by K. C. Cross
And standing in the center of the room is Princess Corla, frowning in her stunning silver and pink gown.
I walk forward, drawn to her. Eager to do my part and take her hand. Something comes over me, some kind of trance-like state and I get tunnel vision.
I don’t remember bowing, but I must, because she bows back. And then I’m reaching for her, my fingertips pulsating with the anticipation of taking of her hand.
And when they touch the room lights up like the sun.
No. She lights up like the sun.
And my whole body responds with an electric shock that flows down into the floor and shakes the walls of the ballroom.
And then everyone begins to clap and cheer.
CHAPTER FIVE
After I introduce ourselves to the sex bot called Xyla, we take off our suits and hang them up in the lockers. My first impression of ALCOR Station is that it’s dark. Also empty. Also silent, except for the constant hum of cleaning servos bustling along the floor.
“This place really is abandoned,” I say, leading my troop of friends as I follow Xyla down a… walkway, I guess you’d call it. Only it’s wide. Wide like thirty meters across. And it’s just one level among hundreds of levels. It’s sliced down the middle by an open-air space with some kind of clear plasti-glass acting as walls along the edge, and occasionally there are bridges leading across, or people mover-type things that crisscross up and down, leading to higher or lower levels.
But the people-movers don’t move because… wait for it… there are no people.
Except us.
The floors are gleaming, even in the low light. Shiny, dark obsidian slabs. Where the hell did they get slabs of obsidian?
“It’s not abandoned,” the Xyla bot says. “We live here.”
“You and… the AI, I presume?”
“And the bots.”
“What bots?”
She stops and turns to look at me. She’s pretty, of course. She was made to be pretty. Her hair is long and purple, her synthetic skin something between fair and tan. Her eyes are bright, bright lavender. And her body is… let’s call it fantastically curvy. Huge tits, small waist, big hips, and legs that go on forever. She’s wearing a pink t-shirt that’s probably a size too small and black shorts that leave nothing to the imagination.
“What bots?” she asks me.
“That’s what I said. What bots? There are more of you?”
She taps the toe of her stiletto heel on the obsidian floor and places a hand on her hip. “What do you call these?” She pans her hand over to a group of cleaning servos.
I raise one eyebrow at her, then look over my shoulder at Jimmy. He’s paying no attention whatsoever to our conversation. He’s just looking at this Xyla creature with lust. “Servos?” I say, answering her question.
“They are bots,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I say, pursing my lips and nodding my head. “They are. But…”
“But what?” she asks. I can tell I’m setting her off right now. Something about this conversation is really starting to rub her the wrong way.
I just don’t really get that. So I forge ahead despite the inner warning bells. “They’re servos. That’s it. They barely qualify as bots, Xyla. They are programmed with a purpose and that’s all they do. So I guess my question is… are there more bots like you?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she says, mimicking me. “I suppose I’m nothing more than a servo too? I was programmed with a purpose. Should that be all I do as well?”
“Look,” I say, holding up a hand. “I can see this issue is”—I channel my father, suddenly thankful I’ve been watching him placate aliens for the last sixteen years—“near and dear to your heart. I’m not trying to offend you and I’m not implying you have no”—for sun’s sake—“free will. I’m just… doing my best here, Xyla. OK? I’m sixteen years old, I just shot a princess through a spin node, escaped an Akeelian warship, limped my way through a gate on a disabled ship, and now I’m here, on some abandoned station with no clue why I’m here, other than that princess I mentioned told me it was necessary. So,” I say, letting out a long, tired breath, “I’m sure we have more in common than we don’t, and I’m not looking to make an enemy right now, so can you please just take me to this ALCOR… person… so we can deliver our message and maybe these kids can be given a place to sleep and some food because it’s been a long fucking day.”
She smiles and says, “Very well. We can discuss this more another time.”
“Thank you.” I sigh.
She turns and we continue walking. She stops at the edge of the level, right up next to the plasti-glass half wall, and I realize there’s a door there. She opens it and pans her hand to the open space just as a large, flat, circular lift-bot hovers up to the edge and stops.
The circumference of the lift-bot is large enough to fit a couple dozen people, so I wave everyone forward and then grab onto Serpint and Draden’s hands before they can jump on, because I got these damn kids this far. I’m not gonna have one of them falling off the lift and dropping a hundred levels just when I think we’re safe.
When we’re all on board the lift hovers upward. Everyone is looking around. Trying to make sense of this place.
I’ve been to a few stations besides Wayward and this one is definitely unique. The open-air space is different, for one. All the other stations I’ve been on, including Wayward, have no open space. At least not one you can see from every level. There are always parks and shit like that. You need plant life on a station to create a viable biosphere, but they are mostly sequestered into greenhouses for life-support efficiency.
So this place is… nice. Feels more like a place you’d live. Not like a planet. I’ve been on a few of those too. And it’s not that open. But there’s a little bit of wind.
Still, it’s dark, and silent, and empty. So it’s super creepy too.
My only knowledge of this place was taught to me in school during seventh year. And it was only mentioned in the context of gate mapping. Because ALCOR Station has a monopoly on two gates. And there are thousands of gates in the galaxy, so you’d think that being unable to travel through two of them wouldn’t be a huge deal. Except it is. Because this is the only route to get to the Seven Sisters.
Why people want to go there, I have no clue. If they told us that in class I don’t remember. I just know that ALCOR’s firm grip on these gates keeps people out of the Seven Sisters System.
This is a big deal in another context as well. A couple of explorers actually made contact with ALCOR several decades back. The story goes like this…
The team of explorers were granted access to the station, even lived on it for a few months, then they were sent back to where they came from.
Except they were… changed. They came back as cyborgs, and not the normal kind where people have implants or cybernetic arms and legs and shit like that. But the kind who had their brains and spinal cords removed and replaced with some kind of rogue hardware.
They went insane, tried to kill a bunch of people, then they were shot and dismembered for scientific research.
So yeah. Everyone has pretty much left ALCOR Station alone since then.
We ascend all the way to the top of the station and the lift actually becomes part of the floor when it settles to a stop.
Above us is an expansive viewing window and the stars shine down like twinkling beacons.
A hologram appears in the air. A digital man made up of cascading numbers, and letters, and symbols. He hovers for a moment, then descends until his computer-code feet appear to settle on the floor in front of us.
“ALCOR, I presume?” I say.
“The one and only,” he says, panning his hands wide.
“Good. Well, we’ve got a message for you from the Cygnian princess Corla.”
“Interesting,” he says.
“How so?”
“Because I have no idea who this princess is.”
I lo
ok over at Tray, who is staring at the AI in awe. Then at Jimmy, who is still looking at Xyla with lust. Then at Valor and Luck, who just shrug at me.
Draden and Serpint are tugging on my hands, chatting excitedly with each other about weapons they are planning to hunt down, and so…
Yeah. It’s all on me, I guess.
“OK, well. Each of them has been programmed with a message. So if you’d like to hear them—”
“I would,” the AI says, cutting me off. “I’m very intrigued.”
Intrigued isn’t necessarily a great response given this AI’s history.
But whatever. We’re here. And we’ve got nowhere else to go, so I bend down and grab Draden by the shoulders so he’s facing me. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey, Crux,” Draden says, oblivious to the seriousness of this situation.
“Remember when the princess accessed your internal comm and gave you a message?”
He nods at me.
“OK, well, it’s time to release it. Can you do that for me?”
He nods again, then taps his ear and spits out a garbled mess of incoherent words.
I look at the AI for a response, and find him frowning. “What’s the next one?” he asks.
I point to Serpint, and thank the sun for small favors, Serpint has caught on to what’s expected. Because he taps his comm and spits out his message too.
Again, I look to the AI for some kind of reaction. “Keep going, please,” he says.
We go in turn like that. Tray goes next, then Luck, then Valor, then Jimmy. And then the AI looks at me and says, “You don’t have one, do you?”
I shake my head. Because I don’t. “Princess Corla only said I was to deliver them to you.”
I pause. ALCOR pauses. Everyone pauses, even Draden and Serpint.
“Well?” I say. “What the fuck does it mean?”
“I’m not sure yet. But thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
“That’s it?” I say. “We don’t even get to know why the fuck we just risked our lives and the entire Akeelian Navy is after us now? I left my home for this. I’m the fucking Wayward Station governor’s son. I think you owe us an explanation.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have one,” ALCOR says. “But I do have an offer for you.”
“Offer?” I huff. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“Get me online. Give me access to the galactic net. If you can do that, you can stay and I’ll take care of you. No one can harm you here. No one can get through my gates without permission. We will be a team.”
I side-eye the code man, not sure what to say.
But Tray says, “I can get you online.”
“Can you?” ALCOR asks.
Tray nods. “Just give me access to your core and one of those SEAR cannons I saw outside and we can thread a quantum neutrino stream through your gates. Once it gets to the other side it’ll keep going forever. If we shoot them out in every possible direction and create a sort of geodesic vector field that can ride along the nodes and links in time and space, then—”
“Ahhh,” ALCOR says with a chuckle. “Differential geometry. Such an ancient concept, I’d forgotten about it. You are a clever little monkey, my new friend.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” I ask Tray.
Tray looks at me and shrugs. “I dunno, really. I don’t even understand what I’m saying. I just know it’s the answer.”
I glance at Jimmy, who’s got one eyebrow raised.
Leveled up, indeed.
CHAPTER SIX
WAYWARD STATION
We dance, the princess and I.
Just the way that woman behind the curtain told us to.
And everyone keeps clapping. They don’t stop. Corla is glowing bright white light. Some of it leaks on to me and I can feel it. It’s warm, and soft, and makes me want to… do things to her.
“You don’t know,” Corla says, leaning into my neck to whisper. “Do you?”
The only thing I know is that both my cocks are hard when they’re not supposed to be. Every fiber of my being urges me to put them inside her.
“I need you,” I say, my voice desperate and unfamiliar.
“It’s OK,” she says. “I figured it out last night after we met.”
“I need you now,” I say.
“I know. Just… finish the dance and then they’ll let us leave.”
I press my lips up to her neck and she glows a little brighter when I begin to kiss her. The clapping becomes louder for a moment. Like I just did something these people approve of. “They’re not gonna let us leave,” I say, almost unable to control myself.
“Believe me,” Corla says. “They will. That’s the whole point of this.”
My mind is spinning with the implications of her words. But I can’t concentrate. I can’t focus. I’m not sure I even exist right now. I am nothing but urges and needs. All I want to do is fuck her.
The music stops and Corla stops dancing. It takes me a moment to catch up with what’s happening, but eventually I force myself to look over at my father.
He’s smiling so big. So wide. And my eyes are so hooded and heavy with lust and desire, they’re barely open.
She’s gotten me drunk. Drunk on her scent, and her light, and her touch, and there’s nothing I can do or think about that isn’t about her. About how I want to open her legs and fill her up.
My father is talking, then the king is responding. And then there’s more clapping as Corla and I continue to spin—standing still in the center of the ballroom.
I glance around the room, find the woman behind the curtain beckoning me towards her. Corla has a hold of my hand, so when I begin walking towards the woman, I pull the princess along with me.
What the fuck is happening? I feel like I’ve lost control of myself. Like someone drugged me.
When I reach the woman she points to the curtain again and I move towards it on autopilot.
The clapping in the ballroom turns into a resounding roar as people cheer and yell.
“Just keep walking,” Corla says. “I promise, it’ll be OK. I have a plan.”
A plan? I have a plan too. A plan to fuck her right in this hallway.
“Where are we?” I ask, suddenly becoming more aware of my surroundings.
I’ve lived on this station my whole life. Know it backwards and forwards, but I have no idea where I am.
“Something called a star bridge?” Corla says. “We can do it here if you can’t wait any longer. Then you’ll feel better, I promise.”
“Do what?” I say, backing her up against the station window. We are in the star walk. I’ve been here before, my drunk mind is just slow at processing. It’s a long tube of transparent plasti-glass and all around us the stars twinkle in the deep dark.
Corla has her hands on my shoulders and her touch—for the love of suns—her touch is so intoxicating.
“What’s happening to me?” I ask.
“Just… here,” she says, taking my hand and lowering it down to her belly. “Let me help you.”
Her dress parts between her legs, the thick, woven fabric embroidered with silver thread opening for me as I reach inside. And then my fingers find her warm skin. She has no panties on. Just bare for me.
Lust fills my head. Some kind of animal instinct takes over. Her fingers are fumbling with the button of my trousers, desperate to get them open. Then my cocks—hard and throbbing, almost aching to be inside her—are in her warm hand. She pumps them a few times but that’s all I can take. I lean into her, reaching under her ass to lift her up.
She opens her dress to give me access and then, without thinking, or planning—I’m inside her. All of me. Both cocks, thrusting deep inside her.
She gasps, and moans, and cries out like it hurts.
And even though I understand that I should care that I’m hurting her, I do not care.
I just… fuck her. I fuck her hard. Pressed up against the endless dark night and the bits of shining stars.
> Something is humming in my ear. No. Some thing. A drone, I realize. A small, bird-like drone with wings that beat a million times a second.
I swat it away and keep going, her light becoming brighter and brighter as she moans and then wraps her legs around my waist.
And then, just when I think I will die because she feels too good, too perfect, too… everything…
We explode.
Light bursts up and out. The whole star walk brightens in a flash and the deep dark outside disappears, taking the stars away with it.
I lean into her neck. Unable to comprehend what just happened. Unable to move, or talk, or think. But my cocks have other ideas. They don’t soften. In fact, they become even harder inside her.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
“Twice,” Corla says, glowing white light flowing out of her body. “We have to do it twice.”
“I don’t think I can—” But I’m already doing it. Already fucking her again before I can finish my sentence. My hips eager and thrusting. Her mouth making the most delicious sounds. So ready to come again, I feel like an animal running on instinct alone.
“Now,” she says. “Right now!”
This time it’s not a decision. It’s a primal impulse. We come together once more. Moaning and writhing up against the side of the station.
We stay like that as her light dissipates, then subsides altogether. My mind begins to focus again. Reality comes forward, tapping me on the shoulder. Letting me know it’s over.
The drone is still buzzing about. Corla is shuddering and weak in my arms as I hold her up and then…
We collapse to the floor in a heap and just lie there.
The tiny drone hovers in front of me for a moment. I lift my had to swat it again, but it just darts away and disappears down the tube.
“Holy shit,” Corla says.
I laugh, then say, “Holy shit is right. What the fuck was that? I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Something came over me. I was… drunk or something. I don’t know. I can’t even remember how we got here.”
