by Tahlia Black
I dive behind a series of boulders shoulder-to-shoulder with a scrawny-looking guy holding his rifle like it’s his favorite teddy bear.
His voice is shaky when he speaks. “They’ve got us pinned down real hard. No one’s making any ground out there.”
“Cover me.”
“You’re mad. They’ll shred you.”
He sees the steely look in my eye and gives up arguing. With a battle cry he stands and releases plasma hell.
I steal a glance around the side of the boulders and calculate the distances, positions of the enemy and weaknesses. This is what I’m trained for. This is what I do.
I leap out and my first three bolts connect with their targets. I run hard, laying down heavy fire into a clustered and well-armed pack of Xants. Bolts streak past me in a vibrant blur, but I’m moving too fast.
Only a few remain.
A Xant cops a bolt right in the chest as I charge forward, hood raised and guns blazing pure energy.
Finally, the distance closes and there’s just one remaining. Something’s wrong with his rifle. It’s jammed, pathetic puffs of red emanating from the barrel.
I aim at his head. Shit luck, Sunshine.
Just as I fire the ground beneath me gives way and I fall, the anti-grav useless. A deep cold envelops my body. I see stars and strange pinpricks of light swirling around me before.
I have just enough time to utter “What the fucking fuck?” before I lose consciousness.
I wake covered in sweat, thoughts of the battlefield lost as I recall where I am.
Snapping upwards, I take in the stony room.
I don’t know what’s worse—the dream, or reality.
Realization folds in gradually. I remember the strange Dothkhan male and his brother in the corner. I remember the way he took me… and the way I enjoyed it and begged for more.
I feel sick. What the hell was I thinking?
I’m Alliance, through and through. Fraternizing with the enemy is high treason and yet here I was happily fucking his brains out while Sir Spook-A-Lot watched on with dick in hand.
It was a moment of weakness, I tell myself. Nothing more.
But even the truth of that seems fragile.
I pride myself on my sexual prowess, but what the Dothkhan did to me…
I recall his name. “Stratus,” he said, “but you will me Master.”
Like fucking hell.
I reach between my legs surprised to find there’s no pain or tenderness there at all, as if I wasn’t taken by two gigantic members at once, as if a damn alien wasn’t bringing me to climax.
It doesn’t matter. I can claim I was taken against my will when I get out of here, claim they tortured and starved me. The Alliance will make them pay.
A shard of doubt worms its way into my head. And if you don’t escape? If they find out who you really are?
I recall the holos, of the terrible atrocities their kind has unleased on the human race. I can’t even imagine what they’d do to me if they knew. They are a virus that cannot be allowed to spread, but first, I need to get the hell off this planet and back to the Grace, the mothership of the Alliance fleet.
Apart from the raised slab they call a bed in the center of the room and the torches around the walls, there’s nothing in here. I try the control panel beside the door, but it simply flashes in warning. The door itself seems old and ancient, like the rest of this place, but each time I try to press against it an energy field flares and casts me back.
I pace and try to remember my training.
Patience, Eve, I tell myself, patience.
*
It feels like a full hour passes before the door opens and one of the Dothkhan enters.
I’m perched between the stone archway at the top of the door and the roof, levered into the space like a human arachnid. My wrists and ankles ache from holding the position, but there was no other choice.
All that time climbing in the 1-G gym has paid off, I muse.
The Dothkhan comes through the door and stops, no doubt surprised to see the room empty.
Now’s my chance.
I drop from the ceiling, immediately come to my feet and deliver a savage chop to the back of the Dothkhan’s neck. Intelligence showed us how their skin is stronger than human skin, so I double the force of the blow to be safe. I have one chance at this, at freedom. I’m not going to blow it.
With a wheeze the Dothkhan pitches forward and crashes lifelessly to the ground. I can’t be sure how long he’ll be out, so I have to move fast. I quickly scan the Dothkhan for weapons, but he has none, naked as ever.
I look out past the door and find it’s a hallway that for now at least seems clear.
I move into it quietly, stepping by rolling out the edges of my feet to the center to soften the sound. Past the hall is a long room, a sort of antechamber. I keep going, constantly scanning for any sign of the enemy. My heart is galloping away from me and my breathing is strained, but I’m in control, my senses sharp and alert.
Still, memories of the act filter through my thoughts, the way the Dothkhan brought me to release with such ease and power.
I come to the end of another hallway and a door, this one with no control panel. I press on it, quietly praying to every god in the galaxy it opens.
It does.
What lies beyond it is a world unlike any I have seen, of rolling hills covered in a lush luminescence as if the whole place is one giant, shimmering borealis of color.
I step out with caution onto what appears to be a path, looking behind me at a grand castle that reaches into a kaleidoscopic sky. It’s nothing like the Dothkhan planet we were shown in the holos, dirty and swollen with disease.
Pretty, I think, but you ain’t got time to see the sights, soldier.
What I would like are some clothes, but unless I want to take a couple of hours to construct an outfit from sticks and rainbow leaves, I’m shit outta luck.
I run for the bottom of the hill where a valley lies in shadow. There’s not much in the way of foliage, at least not much I recognize, but it will provide enough cover for now.
As I move, the sky continues to dance above me, the colors and atmosphere of this world shifting before my eyes, under my feet, in constant and perpetual motion.
My breathing is labored and every so often I have to focus on my feet before the horizon undoes my balance, but I’m making good progress.
I reach the top of a hill and survey my surroundings. The castle I’ve come from is firmly in the distance. For the first time I notice what appears to be a dome connected to the side of it, a ship port or dock of some design.
Shit, I realize. I should have stayed there, tried to find a way to pilot myself out of here.
I turn around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, but apart from a faint crown of light on the horizon, it’s nothing but an endless series of hills and depressions as far as the eye can see.
There’s no water, nothing to eat—or at least safe to try. How long will I last out here before they find me?
A broken growl snaps me back towards the castle.
A creature approaches me with the same colored skin as the sky, its clawed maws padding slowly. It has two sets of jaws, the second overlapping the first to give it an altogether nightmarish appearance, and that’s before the fucking wings fold from its back.
I back up, but still the beast approaches.
And it looks hungry… real hungry.
It crouches, ready to pounce when a blinding streak of light runs right through its head.
Immediately, my nose is assaulted by the distinct smell of cauterized flesh, the creature slumping dead, its blackened eyes pinned to me.
“You are lucky it didn’t get you,” comes a familiar voice. “Its teeth carry a paralyzing toxin that keeps its prey alive through the digestion process, a process that can take upwards of two years.”
I quiver at the thought.
The Dothkhan male who took me, the one who referred to hims
elf as Stratus, approaches with a bow and quiver of arrows, the tips glowing with plasma. He stops before me. “The nearest city is well over a week by foot through dangerous land where this particular beast would be the least of your worries.”
He extends his hand. “Return to the castle and see that we mean you no harm, Nu’va. Your confinement is for your safety, but a prisoner you are not.”
It’s not cold. In fact, I can’t determine the temperature at all. Still, I cover myself. “Nu’va. What does that mean?”
‘“Vessel,’” the Dothkhan replies, smiling.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVE
The decision to return with the Dothkhan was an easy one. If I can get back to the castle, perhaps I can get to a ship. Besides, better the enemy you know.
That said, the Dothkhan are not entirely unattractive. Every time I think about his hands on me, his cocks inside me, I start to swell up inside, that familiar craving drawing me towards the unnatural.
And what of his brother, sitting there in the shadows with his length in his hand? Does he not want to sample me himself?
Remember who you are, I tell myself, not entirely sure I know right now given I’m so far from any semblance of the Alliance.
I’m taken into a large hallway and seated at the end of a long, wide table. The other Dothkhan is waiting there, Tyrus. I’m starting to tell the brothers apart, the small and subtle differences in their color and facial structure.
The one who called himself Stratus places his hands on my shoulders, seating me at the end of the table, the two brothers flanking me on the sides.
I can’t help but run my hand over the surface of the table itself, amazed. “Is this…?”
“Wood,” finishes Stratus, “what you refer to as ‘mahogany,’ to be precise, and close to priceless.”
I’ve never touched wood before, thought it was all but a myth from a bygone time. It feels different to the artificial surfaces I’m so accustomed to. “It’s warm.” I speak this without even realizing I’m so mesmerized. I’ve momentarily forgotten I’m completely naked, stranded here on an alien world, my captors the same color as the stars above.
Stratus lifts my chin. “Now, Nu’va, do you understand why you must not leave the castle? There are terrible dangers outside, beasts that will tear you to shreds at a moment’s notice and take joy in doing so. Here, you are safe, but out there…”
“You saved me, why?” I ask, once again conscious of my nakedness, the tawny towers of my nipples hard and erect in the room even though a blue fire crackles at the far end of the hall.
The other Dothkhan speaks, Tyrus, the first words out of his mouth since I was brought here. His voice is deeper and harsher than his brother’s, a dark malice in his gaze. “My brother paid handsomely for you at the slave market. He intends to get his money’s worth.”
“Slave market? I thought I was in a…”
“Zoo?” laughs Stratus. “No, Nu’va, you are a commodity here like any other, fit for consumption and use, disposal if necessary. Indeed, I suggest much of this world will be confusing for you, but as long as you do as we say, as long as you obey our commands, you will be safe.”
Nu’va.
The word sinks in slowly. “Why do you refer to me as a vessel?”
I’ve heard stories of the value of human women to a species like the Dothkhan whose female kind have been all but wiped out. The thought of bearing their young… It’s too much to consider, too obtuse.
“You will no longer be confined to your room,” says Stratus. “You are free to roam the castle as if it were your own, but we are still your masters and you will still be punished, fiercely, for your insolence earlier today. On Dothkhan, we have elevated the act of chastisement to an art form, one you and your feeble human body will come to appreciate in time.”
I clench my thighs together tight in apprehension.
I notice a series of shelves on the far wall. They’re full of Alliance objects and items, everything from old plasma engines to badges, medals, even uniforms. I shudder to think how they came into the possession of these Dothkhan.
I swallow hard. The spoils of war.
I try to find the right wording. If I am to be a captive here, perhaps I can draw closer to my captors, slowly win their trust. “You are,” I hunt for the appropriate way to phrase it, “collectors?”
“Soldiers.”
I should have known. “Are all Dothkhan men soldiers?”
“In a way,” answers Stratus, the muscles flexing in his coiled arms, “but few have the finances to travel, to journey to other worlds by their own accord.”
“And you do?”
“Yes. Our father was a military hero of sorts, well compensated by the Council. And us?” He points between himself and Tyrus. “We honor his memory by defending our race, our planet, but we do so at our pleasure. You might even call us mercenaries.”
“I’ve seen the holos. I know your kind.”
Tyrus stands abruptly, his chair scraping on the floor. “You know nothing, human,” he seethes. “Everything you think you know is a lie, a construction and fabrication by the Alliance so they can take over our world, squeeze it for the rich natural resources it has to offer. Your precious Grand Commander? Nothing put a common criminal.”
“How dare—”
Tyrus’s hand is around my throat in an instant, squeezing hard.
Stratus reaches between us and pulls it away, placing a hand on Tyrus’s chest, glowing crimson. “Easy now, brother. She will learn everything in good time, but there are preparations to attend to, her punishment to relish.”
Tyrus nods, his eyes running up and down my body. “Yes, I will take great pleasure showing her the Dothkhan way.”
“First,” says Stratus, looking to me, “you will clean and make yourself ready for us. There are salves in the drawers beside your bed. You are to use them on your sex and ass in preparation for what is to come. Is that understood?”
I remain silent.
“Is that understood?” he repeats, his tone firmer.
“Yes,” I reply quietly.
“Yes, what?” he demands.
“Yes, Master,” I say meekly, remembering my place.
“I take it you can find your way to your quarters?”
I nod.
“Good. We will be around to collect you shortly. Make sure you’re ready.”
The two brothers pace off together towards the far wall, walking straight through it like colorful apparitions. It parts like a pond, their forms swallowed up and only the crackle and pop of the fire and my own heated thoughts remaining.
I stand and press my hand against the wall they passed through, but it remains firm and solid. I move to the window and look out, but it seems the castle is floating, suspended above a shimmering sea of gas. We passed over a bridge to enter it, a bridge that has now been raised.
I follow the window down to a door, pressing it and pleased to find it whisks open. Beyond it is the hall I recognize from this morning.
I start to move down it, pausing at the end at another door. It shifts away and I come into a large, open space with a domed roof, a circular platform in the center, the one I saw from outside attached to the side of the castle.
My breath catches.
It can’t be.
Upon the platform rests a single Dothkhan fighter ship—orange with inky black stripes, the insignia of a tiger crossed with a phoenix on the side.
CHAPTER SIX
EVE
It takes a while for the shock to wear off, but there’s no denying that is the same ship that shot me down, and then what? He waited for me? Bid his time while I sat in that supposed slave market? Or did he know from the start?
I know these questions aren’t getting me anywhere, especially not off-world, so I sit on my stone bed and open the side drawers for the salve Stratus discussed, finding a small vial of iridescent blue liquid.
I hold it up to a torch by the wall, but this offers no clue
as to what’s inside. I can only guess it’s a sort of numbing agent, or perhaps it’s to heighten sensation?
“What do you have to lose?” I tell myself, simultaneously nervous but also oddly excited as to what this so-called punishment could entail. If it’s anything like my original encounter with Stratus, perhaps it will be enjoyable, a height of pleasure I’ve never known.
Or it could be excruciating pain like you’ve never known.
My thighs snap together at the thought.
And what of Tyrus? He has barely said two words to me, and even then it was with a restrained displeasure and brooding intent. I’m quite sure he doesn’t approve of my appearance here. I shudder to think what will happen once I’m in his hands—if I’ll survive at all.
I shower, a blast of air following to dry my skin.
I sit on the stony bed and spread my legs, first applying the salve to the bare lips of my pussy. There’s a deep cold at first, a tingle that rings around my clit before turning into a light, comforting heat.
I remember Stratus’s words and the size of his member, lifting my legs and using the pad of a finger to apply a small amount of the salve to my anus. It soaks in the same way, the liquid seemingly penetrating my skin, the cold shifting to warmth inside me.
I place the salve down and wait.
*
Although there is no way to tell the passage of time here, I am sure several hours pass before the door to my chamber opens. Tyrus stands there, webs of indigo shifting over his massive pectorals. “It’s time,” he says. “Follow me.”
I try to contain my emotions as I walk. There’s something about Tyrus. There’s a power—a physical, palpable presence he brings to a space. I don’t know what to make of it, of him.
We enter a new room that somehow feels colder than the rest of the castle but also more intimate.
Stratus is waiting, sitting in a chair in the corner just like his brother was during our first encounter. I didn’t take the Dothkhan for voyeurs, but it seems they take great pleasure in watching such acts.
There’s a chair in the middle of the room. Tyrus sits, his legs slightly spread and his towering cock on show.
