by Loki Renard
The Genari haven’t hurt me. They haven’t even been rough with me. Even now, the guard are standing at a respectful distance from me. It’s not what I expected, after the barrage of fire they unleashed on Crash’s ship and surrounded the freighter with. I thought they would be vicious, tear me apart for what they want. But they have treated me as well as they are capable of treating me.
The queen’s eyes fall on me. For a long moment, we look at one another. I feel… almost inadequate. My nude form is small and delicate and compared to hers, hardly capable of the same feats. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know if I’m even capable of speech.
She speaks first.
It is as if her voice rumbles through me, and every part of their nest. Her word is a vibration shared by every member of the colony. They are all one thing, doing the bidding of this awesome creature.
“Pretty little one,” the queen purrs. “Pretty prize.”
“The chip isn’t on me anymore,” I start stammering, assuming this is her roundabout way of asking me where the goods are. “I don’t have it.”
“You are the pretty prize. Pretty princess. Will make a pretty queen.”
I stare, not knowing what to say. Queen? What does that mean in this context? This colony already has a queen and I’m looking at her.
“I’m a human. I can’t be a queen.”
“Genari dew make you queen. You drink it richly. Delicious for little queen.”
I am confused, but the other Genari seem to understand what she is saying. They put gentle hands on me and lead me out of the room, just as another contraction begins rolling through her body. Another egg is on its way already. It can’t have been more than a minute since the last one was laid.
Again, I am lead through myriad tunnels. I couldn’t escape this place even if I wanted to. It is so large, and I get the sense these glowing passages run on and on forever.
We arrive in another room. It is much smaller than the queen’s chamber, but it is still very large. The Genari have little in the way of furniture or bedding or anything like that in this place, at least, as far as I have seen. Strange that they have ships capable of interstellar travel, but they haven’t bothered with chairs.
At any rate, the room is filled with women, or at least, females. Some are stranger than others, and I do not recognize any of their species, but I recognize the way they are ordered. They are all drinking dew delivered by Genari workers. Those at the left hand side are what I would call normal sized. They have arms and legs and the rest of it. The ones on the right hand side of the chamber are larger, much larger. And their bodies are… changing. Seen in a line-up like this, I can see how a queen loses her legs. They fuse together and then shrink, become vestigial and finally are lost altogether.
Finally, I understand what is to become of me. If Crash was killed by a thousand Genari, his fate might have been kinder than mine, because I have been taken and kept alive in order to lose everything. They want me to become part of the Genari collective. Their dew will turn me into a queen. If I drink their dew, I will soon be as they are. It may take a long time, but in the end, I will be as the queen is. Unable to move, able to enforce my will perhaps via a collective consciousness, but a prisoner of glowing walls. The queen I saw was far too large to ever pass through the openings that lead to her chamber. She will die there having done nothing but laid her eggs for years on end.
I might survive this ordeal, but I will wish I hadn’t.
As the Genari show me to my place at the end of the line and urge me to sit down so I might be the first to receive the dew, I start to scream.
Nobody cares. They push me down into place, and they hold me there, tipping my head back and pinching my nose. The dew is brought to my lips and though I try to resist, I cannot. I need to breathe, and so my mouth opens out of dumb reflex. They pour a dollop of the gooey sweet dew down my throat—and the end begins.
Wait.
No.
Fuck this.
Chapter Eight
Crash
“I think your arm is practically regrown,” Farti says. “You’ll be ready for another mission soon!”
I survived the Genari assault, but only just. Both my arms and one of my legs were damaged to the extreme. I have been laid up on this freighter, as helpless as can be. The Genari tore me limb from limb before they left with Pyxel. I have spent the past two weeks utterly impotent, stuck in space as my damaged appendages healed themselves, waiting to hit the port. After the assault, we were confined to quarters. We were lucky that the captain didn’t set us adrift, but there was limited damage to the ship, and I suppose he took pity on me.
I hate this. I hate being made weak by injury. It is shameful to have lost the woman I claimed. The chip is now entirely meaningless to me.
Farti knows better than to express how pleased he is with how things turned out, but there’s an extra little skip in his step as he leaps around, waiting to disembark the freighter. He has the chip. He’s contacted the buyer. In the next twenty-four hours, he’s going to be one of the richest little fuckers in the universe.
We are docking and Farti is bouncing off the walls with excitement. He can hear the rumbling of hundreds of feet as they depart the ship. We’ll be allowed off last, so I’m getting prepared by gathering all our supplies and dividing them into two packs. I hand one to Farti. It’s almost the same size he is, but he can find someone to carry it, I’m sure.
“See you around.”
“What?”
The door of our cabin is grinding open for the first time in two weeks. We’re being set free. But that doesn’t mean what it used to mean for me.
“Go well, little guy. I have business of my own to attend to.”
“It’s that girl, isn’t it,” he huffs at me.
“Yes.”
“You want to go and rescue her from a Genari super colony?”
“Yes.”
“You’re so fucking stupid,” he growls.
“Thanks for the insight, Farti.” I stride out of the cabin, my mind fixed on one thing: rescuing Pyxel. I can’t afford to think about anything else. I can’t afford to think about money, or about Farti, or even whether I’m going to make it there alive.
“Wait! Waaaiit!”
I hear Farti’s little feet scampering up behind me. With a sigh, I stop and turn around. I really hope he’s not going to waste my time trying to talk me out of this.
“What is it? I don’t have a lot of…”
He trots up to me, holds out his hand, a churlish expression on his fuzzy face. “You’re going to need something to trade for her freedom. Take this.”
It’s the chip.
“Farti… if they wanted this, they would have taken it,” I remind him. “Besides, why are you helping me now?”
“Maybe I like having you as my protection,” he says. “Maybe it would be a pity if I lost you because of this. And maybe, if you love her so much you haven’t even complained about getting ripped apart for her, maybe she’s alright. So maybe take this damn chip before I change my mind.”
“Thanks,” I smile. Farti never shares his feelings. I can tell it makes him mad to have to do it now. “But I don’t know what I can do with this.”
He blinks at me. “You do know what this chip is, don’t you?”
“Not really…”
“Not really?” He stamps and bleats at me. “This is… we have… how could you not know what this is?”
I never paid any attention to the things we traded. I just made sure we got them. It never really mattered in the past, and I don’t see how it matters now.
“This chip is two compounds. Stable on their own. If it is pierced, they combine, rapidly in a fusion reaction…” He gives me an irritated look. “This is a hand-held personal nuclear device,” he explains in that slow voice of his that would make me pick him up and throw him against the wall if I didn’t like him so much. “Humans managed to reduce the reaction that creates the stars into th
is thing you can wear on your wrist. It’s old tech, but it’s still deadly.”
“So you’re saying, threaten the Genari with nuclear annihilation if they don’t give Pyxel back?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And then we can sell it anyway.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what we had when they first came to take her?”
“You can’t threaten to use a device like this when there are innocent people around. You can only use it on your deadliest enemies. So take it. Go to the Genari. Just don’t use it.”
“You should have told me about this earlier. You told me it was just an old trinket.”
“And it is. An old trinket capable of killing millions,” he shrugs. “You don’t need to know everything, Crash.”
I growl under my breath. I’ll deal with him later. Right now, I have a mate to rescue.
Chapter Nine
Crash
In orbit around the Genari home world, I am preparing for the battle of my life.
I left Farti back at the port. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near this potential war. It’s several billion Genari against one. This is a game I’ve played with them twice. One win. One loss. We’re even. This is the tiebreaker. Winner gets the girl, and the chip. Loser dies in a cloud of nuclear fallout.
“I’m coming down,” I message them. “I wish to speak with the queen.”
I have a powerful weapon at my disposal, but if I detonate it out here, it won’t harm them very much. It will kill me outright and I’ll be nothing but a haze of particles across a part of the universe with high background radiation. I have to get down there, and I have to get them to let me in. I have to be right in the heart of their nest in order to have any leverage with it.
This is the part where I could easily die. They could shoot me out of the sky. They could destroy me and all will be lost. But there is no sneaking up on a hive creature like the Genari. If one of them knows I’m here, all of them know I’m here.
Fortunately, they don’t open fire. They actually open the port for me. My ship slides into their dock without any kind of hassle at all. And now I know something is wrong. Very wrong.
I have the chip around my neck. It is hidden beneath my shirt, but I am sure they know I have it. It was the chip that drew them to Earth in the first place. There is so much in play here, and as Genari workers surround my shuttle, I begin to wonder if this wasn’t their plan all along.
Here I come, charging in to save Pyxel, bringing with me the chip they wanted. If I don’t pull this off precisely, I lose everything. But this is how war is. This is the world in which I have lived my entire life. I am ready for this, but sheer brutality won’t get me what I want. I am going to have to use some kind of tact and… elegance here.
“Where are you taking me?”
They don’t answer. They just start conducting me into the interior of their planet home. Every step is a step closer to the queen, I imagine. Closer to the center of this corrupt entity that swarms and takes what it wants over and over again. I am not the first to lose somebody precious to the Genari. I will likely not be the last.
The queen is waiting for me several thousand feet inside. I keep a careful note of the corridors we take, the twists and the turns. With every step I take, I generate a mental map of this place. It’s a skill I learned in my training. One of many.
A Genari queen is an imposing, dangerous creature. When one speaks with her, one speaks with all Genari. Now I am in the heart of their territory. Now the chip can come into play.
“Warrior.”
She greets me in rough, resonant tones, just as another one of those Genari eggs slides out of her. It’s a grotesque sight. I avert my eyes.
“You are a brave man,” the queen intones. “I will have your seed. I will produce fine warriors with your semen.”
The Genari do not mince words or hide motivations. That saves a lot of time. It’s now very clear why they let me in. They want my dick and balls. They want to use my genetic material and somehow fold it into their own. I had heard that they were working on ways to do that. The Genari are a constantly evolving species. They can perform genetic feats no other organism can.
“Then why didn’t you take me? You took Pyxel.”
“We wanted your seed via the girl. You had spent yourself inside her once. That is enough. Her genetics and yours would have been blended in our offspring. But she is not compliant.”
“What have you done with her?”
“She is being punished. She was not compliant.”
I can sense how much that perturbs the queen. They’re not used to noncompliance. They certainly don’t know how to handle it. In their world, all Genari exist together, behave together. Noncompliance is death. And that makes me fear for Pyxel.
“Inseminate me,” the queen demands, “and I will give you the girl.”
In the end, it’s not the chip they want. It’s my cock. It’s not about power. Or money. It’s about sex.
Chapter Ten
Crash
Pyxel is naked, her body gleaming with sweat. Bent beneath a load of oozing dew, the liquid sloshes at the sides of the vessel and slops over the edges. They have her working so hard she doesn’t even look up from the ground. It’s one foot after another. Plod. Plod. The gait of the broken.
I lift the bowl from the back of her shoulders. At first she doesn’t notice that it is gone. She just keeps walking with that blank look on her face. Anger knots in my chest. What the hell have they done to her?
“Pyxel.” I say her name softly. She blinks. Looks at me as though she doesn’t really know what she’s seeing.
I reach out, sweep her into my arms, and leave with her. I have to get to the shuttle and out of here before the queen takes my seed into her body.
She’s in bad shape, but they haven’t seriously harmed her. Her refusal to take any of their dew has made her lose some weight, but they must have given her some other food in the meantime.
I pass hundreds, if not thousands of Genari on the way out. They pay us no attention. The hive is chattering and rushing about, and I think I know why. The queen has been taken ill.
I don’t care. I load Pyxel into the shuttle. I hit the accelerator. And I never look back.
* * *
Pyxel
I can’t believe I’m waking up to his face. I can’t believe his arms are around me. That I’m safe. I was only with the Genari for a few weeks, but their world is so closed, so complete that it felt like forever. Every hour was a struggle. Every day was a torment. When I wouldn’t drink their goo, when I spat it out and squealed and fought and bit, they decided I wasn’t worthy of being queen. I was relegated to dew slave, collecting the dew from the dripping abdomens of the queen’s maids. It was disgusting work in the service of creating more queens bereft of will.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
He is holding me so tenderly, so lovingly. I didn’t know he had it in him. Every time I was with him that single day we had together, he was ravishing me. He left his mark on me, and inside me. He gave me something to hold onto in that alien colony. Even when I knew he couldn’t possibly rescue me, I had faith that he would. And now he has.
I push some of the hair back from around my face. As I do, I notice something on my wrist. It’s the chip. He must have put it back there.
“You didn’t sell this?”
“We decided to keep it. And you.”
“Is she awake?” Farti enters the room, carrying a tray of sandwiches. It’s a comical sight, one that makes me smile broadly, in spite of all I have endured.
“Here, you’re hungry,” he bleats. “Eat food.”
What? I suddenly realize that he’s speaking, and that I understand him. He’s never said so much as a word to me before. I didn’t think he could.
“You speak intergalactic?”
“Obviously.”
“I didn’t think…”
“No. You wouldn’t have,” he nick
ers. “Eat.”
I always thought Farti seemed sweet. It turns out he’s one sassy little alien. I wonder what else I’m going to learn about my new crew. I don’t think I have any secrets left. I have been stripped to the core. They’ve seen every filthy dirty part of me, and apparently, they still want me around.
I take a bite. It tastes interesting. Kind of meaty, but not a meat I recognize. “What kind of sandwiches are these?”
“Atarian worm.”
I spit the sandwich into a napkin. “Worms?”
“They’re good for you,” Farti insists. “You’re going to have to get used to eating foods from other planets. Now eat your damn sandwich.”
“You’re rude,” I note, taking another little nibble. It really doesn’t taste bad, but still, worms?
“You have a trillion dollars on your wrist,” Farti responds. “Apparently you’re worth more than that.”
It’s always hard to read his expressions, but the sandwiches seem like a peace offering. I sit in Crash’s embrace, eating Farti’s sandwiches, enjoying the closest thing to freedom I’ll probably ever have.
“How did you save me from the Genari?”
Crash and Farti exchange looks. “I did what I had to do,” Crash says. “The Genari have no further interest in you or me. The queen has been taken ill. The Genari are devoting all their resources to trying to heal her. We offered them the technology to do so, and they paid far more than anyone would have for the chip.”
“How did she get sick?”
“She wanted me to mate with her. It was the price of your release.”
My jaw drops in disbelief. “You didn’t fuck her.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“So what did you do?”
