to be told for sure, it seemed likely. The question was why they would be taking the programmed route so close to the danger zone. Fuel couldn’t be that much in shortage, could it?

The cargo, as the briefwork called them, was a mixed bag: seven petty criminals—three with capitol sentences—Wilson, and twelve Sundara women, captives taken from a drifting ship. Apparently nobody knew how they got where they had been found. It had been just a small transport ship, formerly of the Protectorate, but the crew belonged to the Sundara. The ship had been adrift and they had been captured, apparently trying to bring the engines back online. Bishop shivered unconsciously at the thought of a whole Protectorate crew, still serving on their same ship, only reprogrammed to serve a completely different purpose.

Then came Wilson: Josephine Wilson, convicted of ... no that couldn’t be right, could it? Sentenced to life in prison, most of her information was restricted with several files showing only a heading: “Magick”, with all further details requiring a clearance Bishop could only guess at. There were personal details about Wilson: where she came from, her life before she had become a highly decorated Protectorate officer—a major, in fact—before she’d obviously suffered a turn for the worse ... sixteen escape attempts from ten prison facilities? ... There was virtually no information about Wilson’s crimes, or prior service. ‘Why would they restrict information on an inmate from a restricted prison file?’ Bishop thought.

“They’re bringing Wilson in,” Doubleday announced from behind her. Since admitting her to this office and bringing up the materials for her, the Chief Assistant had been silently standing at attention by the door obediently listening to ... some unseen device implanted inside her head?. Every thought of her caused Bishop no small amount of unease. It just so happened that there was nothing more the files could tell her any way so she clicked out the screen, then stood up and followed Doubleday out of the room.

She was calm. It helped, but the feelings, and the cravings, and the voice never quite went away, even in deep meditative self-trance, as she was right now. Seated in the lotus position on the bed, back in prison-issue black trousers and white tank top, Wilson was completely still, breathing slowly, in and out, tensions and ... other feelings flowing away from her opened fingers. The voice was always there, quietly whispering, asking her why she insisted on fighting it, why she didn’t just seek out the light and become one. ‘It would be better,’ it told her; ‘Sundara is a human word, and it has worked well enough, but the truth was just so much more, if only you would just see, and let go, and be.’ Letting her concentration drift, and not focusing on driving away the voice was how one pushed it away. Wilson had found this out long ago, which was why she was still herself. It was counter-intuitive, and contrary to every treatise on resisting mind control she’d ever read, but it was the secret to not succumbing to the light of the Sundara, which she’d been exposed to a number of times. It wouldn’t have her today, she resolved, even as she pushed all thought from her mind by not thinking about not thinking.

“Wilson!” the voice dragged her out of her trance. She slowly opened her eyes to face the four people outside the bars. There were two she knew—Warden Fox and her sex toy—and one she’d seen—he was a spook of some sort, she’d been around long enough to be able to smell them—and a pretty lieutenant she’d never seen before. Her deep brown eyes settled on trying to pull the man in the ill fitting suit down into a trance, or at least to bore their way into his skull. “Got a smoke?” She smiled.

“Not funny Wilson” the Warden scolded. “You always have a choice, you know. Cooperate and it’ll go easy on you.”

The man, Captain Lucas, shifted uncomfortably under the directed, serene gaze from the other side of the bars and his eyes went nervously toward the floor, Wilson smiled a quiet, satisfied smile and turned her attention to the young lieutenant who, she assessed, would be a much better challenge than the unknown man was.

“You are to be transported to a new facility.” Doubleday said in a soft, almost monotone. “You will not deviate and escape is futile. You will comply.” Wilson kept her eyes on the young lieutenant, who was turning out to be a fit challenge indeed, meeting down her stare with cement calm. Doubleday was spared from the game, because were Wilson to fall into the eyes of the Warden’s mind-melted mouthpiece, as the voice seemed to want, she might not find her way out.

Two guards appeared, and she pulled the chains joining her wrists and ankles up to avoid tripping and followed them away, through the cell door and away down the hall, thinking it’d be fun to continue the staring game and try to break the lieutenant, standing so soldierly in her crisp, new uniform.

“Oh,” the Warden said, watching the receding backs of Wilson and her escorts, “Good luck,” ending in a laugh that Bishop could only guess at.

“Warden Fox,” Bishop began, “may I ask a few questions about Wilson?”

“No, Lieutenant,” Fox began, then paused, glancing briefly at Captain Lucas, apparently reading agreement in his featureless expression “No, Lieutenant, you may not.” With that, she turned on her heel and the two followed her down the corridor opposite from where Wilson had been led, leaving Bishop standing alone outside the empty cell.

The Rättvisan, a personnel carrier, was a squat, ugly collection of individual rounded sections arranged like the segmented body of an insect, painted a dirty gray, with a protruding wart of a cockpit stuck on the port side at the fore end, almost as an afterthought. Were it not for energy shields its hulk would never survive travel through an atmosphere. Converted to prison use from some long ago military cast-off, she was just about the least space worthy looking object Bishop had ever seen as she walked up the waiting ramp.

The convicts, save for Wilson, were seated together, and looked the lieutenant up and down as she moved forward through the ship. There was grimy staining everywhere, on all of the cushioned surfaces and bare metal showing here and there where olive-drab paint had been worn away. In the next block of seats sat the Sundara prisoners, silently regarding her in a way that sent a cold chill through her body. She looked away and moved past as quickly as possible without being too obvious.

Josephine Wilson sat near the front, maybe asleep, but, somehow, Bishop doubted that, as her features seemed too ... ready. Bishop turned and looked back at her command. In addition to the prisoners, there were three guards, her second in command—a pretty, but apparently still wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant, Julie Tramer—and two pilots. To Bishop’s eyes, all of the guards looked completely fresh from the academy. The pilots, on the other hand, appeared tired, and bored, like they were being punished for some infraction and were stuck with this run in this rotting crate of a spaceship.

One hell of a way to start out, Bishop thought, as the ramp retracted and the hatch rattled closed. There was a sound of hissing air as seals were tested, and a green light on the wall turned to red. The ship shook and groaned as engines lifted it into the sky. Grabbing a bulkhead, Bishop felt more than heard a creaking protest as the ship pivoted three quarters of the way around to the left, and then with a tilt began to pick up speed. Slowly the inertial dampeners caught up to conditions and Bishop was able to let go without being thrown around. She looked into the cockpit chamber and thought she caught a sly smile on one of the pilot’s faces. The hull let out several long creaking groans, adjusting to the transition from atmosphere to the vacuum of space, and slowly the bluish gray of daylight air outside the view ports faded to a curtain of black with a growing number of visible stars. Gradually the vibrations, which had seemed about to crumble the old ship to dust subsided, as the planet fjärrkontroll and its gravity were left behind and the ship’s stardrive engaged.

Bishop looked up briefly from the datapad, they were not quite at the halfway point in their journey where they would skirt the very edge of Sundara space, and, looking around the cabin, she didn’t like what she saw. Second Lieutenant Tramer and the three guards were too relaxed, too confident in the restraints securing their charges, some of whom seemed to be sleeping, or faking it. The two pilots seemed intent on making the trip unpleasant for all of them, not that any time spent in the stale smelling hold of the

Rättvisan was pleasant. The old ship creaked and groaned and shook at every course alteration or nearby gravity well and its not-quite-up-to-speed inertial dampeners had long since put everyone’s stomach near the breaking point. The Sundara prisoners had been completely quiet, mostly staring straight ahead with those blank eyes and serene faces that were more disquieting to her the more she saw them. This had been an entire ship’s crew, and now they were something else entirely and no one knew how. Her wandering eyes settled on Wilson, who still hadn’t moved or opened her eyes. Bishop suspected she wasn’t sleeping because she seemed … not tense—far from tense, in fact—but the lean athletic frame and toned muscles under her prison issue tank top seemed too rigid to be asleep. ‘Sixteen escape attempts’ Bishop’s thoughts reminded her as she turned back to the data pad. The fragmented files she was scanning were from the point just before Wilson’s recent escape attempt. Interestingly, coded transmissions from her cell had been intercepted at regular intervals but no one could determine how they were being sent, or what might be their content or purpose. A cross check showed that the signals had begun shortly after her incarceration. In her mind, Bishop began to form a connection between this and the fact that a standing order had been issued in the event of an escape to recapture this prisoner undamaged if possible and to deliver all items found in her possession directly to Warden Fox without delay.

‘They think you have something on them Wilson. I wonder what it might be.’ The revelation seemed to answer the nagging question that had been on her mind since taking this assignment, why hadn’t Wilson just been flashed and taken to the droning room like the others?

Wilson roused slowly from her meditation and opened her right eye enough to look at the person who had just sat down in the seat next to her. “Got a smoke?” she asked.

“Smoking is illegal,” Bishop turned to face her, “but I’m sure you know that.”

“Not like it’ll add time to my sentence if they catch me, is it?” Wilson met her gaze wryly.

“Something tells me you’re of the opinion that you won’t be serving out your time with us any way, am I right?” Bishop redoubled her efforts not to show her discomfort at realizing just how powerful Wilson’s brown eyes were, looking at her, no, into her, not offering any answers but cutting, like a laser to her being and learning everything about her. She looked away, breaking the spell.

“Always looking to expand my horizons.” Wilson smiled a small, satisfied smile.

“But you’re in prison under enhanced security.” Bishop looked back into the passive, but very present, gaze again.

“For now,” Wilson turned toward the cockpit, looking out through the view ports in front of the pilots, “for now.”

“Can I ask you a question, Wilson?”

“Just one, Lieutenant?” She turned back to start the staring game again.

“For now,” Bishop smiled back into the hypnotic eyes, her confidence regained.

“You’re a cop,” Wilson smiled, looking briefly back toward the view ports, “I figured you’d get around to it eventually,” then she turned her full power smile back toward the surprisingly challenging lieutenant.

“I read your files, Wilson,” Bishop returned the stare on almost equal terms; “You don’t seem like somebody who would do what you were convicted of”

“Really?” Wilson feigned surprise, “well I am a class five bitch,” she turned back toward the view screens again, allowing an air of concern to slip through her facade, “you can’t take that away from me.”

“What are you looking at, Wilson?”

“That’s two questions lieutenant,” Wilson turned back, “but I’ve seen enough out there to know that we’re getting close to Sundara space.”

“And that scares you Wilson?”

“As you said,” Wilson dropped the power play for the first time, “I’m in prison on a life sentence, nothing should scare me, but it should terrify you, Lieutenant.”

“What’s out there, Wilson?”

“Ask them,” Wilson answered, gesturing slightly within the limits of her restraints toward the Sundara prisoners, who were all staring their blank stares in unison through the same viewscreens, " everything that keeps you afraid of the dark, lieutenant, and everything that makes the darkness irresistible, like the eyes of danger that you just have to stare into.” Wilson turned the power up again on her stare for a few moments, and then turned to look back at the view ports.

Bishop looked out into the seemingly innocent star field view, and then looked back to the twelve pairs of intent, but blank eyes and fought back a shiver.

“We’ve taken care of every contingency, Wilson,” Bishop offered, conveying more assuredness than she suddenly felt, turning back to Wilson, now seeming somehow less dangerous than those dozen blank stares, “We know what we’re doing.”

“ When a brand new lieutenant in a brand new uniform tells me that she, a fresh-faced butter bar, this ugly crate you call a ship and a few sleepy guards are gonna keep me safe from the whole universe out there… I admire your notion of fair odds.” The game was back on, Wilson’s smile flashed wide, then her eyes deepened with Bishop feeling trapped again within them, “besides, it isn’t like I’m going anywhere else right now,” she lifted her restrained hands just as far as the chained cuffs would allow.

Second Lieutenant Tramer is first officer of this ship, Wilson 1138, and I don’t like the term ‘butter bar’.”

“I’ll try to remember that Lieutenant.” She turned back to the viewscreens.

Wilson awoke, not suddenly, or disoriented, but with long-practiced focus and calm. From meditation, she had drifted to sleep, and now she opened her eyes to look around the cabin. The ship had turned suddenly, and she looked away as a blinding, pulsing brightness filled the interior through the windows.

Looking down, Wilson could hear the chants already, and the voice in her own head calling her to join. She looked slowly over to Bishop, whose head was turning toward the illuminated view ports.

“Fuck!” Wilson screamed, jolting Bishop momentarily out of her trance to wonder, slow-wittedly, what happened. It seemed odd to see Wilson stand, with her hands suddenly free, but for some reason she couldn’t make herself know why it was important. It was far more important to look at the light. The light would make everything better.

“I will obey,” Bishop began to whisper as the light filled her eyes, only for a second, as she was bowled over by Wilson, who quickly stood and half ran, half fell toward the weapons rack.

Bishop looked up through muddled thoughts as Wilson shot her with a tranquilizer dart.

Pocketing the keys she’d taken from Bishop’s Belt, Wilson put another dart into the chest of the Second lieutenant, and then turned toward the cockpit, adrenaline and training long since shouting down the voice, and nullifying the light for the moment.

“I must obey.” One of the pilots had stood, and was moving toward the Sundara prisoners, followed shortly by the other woman, who had joined her in chanting.

“Shit!” Wilson shot her last dart into the first pilot, who fell to the floor like a doll with her strings cut.

As she slid into the pilot’s station she could see, out of the corner of her eye, the pilot and a guard undressing. “fuck, fuck, FUCK!” The ship was locked in auto pilot, and in an approach vector for the planet which loomed larger in the viewports with every passing second, a planet she recognized as Trädgård, one not long ago taken by the Sundara, and part of how she had been exposed to the voice.

It had been a while, but she found the controls to release the autopilot, and suddenly the control stick lurched almost out of her hand. “That’s not better,” she muttered under her breath, then pulling the ship as hard as she could, the warning lights began to signal imminent structural failures almost everywhere. Another light warned of an improper angle, meaning that if she didn’t do something the ship would almost certainly burn up on re entry. “And that’s definitely worse.”

Pulling at the stick with everything, and in desperation reaching for the star drive controls, she happened to see over her shoulder that the pilot had managed to release one of the Sundara. Wilson hit the controls for one half of the twin star drive and the ship groaned as it lurched sideward, swinging up away from the planet.

Risking a turn of her head, she saw the guards, now naked, and the pilot had three Sundara free, but that all were now pasted to the deck by the unknown G-forces. She turned back to see more warnings, and another, smaller planet looming nearer, the planet Vagga, she remembered. The larger, heavily populated Trädgård and slightly smaller Vagga which was mostly arid and sparsely inhabited were in a binary orbit around each other as they orbited their distant star.

A rending sound and a siren screamed structural failure, a hissing indicated a hull breach, the ship began trying to roll, as the escaping gasses acted like a control jet. Wilson looked: several of the Sundara and others were standing, with two Sundara looking directly at her.

“Dammitdammitdammitdammit!” Wilson shrewed, hitting the control to seal the compromised pat of the ship as well as the rest of the emergency bulkheads. The heavy bulkhead screamed with neglected bearing surfaces as it swooshed through the cabin, cutting it in two. Now there was her, Bishop, and the second lieutenant, and two Sundara, walking naked toward her.

Switching on the auto pilot and hitting a control marked disaster beacon, she stood to face the oncoming threats, just as the ship turned enough so the light no longer filled the compartment.

Wilson hefted the empty dart gun. “Come on, girls; can’t we just be friends?”

“You will obey,” they monotoned.

They moved deceptively fast, one edging left and one to the right, trying to flank Wilson and catch her between them, but their quarry was quicker, ducking sideways and slamming the butt of the dart gun into the gut of the Sundara to her right. As the injured Sundara fell, she stood, spinning around and catching the other on the temple.

The two Sundara were both down, and looking to the cockpit, she saw that the ship was about to land. Wilson moved to the bulkhead, where numerous restraints were hung, and chained the two subdued drones before they could make more trouble.