Cava-Rek marveled at his seemingly un-quenchable desire to give pleasure to his greatest enemy as his serpentine tongue flicked rapidly between Fiona’s clit and her asshole. The sweet taste of her orgasms mixed with the musk of his own seed drove him mad with lust, and he lapped at her with renewed enthusiasm while she ran her hands over his scaled head.
Fiona writhed on the floor as Cava-Rek stood over her and showered her with his seemingly limitless spray of alien seed. The resistance leader moaned as she spread the viscous fluid across her body, and for the first time felt free of the war, the darkness, and simply reveled in being a woman madly desired by a male, a feeling she had not known since before the war.
Cava-Rek looked down at Fiona as she massaged herself and spread his seed across her body. This woman desired him, and honestly, without any serum. His brutal coercion with the concubine had lost its power, and this woman had fucked him for hours of her own accord. It confused his Izrid sensibilities, for no logic could explain her reaction to him, nor his to her, and as he watched the beautiful and deadly woman lick his drying seed from her fingers he could not help but to swell once more.
Warning klaxons began wailing throughout the ship, and the insistent keening of the alarms awakened the two lovers.
It was as if upon awakening the two lovers realized that their bodies had been intertwined in sleep, and for a brief moment they looked at each other in confusion. Then as the deep thud of explosions shook the temple, both Izrid and human sprang into action. Fiona slammed an elbow into Cava-Rek’s mouth even as he wrapped one of his arms around her and hurled her across his body and into the energy barrier. She recovered and sprang forward to launch a powerful knee-strike into his throat, and as Cava-Rek gasped for air she locked her hands behind his head and smashed her knee into his face two more times. The magister blocked the third strike with the palms of two of his hands as he drove the other two as viscous uppercuts into Fiona’s ribs. She shrieked and let go of his head as she stumbled backwards. The Izrid rushed her and shoulder bashed her into the energy barrier, which sent volts of electricity through both of their bodies. Fiona began convulsing as the power flowed through her, and Cava-Rek brought his face close to hers to use his serpentine tongue to lick the side of her face. Then he pulled her away from the barrier and held her upright with his powerful arms.
“The pilots speak to me human, they warn me that the hybrid Morgan has finally reached my city,” rasped Cava-Rek through the broken hinges of his lower jaw as all of the animosity and cruelty between he and Fiona came rushing back to the surface of his consciousness, wiping away in an instant the raw intimacy of their liaison, “It seems that I have more worthy enemies to conquer, so I shall have little use for you.”
As he spoke Cava-Rek used one of his hands to probe Fiona’s wickedly bruised ribcage until he found the bone he had broken. With his incredible strength he used two of his hands to squeeze her chest and force the broken rib inwards. Fiona grunted in pain as the jagged edge of the bone dug into her lung, and as the magister continued to squeeze she screamed.
Satisfied that he’d purged himself of the uncomfortable intimacy that he had felt rapidly growing within him for this woman, he let her fall to the ground. As Fiona gasped and spit blood onto the floor Cava-Rek wrapped his robe around himself and lowered the energy barrier. When the barrier fell she could hear the sounds of small arms fire joining the continued explosions, and it sounded as if a battle had broken out on the decks of the temple itself.
“A concubine or a corpse Fiona MacArthur, those are your choices,” spoke Cava-Rek as he raised the energy barrier and turned to leave.
ACT III
Lysa breathed deeply and focused on the sensation of oxygen flooding her system as it was processed by her lungs and then sent through her heart into the circulatory system. She became aware of the many millions of capillaries in her flesh that soaked in the oxygen rich blood. She marveled at the lighting storms raging throughout her body as synapses fired across the vast network of bio-circuitry that comprised her nervous system. She became aware of her muscles, vastly more dense and powerful now that the Izrid warrior DNA had re-programmed much of her tissues. Her bones were stronger, having expanded upwards and outwards as her human genetic codes were over-written by the Izrid predator genes. Lysa opened her eyes as the warning bells rang out, their shrill sound signaling the carnage that was only moments away.
The warrior woman’s gaze scanned over the interior of the assault pod and counted herself among eight other warriors. Four of them were pureblood Izrid warriors, who were gigantic four-armed reptilian creatures, covered head to toe in patchwork battle armor and carrying several firearms in addition to the wide-bladed war swords of the Morrighan. Lysa though of the sword strapped to her own back, and recalled the day their brood mother had told them of the change in weapons protocol. No longer would they carry the traditional war axes that had become the symbol of the Serpent King, instead they would wield swords in battle. Morgan had told the tale of her namesake, an ancient human legendary figure called the Morrighan, which was a bird that feasted on the corpses of the slain and carried their souls away into the afterlife. This act had made wielding the sword itself an expression of loyalty and service to the brood mother, who shared her name with the very weapons of her legions. Lysa smiled as she thought to herself that it was also a very convenient way to tell friend from foe, and though all brood could smell and taste their own, it had proven critical in helping the rag tag human forces that had joined the crusade during their long trek across the country to avoid firing upon the brood during the chaotic whirlwind of battle.
Among the purebloods sat Her Warrior, who while still at times a mystery to her, was for all intents and purposes her mate. He had yet to choose a name, being full Izrid his primitive mind still failed to grasp the point of a name, given his ability to distinguish all brood from one another by sight, smell, and taste. All of the full Izrid warriors still remained unnamed, and it was only the hybrids, which were the majority in Morgan’s brood, who had taken names for themselves. The rest of the warriors in the pod were hybrids, though they had been borne, unlike Lysa and Morgan, who had been made.
The bells changed in pitch and Lysa knew they were only seconds from deployment, and so she braced herself. Moments later all of the lights in the pod went dark and the floor became illuminated with green track lights. The pod was jostled by turbulence as it was launched from the war hive into the air and took a high arc over whatever battlefield they were contesting today. Lysa had lost count of the number of battles they had fought in the last month of their hard push north, and she found that she did not carry the mental and emotion baggage over the conflicts as she once had. As a human resistance fighter each death had weighed on her, from her comrades, and if she was honest with herself, even the enemies she’d slain. It was part of being human, she had realized, to feel and connect with one’s comrades and enemies. It was human to feel their passing, be it with joy or rage. Whatever part of her human self that had been was swallowed by the Izrid hive mind that had taken over a significant portion of both her physical brain and her conscious personality. What she had gained in intimate connectivity with her comrades she had lost in her long-term attachment to each of them as individuals. When it came to the enemy she felt little beyond the thrill of battle and the awareness of combat, as if being part Izrid had freed her of hatred for her enemy, even as the fulfillment in killing them was more pronounced.
Lysa could feel the pod descent as gravity sucked them down, and from the small impacts they made prior to the final landing she guessed that they had smashed through a building on their way down. The pressurized hatch blew and each of the gyroscopic seats the warriors sat in spun and launched them through the upturned opening. Lysa soared out of the pod and already she was tracking targets and firing with the heavy machine pistols she held in each hand. By the time she landed, nearly twenty yards from her insertion point, she had emptied both of her magaz
ines and eliminated at least three targets, all human Complex soldiers. Lysa slammed the empty pistols against her hip as she hit the release catch and the reloaded mount she had on each hip held fast to the spent mags. She brought the pistols up and back down with blinding speed and the thigh-mounted reloader slotted two fresh magazines into her guns. As she stood to her full height the Complex soldier she’d landed near continued to cower before her.
Lysa stood nearly as tall as any Izrid warrior, thanks to her hybrid genetics and five long years of intense physical training. She was armored from head to toe in modified Izrid elite armor, which she had come to find out contained dozens of micro-servos that allowed the armor to boost strength even as it reduced high velocity impacts such as bullets or high falls. Lysa had retained her lithe figure, despite the bone and muscle tissue growth, and the suits had been modified to fit her perfectly. She casually lifted her pistol and shot the soldier through the throat as she surveyed the battlescape, and much to her surprise recognized the looming buildings of what had once been downtown Chicago.
In an old life she had worked as a waitress in several of the downtown high-end restaurants. It wasn’t her dream job by any stretch, but she was friendly, attractive, and skilled, so the money was good enough to keep her around. She had been considering a business degree from the community college, though there never seemed to be the time. If it wasn’t the job or her boyfriend, Luke, keeping her distracted she would have gone for it, or so she told herself. There just never seemed to be enough time, and then the war started, then the Izrid, and there wasn’t time for anything but war. Lysa breathed in the scents of gunpowder, cordite, blood, and dust, and let it wash over her. This was life now, and after five long years of preparation Morgan’s brood had finally emerged to make war upon the Serpent King. It was exhilarating, and as Lysa caught sight of a squad of Complex soldiers attempting to rally around a small piece of field artillery she growled low in her throat and charged towards them while she fired with both pistols. Her barrage of rounds caught two of the soldiers in the chest and head, though while their bodies jerked and collapse to the ground the rest of the troops leapt for cover. Lysa was committed to her charge, and knew that if she slowed she would be caught in the open, so continued forward as she pumped round after round into the position. Her withering hail of fire kept the last two soldiers hiding behind cover as she approached. When Lysa’s guns clicked dry the two soldiers made the mistake of leaving cover and attempting to gun her down. Lysa had expected their reaction and had run in a semi-circle to flank them as she fired. They came up shooting into thin air and as the first soldier turned his gun towards the sound of her charge his head went spinning from his body in a spray of blood. The sight of Lysa’s sword gave the second soldier pause, and as he stepped back she cleaved his gun from his hands before turning her wrist and disemboweling him with her backswing.
Moments later she stood over the shattered corpses of the artillery squad as she was joined by the rest of her own assault force. They had suffered no casualties so far, though Lysa knew this would not last. Lysa and Her Warrior took the lead as the force rushed across the street and into the cover of a bombed out building. The war hives had bombarded the area with heavy artillery for several minutes before the assault pods were launched, and while a lightning attack was the most effective way to push back the bulk of the enemy there would always be dug-in fighting positions that had to be rooted out. Lysa could hear the chatter of a crew-served machine gun coughing out hard rounds perhaps a block from their position. From the sound it seemed like the gun was training on friendly forces attacking parallel to Lysa’s position, and they had a chance to approach it from the rear.
Lysa gave the signal to the rest of the force, and accompanied her hand signals with chemical secretions from the Izrid glands that had taken shape within her. The force moved out and worked their way through the rubble-strewn streets towards the machine gun. As Lysa began to move through the streets, all the while carefully scanning for snipers, she felt the familiar pinprick in her psyche that told her Morgan was tuning in. She had a brief flash of an armored truck and a squad of heavily armed half-dragons moving down the street on a course that would intersect with both her force and the machine gun nest. Without that critical piece of intelligence Lysa would have lead her force into a crossfire, and while they may still have been victorious, the losses would have been heavy. Lysa was comforted by the mental presence of her brood mother, and knew that Morgan was out there guiding other warriors as well. The warrior woman passed on new orders and the force spread out so that they could engage both the armored car and the nest. It was going to be bloody, and casualties were inevitable, though Morgan had been intent on taking this fight into the heart of the Serpent King’s dominion, and this was a cost all of the brood was willing to bear.
Morgan floated in her coffin as her mind’s eye watched Lysa take aim and fire a hard round through the back of a half-dragon trooper. No matter how many times she experienced it, Morgan could not help but to marvel at how tactile her awareness of the events on the battlefield could be. The smell of the dead man’s blood hanging in the air, the tangy scent of sex and death that exuded from the bodies of her warriors, and the caustic breeze of the dystopian Windy City.
Her body crackled with energy as the viscous fluids of the coffin washed over her in response to the influx of sensation. Her awareness was flooded with images of the battle unfolding before her on an epic scale. All the might of her legions was focused upon breaking through the outer defenses of the city. Her brood only comprised of three war hives and her own hive temple, and such a concentration of military might was sure to overwhelm the ramparts of the Serpent King’s capitol city. She had sent small forces to assault other Midwestern cities, to provide diversions as she drove straight to Chicago with the bulk of her brood. However, if their advance was slowed, even by just a few hours, the other thrall-magisters would have time to muster their armies and rush to the city’s aide. If Morgan was not successful here then her campaign was at and end, and though she and her brood would die gloriously, defeat would remain inevitable. They must take the Hive, she repeated to herself, and her many children, over and over as she did her best to guide the hands of her brood towards victory. As she watched sweet Lysa and her warriors dive headlong into brutal hand-to-hand combat with the enemy she prayed, more to herself and her burgeoning hive mind, than to any god or spirit. She felt crushed by the responsibility, and yet that very burden seemed to fuel her resolve, and she heaved against the weight of it even as she pushed her legions ever forward into the fight.
Morgan noticed a small portion of her sub-conscious mind drifting away into memories, and sent another part of her conscious mind into the darkness after it. To her conscious mind it was as if she could spy on the images and feelings being re-experienced by the sub-conscious mind. In many ways it was like watching a movie in her head, and at that Morgan the brood mother had to smile, as if such entertainment luxuries existed any more. As she had transformed from a human soldier into a hybrid brood mother such trivialities had seemed to fall from her consciousness, as if those memories were part of a different person. As Morgan watched her memories unfold before the rooting sub-conscious mind she watched as Lysa had led a very pregnant Morgan and the rogue Izrid warrior out of the ruins of Chicago and into the wilderness of post-apocalyptic America.
“Lysa, I can feel it out there. I don’t know why, or how, but its there, like a ringing in the back of my head,” argued Morgan as they reached a decayed highway littered with the dead husks of vehicles long lost in an old traffic jam leaving the city, “There is a place for us, and it’s south.”
“But you said that “It” was distinctly Izrid, so how the hell are we supposed to trust that we aren’t heading into some kind of trap? He could have put a tracking device in us Morgan, there was ample time and opportunity. If Fiona could track us before I pulled that bead out of my mouth then I’m sure fucking Cava-Rek could figure it ou
t.”
“Don’t say his name Lysa, I told you,” warned Morgan as she turned to face the unruly soldier, and as the two women sized each other up the Izrid warrior’s scent of alarm pulled them away from their brewing conflict as they joined him in taking cover behind a rusted out car.
Two small vehicles came into view, flying low over the highway and criss-crossing the road as if searching for travelers on foot. The vehicles were little more than two seats mounted behind a small engine, all mounted on a thin metal frame brimming with stabilizers. The resistance had taken to calling them “tricksters” because the vehicles were all together too flimsy for open combat, and were instead used by the Izrid for reconnaissance and hit & run attacks. The vehicles had not been seen on the battlefield until after the initial invasion, and many theorized that they were recent inventions, engineered specifically for combat with the resistance. It had been a chilling thought, though as Morgan and Lysa watched the gyroscopes of the vehicles allow them to move at flawless right angles, both women looked at each other and seemed to know what the other was thinking.
After a well-placed round from Morgan’s sniper rifle had punched a hole in the skull of the first trickster pilot the second had tried to flee, presumably to spread the word of enemy contact on the road. Both Lysa and the Izrid had hurled their war-axes at the pilot, one from each side of the road, and while Lysa’s hit handle first and bounced off the trickster’s frame the warrior’s axe hit true. Morgan and Lysa had taken the trickster from the pilot that the sniper had shot, as it was un-damaged, and the Izrid warrior took the damaged trickster, as he had the biological programming to pilot it and thus had no learning curve in the operation of the vehicle. The tricksters were powered by their own ever-spinning gyroscope motors, so were able to run for days on end with only minimal battery charges, which were all solar. Now the game had changed, and though Lysa still resisted Morgan’s pull south, they were able to put many miles between them and the Chicago battleground.
Alien Resistance: Omnibus Edition Page 20
