The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Pierced’

(mc, f/f, nc, sf)

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

Synopsis:

Alien bioweapons are unleashed on an human colony world.

* * *

‘Pierced’

Chapter Four ‘Savoy’

Part Two

* * *

Margot was expecting a simple two-road intersection in the middle of the jungle. Maybe a roundabout.

Instead, the interchange of road 29 and road 799 was a looping flyover, a full clover-leaf pattern. The road they were heading south on, 29, passed over 799 on a viaduct that was a good ten meters above the other road.

“Some contractor made out like a bandit on this bit of rural fucking ostentation,” Stone observed.

The rain had finally given up entirely and the late afternoon sky was covered in tattered, racing clouds. The little convoy had stopped in the center of the overpass, which offered long views in every direction. There was nothing in sight—no vehicles, no xenos, nothing. Just empty road and kilometer after kilometer of jungle.

Stone turned from looking over the edge of the overpass. The others were gathered around, barring Cora and Vanderbruk, who remained in the EVDP patrol cars, and didn’t have a say in any case.

“All right,” she said. “Here’s the situation. We’re about half an hour from Savoy. Before we go any further, I wanted to give everybody the choice: you can come with me to Savoy, then across the Zhaoze and on to Cliffgarden, or you can take one of the groundcars here and head east. There are some ski lodges up that way, in the mountains; it’s very unlikely that the xenos have gone there, and they may not do so. If I were going to try and hide until the Empire comes back, that’s where I’d go.”

She looked at each of them in turn. “I don’t know what we’ll find in Savoy, or in Cliffgarden. But whatever we do find, we’re going to try to turn it on the xenos; we’re not going to look for safety. We’re going to fight. I don’t know our odds for success.”

“We’re with you, Captain,” Han-Irinov said. “Let’s go already.”

“What about the fuckfeather?” Cruzado-Liu asked. “Which way are you going to go, Impy?”

“I’m in this to kill xenos,” Margot said. “I’m going to Cliffgarden.” Cruzado-Liu smiled.

“Privates?” Stone asked, looking at Lao and Junipero.

“I... I want to leave,” Lao said.

Everyone looked at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t... this is all crazy. You are all crazy. I want out.”

“Seshan...” Junipero said.

He looked at her with a frown. “No, Liqin, I’m not interested. I’m from Ordosetan, I don’t even know what’s going on there, and these people they’ve got this... thing,” he said, gesturing at the second groundcar, “this fucking weird thing, with them, and I haven’t heard from my Sergeant or anyone I know, they just, I just- no. No, I’m not going with them.” He looked at Stone. “I’m not going with you.”

Stone looked at Junipero. “You?”

She looked at Lao, then back at the rest of them. “I, uh... I’ll go with you,” she said. “I, uh... yeah. I’m in.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But I need you to be sure. After this, there may not be any going back.”

Junipero looked at Lao, then back again at Stone, and nodded. “I’ll stay.”

“Hey,” Cruzado-Liu said, “It’s a big question mark either way. We’re not driving off a fucking cliff. Maybe the mountains aren’t safe. Maybe nothing’s happened to Savoy.”

“Maybe,” Stone replied, “but I wouldn’t count on it. All right, Lao... you can take that first groundcar. Han-Irinov, get our friend out of the back and put her in the other car.”

Han-Irinov opened the rear door of the groundcar and beckoned Cora out. Cora emerged and stretched; the police uniform fit her surprisingly well. Margot felt a stab of irritation. After a quick word, she docilely followed Han-Irinov to the second car and slid into the back.

Han-Irinov returned to the rest of them and handed the car’s starter fob to Private Lao with a dirty look.

“You should have enough charge to reach the mountains,” Stone said. “Though I don’t know where you’ll be able to recharge.”

Lao took the starter and looked at it. “I, uh,” he began, then paused. “Good luck.”

He nodded at everyone, then went to the car and slid into the driver’s seat. The engine turned on. A moment later and he pulled around the AATGV and turned onto a cloverleaf.

They all watched over the edge as he drove around beneath them, and started heading east on 799.

The wind tousled Captain Stone’s hair. “All right, no reason to stand around. Savoy’s half an hour away. Pearl, you’re gunning in the AATGV. Cruzado-Liu and Junipero, I’ll assume you’re okay back in the groundcar. Let’s get moving.”

* * *

‘Welcome to Savoy, Verdis’ Dairy Capital’ announced the sign at the side of the road.

The jungle came to an abrupt end; suddenly there were large fields of grass on both sides of the road. To the left, the grass was knee-high. To the right, it would only reach up to Margot’s ankles. In both directions stood nothing taller than the occasional tree until the jungle’s edge, stretching off towards the distance. Long wire-and-wood-post fences ran alongside the road and now and then off at right angles across the fields.

They drove onward. The sun was low in the west, orange rays reaching from behind the clouds that still covered most of the sky. It looked like the rain was massing again.

A field of maize passed by on the left, then more grassland. Some other row crop, possibly soya, sprang up on the right. A tall post capped with solar panels stood above a well pump.

Small birds darted off of the fence and flew across the road.

“I wonder when we’ll be able to tell if the xenos are here,” Margot said.

“Probably when we get to the center of town,” Stone replied. “Unless we can see one of those big asteroids they rode in on—”

“Or right now!” Margot interjected, pointing. “Look!”

Ahead of them on the road stood two of the warrior xenos. They turned in place as the AATGV approached.

“Pearl, strap up!” Stone shouted. “Contact at twelve o’clock!”

The roof hatch flipped open and Han-Irinov leapt upward to take hold of the RKT.

Margot scanned the area. Either side of the road was grass, not more than a half-meter high—no place for more xenos to hide. At least not the big ones.

The two on the road ahead of them began to run away.

“They fuck are they doing?” Stone murmured. The AATGV was traveling at about sixty kph; the xenos were perhaps half a kilometer away. With the xenos running, the AATGV was still catching up to them, but slowly.

“Martyrs, they’re fast,” Margot said.

“Take a shot?” Han-Irinov shouted down.

“No,” Stone shouted back. “Stay tight!”

The road was leading downward, a gentle slope towards the town and the ocean beyond, neither of which had yet come into view. The xenos were preceding them at a good clip, still several hundred meters away.

“They’re headed for town,” Margot said, “But wha—”

Suddenly there was a tremendous noise and Margot was sideways, the whole AATGV was sideways, and up in the air-

-and the ground was passing by next to the driver’s window-

-and the AATGV came back down again, on its wheels, with a tremendous crunch and a bounce and Margot’s arms were flailing helplessly as the vehicle spun around and threw her around-

-and jerked to a stop.

“The fuck—” Stone was shouting, but Margot was already fumbling with her seat belt release.

“Anti-vehicular mine,” Margot shouted over her, “that was a mine, we’ve got to stop the groundcar,” and she popped the seat belt loose and flung open her door, jumping out into the knee-high grass of the field the AATGV had come to rest in.

She could see the insurgents in the trees; they had AV rockets in jury-rigged tubes. The TAPC was destroyed, flames shooting from every hatch, a fiery roadblock cooking the front of their groundcar. One of the insurgents leaned out from behind a trunk not five meters away and pointed his tube right at Margot’s window, but she was already firing, and his head snapped back in a spray of blood-

No. No. She wasn’t on Imlerin, she was on Strand. She was on her her knees next to the AATGV in an open field, and there were xenos, it was xenos here...

Wobbling, Margot stood up.

Smoke curled up from the AATGV’s engine compartment, licking around the hood. The grass between her and the road was torn into a long curling welter of mud. The two big fuckers that had been ahead of them on the road had stopped, but they were still well over a hundred meters away.

Margot took a step towards the road.

Then froze.

Four xenos rose up from the ground, no more than fifteen meters away.

Their legs had been crossed beneath them, like folding tables; their backs were covered with the loose dirt they had been hiding beneath. They shook themselves, and planted each leg, one at a time, into a mobile stance.

Margot had her gun in her hand, but her pistol wouldn’t stop four of them; it would barely stop one. She looked over her shoulder and relief washed over her as she saw Han-Irinov still in the turret, pointing it at the xenos. The explosion could have easily thrown her out, but she’d been strapped in properly.

Of course, had the AATGV rolled, it would have broken her in half.

The xenos didn’t move; but their presence kept Margot from running towards the road to signal the groundcar as she had planned. Fortunately, Cruzado-Liu had been paying attention. She had stopped the groundcar hard, only five meters from where the crater in the road was still smoldering. Twenty meters from the xenos.

From the other side of the AATGV, Stone shouted at Han-Irinov: “If those things move, annihilate them.”

“You got it,” Han-Irinov replied.

For a moment, it seemed like a standoff. The AATGV was clearly not going to move under its own power. The smoke was dwindling, not increasing, but the vehicle was effectively dead. If the xenos charged either vehicle, Han-Irinov would open up on them; but if she began firing pre-emptively, the odds at least one of them would reach the AATGV were pretty high. The odds they could reach Margot were even better.

Then another figure rose up from the dirt.

A woman.

She was nude, and her dark, glossy skin blended well with the rich soil. She brushed off her shoulders and breasts as she stepped forwards to the motionless xenos.

Even from a dozen meters away, Margot could see that she had no whites to her eyes.

The woman looked at them, and at the groundcar. She stood next to the nearest xeno, slid a hand up around its front shoulder joint, and considered them.

Of course. The xenos couldn’t have planted the explosive. They had no hands.

Maybe it hadn’t been a mine; maybe it had been a bomb. Maybe the woman had detonated it.

Margot stared at her. What would happen now? Would the xenos just wait here, for reinforcements? Were there reinforcements?

Then, with surprising agility, the woman mounted the xeno. Her right foot rose high and pressed against the outside of a knee joint, her left hand pulled against the shoulder, and she swung up and around and then she was on top of it. She sat down, her ass finding a concavity between two ridges on its back, her legs spread apart with her heels next to its front shoulders. She held onto the shell between her legs with one hand, her back erect.

All four xenos walked backwards several paces, turned, and began to move away.

Stone came around the front of the AATGV to stand next to Margot, pistol in hand. The xenos had accelerated, scuttling away, and in a moment they had reached the two others that had remained on the road. There they stopped; the woman remained seated straight-backed on her mount, turning to look back at them.

“Ancestors fucking in paradise,” Han-Irinov muttered.

“Cover us,” Stone said unnecessarily. She tilted her head, and she and Margot walked over to the groundcar.

“The fuck was that?” Cruzado-Liu called as they approached. She and Junipero both had gotten out of the vehicle; the trunk was open, and the two of them were crouched down behind the open groundcar doors. As Stone and Margot drew near, they stood up, revealing the heavy combat rifles which they’d pulled from the trunk.

“Vehicle mine,” Margot replied. “In the road.”

“Yeah I got that,” Cruzado-Liu replied. “I meant the fucking barbarian crab rider there.”

“I want to do that,” Cora said from inside the groundcar.

“Shut the fuck up,” Cruzado-Liu snapped.

“Sorry.”

She turned her attention back to Stone and Margot. “Is everyone okay?”

“We’re fine,” Stone said. “But we’ll have to assess the damage to the AATGV and figure out what we want to do.”

“What about the xenos and Princess Scuttles up there?”

“That’s a good question. Han-Irinov can keep an eye on them for the time being.”

Cruzado-Liu nodded. “Let me come take a look at the damage. Junipero, come along. You two, stay in the car.”

“Awww,” Cora replied.

Han-Irinov was still up in the turret, watching the xenos. As they returned across the field, Margot could see that she was also scanning the area, left, right, rear; whoever had trained her had done a fine job. It would have been far easier to stay focused on the obvious threat; nine of ten Imperial recruits would have done just that.

“Captain,” Margot initiated.

“Yeah?”

“I was just thinking—maybe we should let Cora go.”

“Hm?”

“Well, Cruzado-Liu told her not to get out, but maybe we should. She is one of them, by her own admission. She might be dangerous, she’s definitely not on our side. I’m not saying we should shoot her, but...”

Stone nodded. “It’s a valid point—but I may need her to tell me what’s happening if Vanderbruk clams up again. If she decides to run off, that’s fine, but for now we’ll just keep an eye on her.”

“All right.”

Cruzado-Liu had passed by the driver’s side and released the hood, and smoke rose as she lifted it open with gloved hands. She waved a hand, and the smoke dissipated.

“Guess it’s not on fire,” Margot said.

“Any more,” Stone replied.

The three of them stood to the side as Cruzado-Liu bent over the engine compartment. Stone nudged Margot and pointed at the road. “They’re leaving,” she said. They watched as the six xenos and their rider began to run away. In a moment, they were almost out of sight.

“Hell of the Skin-Hooks, those things are fast,” Junipero said.

“They might come back—with help,” Margot pointed out. “We need to get out of here.”

She jumped as Cruzado-Liu closed the AATGV’s hood with a bang.

“We’re not getting out of any fucking where,” she said. “The fucking single axle’s broken. And a bunch of other shit’s punctured, or worse. The tire is intact, somehow, but it’s pretty fucked, too, we can’t really go anywhere on it. This thing’s not moving unless we can get it to a garage.”

Margot’s heart fell. Without the RKT, if they ran into any number of the xeno warriors they were through. The four that had lain in wait could easily overrun them; even the RCFR-88s wouldn’t stop more than one or two.

“I’ll tell you, though,” Cruzado-Liu went on, “It’s a good thing they were trying to stop us rather than kill us. That ED was seriously weak. It fucked shit up but nothing like what a real mine could have. It probably wouldn’t have even destroyed the groundcar.”

“Probably just picking up strays,” Stone observed. “Stopping people from getting away down the road.”

“I appreciate the small mercy,” Margot said, “but what do we do now?”

They all looked at Stone, who sighed. “I don’t fucking know,” she said. “We could send some people ahead in the groundcar, but we won’t all fit. And it’s clear that even if the fuckers don’t have Savoy—and I think it’s pretty clear that they do—they are certainly present in the area. Without that RKT we’re fucked.”

“I can fix this,” Cruzado-Liu said, gesturing at the AATGV. “But not with cow shit and tumbleweeds. We need to get to a garage.”

“Maybe they haven’t overrun Savoy,” Junipero ventured.

“They have,” said Stone. “Count on it.”

Margot rubbed her eyes. “But if we don’t go to town, we can’t fix the AATGV.”

“I fucking realize that,” Stone snapped.

“Sorry,” Margot said. “I’ll try to come up with solutions.”

“Hey,” Han-Irinov called down, pointing to the southeast. “Why don’t we go there?”

* * *

From the top of the crippled AATGV, they could just see the peaks of the farm buildings. A house, and a silo, and a couple large barns. Margot made it maybe six kilometers away.

The three of them stood on the AATGV’s roof, Han-Irinov still in the turret. Junipero had opted to stay on the ground. “They must have tools and parts for their farm equipment,” Han-Irinov said. “And Andreia could patch up a breeder reactor with chewing gum and earwax. Let’s tow this baby to that farm and fix it there.”

Margot looked at Stone, who shrugged. “At the least it will get the AATGV out of the open, and give us someplace to be while we plan. Worst case it’s full of xenos, but there will be a lot fewer at some farm on the outskirts than in Savoy itself. And it’s getting dark. Better to have walls around us than try to spend the night in the vehicles.”

“And the xenos may already be on their way back, with friends,” Margot observed.

“So what are we fucking waiting for?” Cruzado-Liu asked, and jumped to the ground.

The groundcar, being a police patrol car, had tow cables. They drove it across the field and attached the cables to the mounts, then hooked the other ends to the front of the AATGV.

With Junipero at the wheel, the groundcar started forward. Stone was in the driver’s seat of the AATGV; Margot and Cruzado-Liu stood off to the side to watch the operation. The cables went taut. The groundcar’s wheels started to spin in the wet grass.

“If it digs into the mud...” Cruzado-Liu observed.

But then the AATGV lurched forward.

Slowly, the patrol groundcar towed the AATGV across the field. Its bad wheel did not snap off. After about fifty meters they came across a dirt road, hard-packed enough even with the rain that once they’d turned onto it they made steady progress towards the farm buildings. Margot and Cruzado-Liu, who had been walking, hopped up onto the sidebars of the AATGV and hung on as they bounced down the road. There was an intersection with another dirt track and Junipero turned to the right, heading directly towards the farm. Slowly, they pulled the AATGV through the turn.

The sun was dipping below the horizon; with the western sky still thick with clouds it was rapidly growing dark.

A tall field of maize rose up on Margot’s side, blocking the view, making Margot nervous. She could see maize passing by on the far side of the vehicle as well. They were in an alley of it. Then they came to a gate, at which Junipero stopped. Margot hopped down and walked past the patrol car and up to the gate. She unlatched it, then paused.

Beyond the gate was a large expanse of open field, low-grazed and clear; the road ran directly through it. On the other side of it she could see the farm buildings clearly, or at least their dark outlines. But she could see something else, much closer, a large shape near the dirt road just past the gate. And it was one of many—as she peered around the field, she could see dozens of the refrigerator-sized lumps, dotting the open space surrounding the farm.

Margot turned around and gestured to Cruzado-Liu, who hopped off of the AATGV and came forward. As she approached, Margot rapped on the passenger side window of the groundcar and gestured at Junipero, who rolled it down.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Something next to the road. I’m going to check it out. Cruzado-Liu can cover me; don’t pull forward until we give the go-ahead.”

“You got it,” Junipero replied.

Margot pointed out the object to Cruzado-Liu, who still had the big 88 on its strap hung around her shoulder. “I’m gonna check that out.” Cruzado-Liu nodded and brought the rifle to a ready position.

“You shout, I’ll fuck its shit all up,” she promised.

Margot walked down the dirt road. The shape was irregular but rounded—a bush? A big rock? But then why were there so many of just the same size?

She kept her hand on her pistol, and looked over her shoulder to Cruzado-Liu, fifteen meters away. Margot wished for a flashlight and was suddenly struck by a sense of unreality, almost dizziness.

How long ago had it been that she was in the basement in Arc of Sands, in the dark, smashing a crawler with a hammer? And Sirine, and Xiulan...

Xiulan...

She shook her head to clear it. Focus. The thing was five meters away, close enough to toss something onto, now. It was rounded, and three times her size...

It was a pod.

Margot froze. It was a large spheroid, dark in color, with strange protuberances dangling from it. But it was clearly some sort of pod, or egg... she wished again for the flashlight. Setting her jaw, she walked closer.

On the near side of it were several long appendages, dangling from the...

They were legs.

Legs with hooves.

It was a cow.

But swollen, grotesquely swollen, into the shape of a giant egg, as though it had been inflated like a balloon.

She couldn’t touch it. They ought to be able to drive by it; that was good enough. Margot retreated to the vehicles.

“What is it?” Cruzado-Liu asked.

“Cow,” Margot said, not looking at her. “The xenos have done something to the cows. It’s... swollen.”

“Unwatched graves,” Cruzado-Liu swore quietly. Then she did a double-take. “Shit, are they gonna hatch out of it?”

“I don’t- it—” Margot shook her head. “Who the fuck knows? We can examine them in the morning,” she said. “If they need to be destroyed.”

“Means the xenos are here,” Cruzado-Liu pointed out. “Gonna need to be sharp when we get to those buildings.”

Margot nodded. She told Junipero what she’d seen; Junipero made a disgusted expression. Neither Cora or Vanderbruk said anything.

Margot walked back and told Stone, who just shook her head. Cruzado-Liu had already hopped back onto the far side of the AATGV; Margot stepped up onto the rail and thumped the side.

“What the fuck was it?” Han-Irinov called down.

“Infected cow,” Margot shouted back. “Swollen like an egg.”

“Whoreson sheepskin prick,” Han-Irinov said. Margot didn’t know if it was meant as a reply.

They drove through the gate.

* * *

The dirt road led to a large open area between the buildings. On the west side of the yard, facing town, was a farmhouse. On the south side were two large sheet-metal sided outbuildings, and on the eastern side were a trio of large cylindrical silos. Margot stared hard as they got closer, and closer still. There were no xenos perched on the outside walls, on the roofs; none waiting for them in the yard.

None that she could see.

The groundcar pulled the AATGV to a stop in the open area. The sun was fully down now; the sky a deep purple striped with black clouds. Margot hopped down from the side of the AATGV. The AATGV’s door swung open and Stone stepped out. Ahead of them, Junipero was getting out of the groundcar. The groundcar’s headlights illuminated the closed metal door of the westernmost shed.

Suddenly, the yard filled with light.

“Don’t move,” a female voice said.

Margot raised her hands, slowly. So did the others. The lights were coming from two sources, at ninety degrees to each other, two pairs of bright directional beams, as though there were two vehicles pointed at them—which may have been the case. Margot squinted towards the voice, which was coming not from the lights but from the direction of the house.

“We’ve got a pair of combots here and they’re locked on, so don’t try anything funny. You, the offworlder. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“We’re fleeing the xenos,” Margot said, turning her head from the lights to face the looming shadow of the farmhouse. “We’re from central Verdis. I’m a tourist, but my companions are all SSDF.”

“A tourist?” the voice said, with a short laugh. “You picked a bad time to visit Strand, offworlder. All right, answer me this: are you human?”

“Uh—” Margot hesitated. “Most of us? I am, but, uh, we’ve got two women with us who were, uh, infected. But they’re cuffed up in the patrol car.”

“Infected?” a second voice said, and was shushed.

“How many of you are there?” the first voiced asked.

“Five of us, plus the two captives.”

“All right.” There was a pause, then the lights went out—or rather, dimmed greatly. The yard was still illuminated by the same sources, but with a dim yellow light rather than the interrogatory brilliance of before.

A woman stepped forward; she was taller than average, with a striking high-cheeked face and long black hair. She had the beginnings of lines at her eyes, and was dressed in a white shirt and well-worn jeans. Behind her were two more women, both younger, the first with short, almost buzz-cut reddish-brown hair, dressed in an orange coverall. The second was even younger, barely out of her teens, and had black hair in a pixie cut. She was dressed much like the older woman, but her shirt was blue and had a collar.

All three of them had shotguns. None of them had xenos on their heads, and none of them had all-black eyes.

“We’ve been watching you come,” the black-haired woman said. “No reason not to believe your story. I’m Helen Tsugerloi. Let’s get your vehicles into the shed, it may rain again tonight. Then you can come inside and we’ll see what’s what.”

* * *

The room was lit by a trio of candles. It was an interior room, the farmhouse kitchen. It had long wooden counters and shelves down the two long sides and a trestle table in the middle; one wall was dominated by a huge oven/stove combination set into a brick chimney. With the interior doors closed and the sole window covered by a duck-taped-up tarpaulin, no light would be visible outside.

They were all there, perched on stools or just sitting on the counter spaces. Cora and Doctor Vanderbruk were not in the room; Cora was in an upstairs bedroom and Vanderbruk was in the front foyer. Cora was handcuffed to a bedpost; Vanderbruk was cuffed to a sofa.

“I’m a veterinarian,” Tsugerloi said. “I live in Savoy. Or... lived. Three nights ago—” she paused to perform a little mental calculation—“yes, three, I was working at a horse farm just outside of town. It was the middle of the night; I was up giving a colt PT—physical therapy. It had gotten some leung-mai weed in its fodder...”

She sighed and brushed at her hair. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter now. Suddenly there was screaming coming from the workshift barracks. I led the colt out to the yard and there were these... things. Like black four-legged crabs the size of dogs. They were... attacking people. Spraying them with saliva or something, and then... and then riding them. On their heads. I saw them jump onto one of the workhands and straddle his head, and he just pitched over and started twitching...”

“We’ve seen them,” Stone said.

“No shit,” the woman with the super-short hair said, gesturing towards the foyer, “you’ve got one right in there.”

Stone shrugged. “Yeah.” She looked at the veterinarian. “Please, continue.”

Tsugerloi tugged at her hair again. “I ran. I ran to my truck. As I was running across the yard, one of the crab-things sprayed me. I made it to the truck, but as I got in, I felt... weak. Like I’d been tranquilized. Then Bekka arrived,” she said, gesturing at the woman with the short red-brown hair.

Bekka was older than Junipero, but not by much. She was in an orange machinist’s jumpsuit with the sleeves cut off; her bare arms were corded with muscle and covered in tattoos. “Ya,” she said. “I work at Shaanxi Ranch summer times. Was in the women’s bunk, asleep. Bunkmate Ginger grabbed my arm. I woke and thought I was still dreaming—this,” she shook her head, “this thing was on her head. Black legs and black shell. Her mouth was open but she said nothing. I looked, I saw more of them, so I dropped from my bunk and ran. I saw the doc at her truck, figured to get out with her.”

“She rolled me into the passenger seat and drove,” Tsugerloi said. “And thank the Gods for that.”

“Lights all went out then,” Bekka continued. “Whole town. So I aimed north. Saw a couple,” she hesitated, “big crab-things, the size of horses almost, they jumped on a car and stabbed down through the roof with their legs. So I turned off the lights.”

“At that point I couldn’t even move,” Tsugerloi continued. “Once we were out of town, Bekka came here.”

“Worked here two years ago,” Bekka added. “Nice folks.” They looked at the third woman.

Up close she was even smaller than she’d seemed in the yard, barely a meter and a half, with an expression more serious than a twenty-year-old should have. She nodded at the newcomers.

“I’m Lillana Wen,” she said. “This is my farm.”

She didn’t appear to have anything else to add, and after a moment Tsugerloi continued. “Our plan had been to hide here until the sun came up and head north. But they’re patrolling the roads.”

“A lot of cars went by, to leave,” Bekka added. “Big crabs got them all.”

“And then...” Tsugerloi looked away for a moment. “Then later, people came. People with the little crabs on their heads. They drove the cars back down to Savoy.”

“Like your woman,” Bekka said. “Her in the other room. Tell.”

“They take over people’s minds,” Margot said. All eyes turned to her. “The little crawlers poke themselves into the women’s brains, and implant something. Grow into them. Then the women become like puppets, for a while, and do what the crawlers want. And then later than that, the crawlers fall off, and the women have become like Cora. The woman upstairs. They think of themselves as xenos, or slaves of the xenos. They’re on their side.”

“And the black eyes,” Junipero said. “They get those big black eyes.”

“They take over your mind?” Tsugerloi said. “Gods preserve.”

“So why do you have them?” Bekka asked. “With you?”

Margot opened her mouth to answer, but Stone cut in first. “The one in there. Doctor Vanderbruk. She’s a scientist,” she said. “Apparently she’s been able to resist the xeno. How, we don’t know. But we are hoping she can get us into a secure facility to the south. An Imperial facility.”

“South?” Lillana Wen said. “Zhuetia?”

“That direction,” Stone replied.

“Zhuetia has been Imperial restricted for over two years,” Tsugerloi interjected. “Travel across the Zhaoze is strictly controlled.”

“Well, if they could do that, then maybe they’ll have held off the xenos,” Cruzado-Liu said. “Belangier here is an Impy, she can get us in.”

They all looked at Margot. She shrugged. “I’m just a Staff Sergeant,” she said, “and I’m here on vacation. I think Doctor Vanderbruk is our real chance.”

“So you’re going south?” Tsugerloi asked.

“That’s the plan,” Stone replied. “Depends on if we can get the AATGV fixed. The fuckers—the xenos—set off an explosive and damaged the front passenger side.”

“So that’s what that noise was. We’d been wondering.”

“We ought to be able to fix it here,” Cruzado-Liu observed. “While we were putting the vehicles away I had a look around. They’ve got a top-notch garage in there. I should be able to patch the beast up. If it’s okay with Miss Wen.”

“Of course,” Wen replied. “Anything you need.”

“I’ll help,” Bekka said. “I need something to do.”

“I have a question,” Han-Irinov said. “Where did the combots come from? Aren’t those against Imperial restrictions?”

“They belonged to my father,” Wen said. “He was a collector. He had certain... exemptions.”

“He kept those in fucking-A condition,” Bekka said. “Day we got here, Lillana told me to activate them; all I had to do was power them up.”

“They’ve kept the xenos away from the farm, for the most part,” Tsugerloi said. “Except for the cows.”

“Yeah, what happened to those?” Cruzado-Liu asked.

Tsugerloi sighed. “I have no idea. The xenos have done something horrible to them; they’re all like that. The night before last, more of those smaller xenos came to the farm. A lot of them. We kept them out of the house and the combots killed any that were too close outside, but in the morning, the cows were all sick; and then they just laid down and... bloated.”

Stone cleared her throat. “I think we’ll have sufficient time to hash things over tomorrow. I have driven all day and am dead tired. Specialist, how long to get the AATGV running, first estimate?”

“Two days, Captain. Minimum. We’re going to have to jury rig some of the parts, and it will take most of a day just to replace the stuff I know is blown. Once we fire her up we’ll find more problems. Could be a day and a half, but I’m not optimistic.”

“Miss Wen, your house is secure against the little xenos?”

The small woman nodded. “As Miss Tsugerloi says, they came in force the night before last. All the windows are boarded up, with slits left for visibility. The chimneys are blocked. They could dig through the walls I suppose, but the combots have pretty good motion sensors and are fueled to run well into tomorrow, and will set off alarms if they activate.” She shrugged. “It’s as safe as we could make it. If we keep a couple of people on watch, and everyone sleeps in the same room, we should be fine.”

“And which room do you recommend?”

Wen pointed to one of the doors. “The sitting room. It’s the largest in the house. We can bring a few more mattresses down from upstairs, use the sofas as well. Should fit eight people. What do you want to do with the, ah, other two?”

“We can tie them to something in the foyer,” Stone said. “Vanderbruk herself observed that we shouldn’t trust them. They don’t want to kill us, but they could open a window or something.”

Han-Irinov hopped off of a counter. “I’ll fetch licorice eyes,” she said.

“Show me where those additional mattresses are,” Cruzado-Liu volunteered, “Junipero and I will bring them down.”

In short order, Cora was brought downstairs and cuffed to a settee in the foyer, opposite Vanderbruk on her sofa. Three mattresses were carried down from the upstairs bedrooms and laid on the floor of the sitting room. While that was happening, Wen made sandwiches. Margot tore into hers gratefully; she had had only pre-packaged food since Arc of Sands.

That had only been two days ago. It seemed like more, like time was somehow stretching out, as though the unreality of what was happening had even seeped into the passage of time.

The farmhouse even had an extra store of toothbrushes. There were also extra clothes, although when Lillana Wen produced them she had to brush the dust from the topmost item on every stack.

“You don’t throw anything away in the country,” is all she would say about their provenance.

Margot traded her uniform for sweatpants and a t-shirt. Still no underclothes. She thought for a moment that it might be worth a trip into Savoy, xenos or no, if only she could pick up a bra; then snorted.

A short time after that, Margot and Tsugerloi were sitting in the dark corner room at the front of the house. Margot had her pistol; Tsugerloi her shotgun. It would have been a good place to look out the windows, had they not all been boarded up. To one side was the foyer, where Cora and Vanderbruk were lying on their respective pieces of furniture. To the other side was the long sitting room, where the other six women were lying on their various bedding.

Margot wasn’t sure if any of them were actually asleep. She knew that she was going to have a hard time falling asleep, with her mind constantly replaying the threat of crawlers sneaking into the house. As for Cora and Vanderbruk, who knew if they even slept any more?

But everyone was quiet.

“I’m really glad you came along,” Tsugerloi said quietly. “I was worried that no one else was left. That those things had gotten everybody. And it makes the night watch a lot easier. It was hard with only three of us.”

“No one else is left, really,” Margot said. “Not to be a killjoy, Miss Tsugerloi, but we’ve traveled all day from central Verdis and basically there was no one left alive, or at least not, you know, not gotten, up there.”

“Call me Helen, please. Yes, that’s what your Captain Stone said. It doesn’t seem real.”

Margot sighed. She’d been hearing that, and thinking that, a lot.

Something moved outside. Margot got up, went to the window, stared through the finger-sized slit until it moved again. An owl.

Tsugerloi seemed lost in her own thoughts. “It’s surprisingly cool in here,” Margot volunteered, as she sat back down.

“Yes, these old farmhouses were built during the first colonization, before the electrical grid was established. It’s the tall ceilings that do it. And this close to the sea it does cool off at night.”

“How long have you lived in Savoy?”

“Mm. I’m on my second rejuv, and I’ve been here most of my life.”

“Wow. A native.”

“Yes. My great-grandparents came here from Almeida, during the recolonization.”

“Speaking of relatives, Miss Wen used the past tense when she mentioned her father.”

“He passed away last year, from what I understand. Apparently a very well-connected man.”

“So she was alone out here?”

“I think she actually lives—lived—in Wotao. She was a student there. She’s just been down here running the farm until she can legally transfer it and get the escrow back from the Empire. A farm like this, that’s a good amount of money.” Tsugerloi shifted around. “How about you? Where are you from?”

“Wherever the Empire sees fit to send me. I’m civil reconstructions. Most recently I’ve been working on Goowoolanong, but I expect to be transferred soon.”

“No shit. Goowoolanong. What’s that like?”

Margot shrugged. “Like my previous three assignments. Find someplace that hasn’t been blown to fuck, find some locals who at least appear like they don’t hate you for having gotten themselves pacified, use them to set up a government, try to restrain that government from fucking over everyone else on the planet.”

“Any success?”

“Mixed.”

Tsugerloi made an amused snort. “And you’re going back to that?”

“It’s what I do.”

“Just here on vacation, huh?”

“Yup.”

“I can see where you might need one.”

“If I didn’t before, I sure as fuck do now.”

Tsugerloi chuckled, and shifted in her chair. “So... why are you going down to Zhuetia? Truthfully.”

Margot sighed. The chair was getting too comfortable, so she stood up. “It’s just like Stone said. There’s an Imperial facility down there, or at least Vanderbruk says there is. Some sort of lab, at a place called Cliffgarden. It may have information on these xenos. I’m not entirely clear on what, but... frankly, Helen, we don’t have anything better to do. There’s no one left up north. Heading as far away as we could seemed like a good idea.”

“Hm. Well, I’m sorry that they came here too.”

Something struck Margot. “Hang on. You said that the crawlers showed up here, what, three nights ago?”

“Yes, that’s right. Three nights ago they overran Savoy. That’s when Bekka and I came here. The night after that they attacked this farm, but Bekka and Lillana had gotten the combots working and we held them off. Last night, nothing. And tonight you’re here.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but... they attacked Arc of Sands, the resort I was at, during the day. In the morning, even. Using orbital insertion pods. When they attacked you... were there any noises that night? Explosions?”

“No. No, nothing like that. Orbital insertion? You mean they came from space?”

Margot looked out the window. Strand had a smallish moon that put out only a small amount of light, but the clouds had cleared enough that she could see the stricken cows in the fields.

“Yeah, my... we thought it was an orbital bombardment at first. But that didn’t happen here?”

She could see Tsugerloi shake her head in the darkness. “No, I don’t believe so. There were no noises or meteorites or anything. Just those crab-things suddenly showing up.”

“Strange.” Margot scanned for black shapes crawling through the fields, but saw nothing. “I guess they landed somewhere else earlier in the day, and it took them until that night to reach Savoy.”

“Xenos. From space. Beloved ancestors. And they’ve really overrun all of North Verdis?”

“Yeah,” Margot said, returning to her chair. “We don’t know about events east over the Spine, but Wotao, Helenni... they’ve killed all the men and infested the women.”

“So that’s why you’re all women. They aren’t killing... us.”

“Yeah. At the resort I was at I watched them do it, kill the men and capture the women. I guess they want us so they can hijack our reproductive systems.”

“What... how? Do they...?”

“They lay eggs in you. In... in your...”

“They stick something in your vagina?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re saying these xenos fuck you.”

Margot thought back to the orgy at Arc of Sands. Her cheeks warmed. “Uh, yeah, sort of. I mean, yeah... once they’ve taken control of your mind. The, uh, the victims wanted it. Helped them do it. They, uh, really got into it.”

“You saw this happen?”

Margot swallowed. “Yeah. They had me tied up, until more of the little crawlers could hatch. I, uh, they had me watch.”

“Fivefold Oath. What happens when the eggs...?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get the impression that it would be lethal. But of course even if it were, once they’re in your mind, you wouldn’t care.”

“You think that the women give birth, then?”

“I don’t know, doctor. Like I said, I only watched the eggs going in.”

“Ick.”

Margot smiled in the dark. “That’s one way to put it.”

“It doesn’t make sense, though,” Tsugerloi said. “They’re xenos. They can’t possibly be biologically compatible. I mean, at best a human womb would be a warm place to ripen. They can’t possibly draw nourishment. Even if they could use the same organic compounds we do for sustenance, how would they have evolved in parallel with our biology?”

“And yet they can take over your brain,” Margot pointed out. “Look at Cora in there. Clearly they’re biologically compatible.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Tsugerloi repeated.

“Ah—shit, we didn’t tell you that part. Something else Doctor Vanderbruk told us—they’re not really xenos. Or maybe they are, but they’ve been... changed. Designed. They’re a bio-weapon. Designed by Imperial scientists. For use on rebellious planets.”

“What?” Tsugerloi responded incredulously. “The Empire made them? Why in the Seven Sacred Names would they do that? A bio-weapon? That’s insane! And...” she laughed, sadly. “And immoral. And I... I want to say that I can’t believe it, but I can. Oh, Gods, those mother fuckers. They designed these things? What have they done?”

“We don’t even know who might have used them,” Margot said. “Who it is, up there, who dropped them on us.”

“Does it matter? Once you build something like this... Strand will be uninhabitable. If these things can reproduce themselves, how will we ever exterminate them?”

Margot looked at Tsugerloi’s silhouette in the darkness, and said nothing about the true goal of their trip to Cliffgarden. The antidote. She wondered why she didn’t—the tall veterinarian seemed trustworthy enough. In all likelihood she’d be coming with them. But something paranoid stayed Margot’s lips from telling her about the xenocide they sought.

So she said nothing.

Tsugerloi, too, sank into her own thoughts.

Two hours later, they woke up Bekka and Han-Irinov to take their turn at watch.

* * *

End Chapter Four, Part Two