It didn’t matter. Not to me. Not when we had a weapon to win the war standing behind me. Besides, Mark Ryder isn’t a traitor, especially not to the race that birthed him.
“Look, Commissioner, are you done with your pity party?” I snarled. “Because if you’re going to roll over for the queen bitch here, I’d prefer to get on with that. You’re boring and worse off, you’re stupid. Whatever made you turn from grizzled war hero to piece of human excrement, I don’t know, but just realize that, no matter what happens here, humanity won’t give up.”
Giving a silent nod to the ladies behind me, knowing that Mina would play along with me, I jammed the opening mechanism to the gates. “More importantly, Reynolds, realize that when I’m done here, I’m coming for you.”
“I’m sure you would if you could,” Reynolds responded. “Unfortunately for you, you won’t make it back from the world you’re on.” His eyes cut over to where I assume he saw Anya. “Make sure he dies last. I want him to see what his kind has wrought for themselves.”
Anya gave a dark look at the hologram but played nice with the commissioner for now. “AS you wish, Commissioner. Once I’ve had my way with these five, we shall discuss our further … relations.”
As the massive door slid open, as we stepped out, a flier picking up Mina from the sniper’s nest, it would look to any outside observer that we were surrendering, that for all my tough talk, Mark Ryder was throwing in the towel.
Oh, would they be wrong.
31
We were brought to the concentration camps, large metal structures in the center of a valley miles and miles away from Billy Langham’s grave. The assholes made us walk, of course, but what was a little marching to some Marines. Rayne had the worst of it, but she toughed it out. Good on her.
Every time one of the squad or Rayne eyed me, I just gave them the slightest of nods. Hold on, girls, and keep faith in the little AI voice hovering in the back of your minds, in the base of your skulls. When the time was right, we would lay waste to these bastards from the inside out.
What I saw in the camp itself, as we were marched through the prisoner sections and into our own private cells, was a horror show the likes of which I had never seen. Bugs of every sub-species lay mutilated in their cells. Some were starving to death. Others had been amputated by the legs, arms, or wings. Still, others were hanging on makeshift crucifixes, screaming and moaning in pain.
They were not allowed to die.
Those were the outliers though. For the most part, these bugs were marched around and made to work, moving boulders and clearing space so that their cells would be made bigger and more secure. They were forced to help fortify their own prison. They were a certain horrific poetry to that.
Well, I wasn’t going to cry too hard about them, not when we were locked into our own deluxe prison cell. There were some plus sides to our situation though. Anya, in her arrogance and belief we were now completely helpless, had us put in one large cell together, no doubt to stew in our mutual misery, and she didn’t bother to leave guards at our cell door. Sure, there was a half-dozen elite bugs in the guard post at the end of the tunnel-like hall, but it meant we had something we needed: privacy.
Rayne sat daintily on one of the organic-looking outcroppings of mud and stone that were to serve as our ‘beds,’ while Claire passed angrily, frustration etched on her face. Meanwhile, Jill waited patiently, her eyes locked on me as I leaned against the wall next to the cell door. Mina, despite the faintest hint of that exhaustion I had seen in her earlier, was still in business mode, casting glances down the hall through the barred cage door at the front of our cell to pick up enemy movements.
“You better have a damn good plan, Mark,” Claire grumbled. “I’d prefer to have gone out in a blaze of glory than rot in an Acburian cell.”
Jill’s eyes shot towards Claire. “Is that any way to talk to our superior officer? Besides, I’m certain Mark’s got a plan!” Her gaze shifted back to me. “You do have a plan, right?”
I rolled my eyes, hoping to put off an air of confidence. “Of course, I do.” And I wasn’t stretching the truth by much, not this time. There was a plan. It just had a flexible starting time.
Just firing up our suits and blasting away at everything that moved wasn’t going to get us very far. While ultimately that was the capper to my plan, at least here on Turan, I needed the right chance to go for the queen’s head. If I bumped off Anya, we had a chance.
“I only wish there had been enough left of PFC Langham’s body and DNA to plant the virus there,” Rayne lamented. “We wouldn’t even be in this position if that were the case. Now,” – she looked sadly around at our confinement, that wonder at our grand adventure she had in her eyes earlier now thoroughly quashed – “it seems impossible that we will ever truly escape, not with the Alliance after us as well.”
Mina added a sigh to that. “That’s what has me truly worried. When it was a corrupt war profiteer, I could handle that. We could have presented the evidence we have once we got back to the Halls, and Reynolds would have been behind bars.” She glanced over at me. “Now, though, who knows how far this conspiracy goes? If these guys are as committed as Reynolds seems to be, the evidence won’t save us.”
“What about the bugs, Mina?” our medic piped in. “They’ll kill us first.”
True to her legendary stature, Mina John barked a laugh. “Claire, seriously, you’re with Mark Ryder and Mina John. More than that, you’re with us with our aces in our sleeves, ready to go. The bugs, I’m not worried about them one bit.”
Pushing off the wall, I planted my hands on my hips. “Mina’s right, of course, but you don’t have to worry about the rest of it, either. I don’t think I need to remind you all that no matter how bad it looks, we still hold the face cards. We have our suits, we have Rayne’s secret weapon, and we have the will to win.” I focused my gaze on Claire and Rayne. “Or are you going to start quitting on me?”
Under the force of my stare, Claire’s resistance was futile. After one last defiant sneer, she melted and looked away. “God, fine. No, I’m not quitting.”
“But the virus is useless without that mixture of human DNA and Turan’s unique biological signature,” Rayne cried with a shake of her head. “And to inject it in any of you would be lethal, painfully lethal. What other human biological materials do we have?”
That brought a question that had been dancing in the back of my head to the forefront. “Does it have to be living tissue? Hell, you were going to plant it in Billy’s corpse, right?”
“I … well, yes, of course, it would be better to use dead matter and prevent the loss of more human life.” Rayne’s eyes suddenly widened in that way really smart people do when they realize they’ve been massively overthinking something simple. “Of course! Mark, you’re a genius!”
Claire caught on a split-second later, her medical training putting the pieces together. “Yeah. Yeah! Blood. Our blood!”
“Well, that’s better than my suggestion that I lop off my pinky finger,” I added. As everyone looked at me with a mixture of surprise and shock, I only chuckled. “Hey, I don’t usually need my pinky to kill bugs.”
Rayne’s eyes flashed as calculations raced through her mind. “Yes, yes, it would only take a liter at most, not enough to seriously impair you four if we draw equal samples. You all carry the unique biological characteristics of this moon.” Chewing on her lip, she glanced at me. “But … I’ll need my tool bracer to be online, both for the drawing of the blood samples and the infusing of the virus.”
Mina nodded. “Not a problem, Dr. Garmin.” She closed her eyes, and I could tell from the look of concentration she was talking with her dormant suit’s AI. Rayne’s enviro-suit and gear were all piggy-backed on Mina’s suit, after all, so much liked I’d channeled Artemis Squad’s gear during the Bullet crash, Mina could reactivate Rayne’s gear.
A moment later, the lights on Rayne’s suit and bracer hummed to life. “Brilliant,” she c
ried. “Now, we can get to work.”
Inspiration had hit me more than once in that insight about the virus. I now knew how to get my shot at Anya, to strike back when she was the most vulnerable. I thought back to the carnal look in her multi-faceted eyes as she had stared at me back at the fort and if I thought back far enough, she had made some eyes at me even during our first visit to Turan. While the thought of having sex with an alien bug queen was disgusting on the surface, I had to admit that there was no place Anya would drop her guard more than in her boudoir.
“Time for me to get to work too,” I said as I turned towards the cell door. “Get started with the ladies. I need to set the rest of the plan into motion.”
“And what is that plan, Mark?” Mina whispered to me as I walked up next to her and looked out through the bars myself.
I flashed her a smirk. “I’m about to bring new meaning to conquering the bug menace. Just keep an ear out for a signal. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
“Why should that make me afraid?”
“Because you know me all too well, Mina.” With that, I turned to the bars and called out to the guards at the end of the hall.
“Hey, bug brains! Tell Queen Anya that I, Mark Ryder, want to negotiate with her, just her and me in a … personal fashion!”
32
Needless to say, it didn’t take more than a minute before the message was passed along and Anya thrust her telepathic voice back into my head.
“Mark Ryder.” Anya’s voice sounded throaty and downright lustful. Perfect. “I accept your offer to … parlay. I require your presence, and if you value the lives of your teammates, I suggest you give me that presence immediately.” The door of our cell swung open. “What is it you Midwestern Americans always said? Follow the yellow brick road.”
With every bit of swagger I could muster, I nodded confidently to the ladies, knowing they would have the virus situation well in hand, and walked out of the cell. The door closed the moment I was through it, so I followed Anya’s telepathic instructions, headed toward what would either be another throne room like we had seen on our first visit here or something more … intimate.
Whichever it was, I could handle it.
I took a right, walking through throngs of desperate bugs, each trying to grab my legs, not to hurt me it seemed but to beg for help. For the first time in my life, I felt bad for Acburians. Looking down at them, careful not to stop and possibly spoil Anya’s mood, it began to occur to me that they might be more like us than I was willing to admit before.
Perhaps these bugs, like most Earthlings at home, wanted nothing to do with war or battle. They weren’t much on fighting and hating. Maybe they just wanted to live. If that was the case, they had been given a pretty crappy hand as of late.
I spared them no second glances as I walked through the area though, heading to a room with two elite guards at either side.
“The door will open,” Anya said directly into my head. “When it does, enter and remove your shirt. Do not hesitate. I wish to begin our negotiations as quickly as possible. If you delay this, I will have one of your friends killed and brought to us as proof of my willingness to act on my word. Do not test me, Mark Ryder. You will find that, unlike you, I do not bluff.”
I swallowed hard as the door opened, a pure bluff to keep up appearances. I wasn’t scared, not when I knew that Artemis Squad could bust out their full firepower if Anya did threaten them, but Anya’s attention needed to be on me, not on the biological weapon they were preparing. So, I didn’t stop to say hi to any of the guards, who didn’t react to my presence at all. Instead, I walked into what could only be described as a big ass luxury bedroom.
Looking around, I saw a large canopy bed with a sheer silk canopy surrounding it. Candles sat lit on dressers, and thick carpet lay underfoot. I tried to find the bug-like elements in this place but came up lacking. This looked like it belonged to humans or, at the very least, that it was inspired by them.
Remembering the rest of what Anya had commanded, I removed my shirt and dropped it on the floor, leaving myself bare-chested, save for the dormant pendant housing my suit hanging around my neck.
“I’m here,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “I’m all ready for our personal discussion, Anya.”
The door swung closed behind me, and I spun toward it. No one had entered after me and, turning back around, I saw that no one else was in the room either. She was playing hard to get, but I’d get her all the same, just not in the way she might want. Well, maybe that too.
“I’m still … preparing my terms, Mark Ryder,” she answered in my head. “Remove your pants, and sit on the bed.”
I unbuttoned my pants and slid them off. “My kind of terms, your queenship. You know, I saw the way you’ve looked at me since the first time I was here.”
There I was, in what amounted to be a bedroom straight out of the Four Seasons, almost butt-ass naked and trying to seduce a bug queen in my head. Not my highest moment in the Infinity Marines, but I was willing to die for my world. Compare to that, some questionable sex was nothing.
“I admit that I have enjoyed what I have seen, what I see now,” Anya’s voice purred in my brain. “You must have thought the same, to have asked for this moment. To think, all the hate you have carried for my people is now to be washed away by ecstasy in my embrace.”
I hopped into the silk-sheeted bed and sank into its soft caress. “What can I say? I can see the writing on the wall now, though you might prefer to work with me and mine than Reynolds.”
“A counter-offer? How intriguing.” I could hear the smug satisfaction in her mind’s voice. “First, though, let us see if you survive the test drive, as they might say on your world.”
I was a little ashamed of myself to smile a little when I found it ridiculously comfortable. Maybe it was the fact that we had been at this for so long, and I had gone without rest for a bit now. Maybe it was that my body was pushed well past its breaking point with no signs of stopping anytime soon. Or maybe it was the fact that my traditional bed was a cot beside a water heater in a back room.
“Okay, here I am; all stretched out and ready,” I announced to the air.
“Is this to your liking, Mark Ryder?” Anya asked, still nowhere to be seen. “The bed, the room, the candles? Is that what it looks like when you bed your Earth women?”
“When I bed my Earth women?” I mused, trying to make it sound like I was getting into the moment. “Sometimes, it’s like this. Sometimes, it’s more casual. It just depends on the mood.”
“Casual? Like this?”
Suddenly, the room shimmered and changed. I wasn’t at a luxury resort anymore. Suddenly, I was in what looked like the bathroom of a nightclub. Loud thumping music came from outside, and bright fluorescent lights made the whole place look dingy.
“Not like this.” While I was curious as to how this was happening, all I wanted was for her to show herself. Any questions might distract her from the moment.
“Like this then?”
The room changed again. Gone was the seedy bathroom. Instead, I was outside on an island. The bed was gone, replaced by the equally comfortable soft sand of the beach. Warm sunlight shone off my skin, and for the briefest of moments, I felt free.
I wasn’t free, of course. I knew that. I was still in some bug hole, and I wasn’t going to lose sight of that.
“Yes,” I sighed, still lying down. “Yeah, this is more like it.”
“Good.” She sounded rather pleased with herself. “Now we can begin.”
The room shimmered again, and Anya appeared before me, bugged out and naked.
My body tensed as I tried not to show my disgust. The old expression might have been to lie back and think of England, but I had to lie back and think of Earth. Even though Anya was in my head, she seemed strangely unable to completely mind-rape me like she had before. Maybe Annabelle was the cause, that and all the extra security measures I had just purchased. Psi-dampers mi
ght have been in there, something Anya wouldn’t suspect with Reynolds’ assurance we were de-fanged. Thinking of that made me smile, brought me into the moment.
Hey, there was no need not to enjoy the moment, alien bug queen or not.
I let that carnal smile grow. “Damn right we can.” Sitting up on one elbow, I beckoned to her with one finger. “Come here and get some sugar, queenie. Let me show you what a legendary Earth man can do.”
Anya didn’t need any more prompting. She descended on me, exoskeleton-covered hands reaching hungrily for my dick, pulling it out of my boxers as I likewise pulled her down into the sand. At first, she tried to maneuver to the top, but I put a stop to that in a hurry.
“No way, honey,” I growled. “I’m always on top.”
33
When it was over, I lay there, feeling a lot of different things. I felt oddly satisfied, and a small part of me considered not blowing Anya’s brains into antimatter. Hell, maybe I could subjugate the Acburians with my dick alone.
That was crazy talk, though. Hopefully, my romp with the queen bought Rayne time to concoct her stew of doom. And as much as I wished for a smoke to seal the deal, I’d have to settle for blowing the alien bitch lying next to me into her component atoms.
“Well,” I sighed, “while this has been an eye-opening experience, Anya, I think it’s time to settle things up.” I reached out to Annabelle, safe deep in my mind, and gave her the signal to start her return. It’d take a few moments for the AI to come back fully online, but when it did …
“Indeed, Mark Ryder, it has been, and it is,” she nodded in response, rising to her feet as I did. “You see, I have acquired new abilities since we last met. Among them is sensory absorption, fully taking your thoughts and sensations into my own mind. Skin to skin. You in me. That is what I need to absorb your memories and skillset.”
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