Alien Conquest

Alien Conquest Page 23

by Tracy St. John

  “I’m not much of a cook even with fa­mil­iar food,” De­gorsk apol­o­gized to his beau­ti­ful clan­mate. “I’ll make it up to you with a slice of choco­late cake later, all right? The stuff that’s al­ready made. I won’t sub­ject you to any of my at­tempts with what should be a treat. There’s been enough tor­ture al­ready.”

  He gri­maced over his choice of words. Yes, plenty of tor­ture had been dealt out dur­ing this trip, he thought to him­self. De­gorsk had learned that the at­tempts to re-ed­u­cate the Earther women to like sex had been more tor­ment than de­light for sev­eral of them. Forc­ing them to en­joy their nat­u­ral in­stincts had been a colos­sal mis­take, one he was try­ing to make up for now. These days, he and his staff con­cen­trated their at­tempts to help the cap­tive Mataras through their psy­ches rather than just their bod­ies. A few of the women had re­sponded fa­vor­ably to the co­erced cli­maxes they’d been started with, but many had not seen it as a ser­vice that the Kalquo­ri­ans had thought it was. De­gorsk had a lot of ground to make up with those poor, re­pressed crea­tures.

  He had ev­ery in­ten­tion of giv­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal board on Kalquor a hefty piece of his mind when he got home. He was al­ready com­ming mes­sages of his find­ings to Dr. Govi, some­times as many as half a dozen a day. He ex­pected to start re­ceiv­ing replies in a week. An­ces­tors help that man and his staff if they weren’t pay­ing close at­ten­tion to De­gorsk.

  In re­sponse to his con­sol­ing of­fer of cake, Cas­sidy gave De­gorsk a brave smile. She quickly chewed and swal­lowed the food he gave her. He thought she prob­a­bly did so to keep from tast­ing too much. Her hands were folded in her lap as they sat nude at the din­ing ta­ble of their quar­ters, al­low­ing him to feed her. The brave girl had eaten half the tray of food al­ready.

  “It’s fine, De­gorsk. I’ve got no com­plaints,” she said.

  She’d have plenty of com­plaints if she knew what he was up to. Cas­sidy had will­ingly joined the clan, and De­gorsk knew full well she’d protest his de­vi­ous meth­ods of pulling in­for­ma­tion from her. If he in­jected her with the truth-telling com­pound, it would de­stroy the tiny bit of trust they’d de­vel­oped. Hence, the sub­terfuge of his drug­ging her food in­stead. Hope­fully the ef­fects would be so slight she’d never re­al­ize what he’d done.

  Her round pupils were shrink­ing de­spite the low light­ing, let­ting De­gorsk know the med­i­ca­tion was well in her sys­tem. It was a mild ver­sion of the com­pound he’d given the Earther cap­tain. For­tu­nately, Cas­sidy had no im­plants in her body to re­act to Kalquo­rian drugs. She didn’t know any­thing of de­fen­sive im­por­tance, but De­gorsk wasn’t in­ter­ested in mil­i­tary se­crets.

  He told her, “I’m glad this is ed­i­ble at least. Okay, so I’m stretch­ing the def­i­ni­tion of ed­i­ble here. Along with the cake at your next meal, you can have what­ever you want from the dis­pensers to make up for this hor­ror.”

  De­gorsk tried not to gri­mace as he made that con­ces­sion. No doubt Cas­sidy would go straight for the un­healthy sausage and pep­per­oni pizza. For some rea­son, she loved those grease-laden tri­an­gles.

  De­gorsk had tried a bite of her fa­vorite food. He’d had to spit the cloy­ing, cheese-clot­ted mess back out. It was cus­tom­ary for the men of the clan to feed their Matara, but he couldn’t even bear to watch Cas­sidy chomp on pizza. It was too nasty.

  He held back a shud­der and re­solved to let her en­joy her food of choice while she could. Af­ter all, they wouldn’t be on the Earther trans­port for­ever.

  Turn­ing his thoughts from di­etary con­cerns, De­gorsk watched as his Matara’s lips curved in a slight smile. She was lovely no mat­ter what, but see­ing the usual wary and help­less anger fade from her ex­pres­sion el­e­vated her ap­pear­ance even fur­ther. The re­laxed smile lent her an ethe­real beauty that stole the Imdiko’s breath.

  He re­minded him­self of his pur­pose. “Can I ask you some ques­tions?”

  “You just did.” Cas­sidy gig­gled, a sweet, mu­si­cal sound that made him grin back.

  “I want to know more about you. Tell me about your child­hood.”

  “My child­hood?” She blinked at De­gorsk, her smile be­mused.

  “Some­thing nice you re­mem­ber about your par­ents.”

  She thought for a mo­ment. “I liked go­ing to the base­ball games with them. We had a triple-A base­ball team in our area, and we went to all the home games to cheer them on.”

  Cas­sidy shook her head at an­other bite of green beans, and De­gorsk pushed the tray away. She seemed suf­fi­ciently un­der the in­flu­ence of the drug. Be­sides, he was loathe to make her eat any more of his ter­ri­ble at­tempts at cook­ing.

  “I’m not fa­mil­iar with base­ball,” the Imdiko told her, fold­ing his arms on the ta­ble top and lean­ing close to in­di­cate in­ter­est.

  “It’s a sport where two teams play against each other.”

  “Like kur­ble?” Tra­nis had ex­plained the Kalquo­rian’s fa­vorite pas­time to Cas­sidy when she’d ex­pressed cu­rios­ity over his kur­ble ball.

  She shook her head. “Not re­ally. Kur­ble sounds more like our game of foot­ball. Base­ball is def­i­nitely not as vi­o­lent as kur­ble. I mean, poi­soned barbs shoot­ing out of the ball into play­ers’ hands, De­gorsk? How is that fun?”

  De­gorsk chuck­led. “It’s mostly the Nobeks who play it. Their idea of en­ter­tain­ment usu­ally in­volves blood and pain.”

  Cas­sidy shook her head again, but she grinned none­the­less. “Or sex.”

  “Yes, they like that a lot too.” De­gorsk gen­tly prod­ded her back on track. “You were telling me about go­ing to these base­ball con­tests with your par­ents?”

  Cas­sidy paused, con­sid­er­ing. Her ex­pres­sion soft­ened as she re­mem­bered. “The game it­self wasn’t im­por­tant to me. It was how we were as a fam­ily when we went. A lot of the games were played at night, and the sea­son started when the tem­per­a­tures were still cool. My par­ents would snug­gle un­der a blan­ket with me be­tween them.” Her gaze was far away, see­ing some­thing that made her look wist­ful. “We’d eat hot dogs, pizza, pop­corn, French fries – all the un­healthy stuff I wasn’t al­lowed the rest of the week. All the stuff you don’t want me to eat.” She stuck her tongue out at De­gorsk.

  “The foods you pre­fer are best en­joyed in mod­er­a­tion.” He kissed her to take the sting from his words. “It sounds like you were well cared for.”

  Cas­sidy nod­ded and gig­gled again. “Daddy called Mom the Veg­etable Queen. Veg­eta­bles took up three-quar­ters of our plates. She bought ev­ery­thing fresh at farm­ers’ mar­kets.”

  “So your mother stopped tak­ing good care of you af­ter your fa­ther died?” De­gorsk kept his tone gen­tle.

  “Oh no. She was more pro­tec­tive than ever af­ter Daddy was killed.”

  “But she had un­law­ful li­aisons with men.”

  Cas­sidy’s brows drew to­gether as she thought about it. When she spoke again, her voice was un­cer­tain. “It was only that one time, I guess.”

  “And it hap­pened in front of you?”

  Con­fi­dence re­asserted it­self. “Yes. She took her clothes off for the man. She said, ‘I want you. I’ll give you ev­ery­thing.’”

  “Who was the man?”

  Cas­sidy’s per­plexed ex­pres­sion re­turned. Slowly she said, “I don’t quite re­mem­ber. She must have known him to act that way though, right?”

  Cas­sidy bit her lower lip. De­gorsk could see her search­ing her mem­ory, and the frus­tra­tion when she came up empty curled her hands into tiny fists. “Isn’t that strange how I can’t re­mem­ber him be­fore she se­duced him to sin with her?”

  De­gorsk now felt con­fi­dent his beloved had been per­suaded by some­one of her mother’s guilt rather than wh
at Cas­sidy had ac­tu­ally wit­nessed. A woman as lov­ing as the one she re­mem­bered wouldn’t have pur­posely trau­ma­tized her child.

  “The shock of what hap­pened must have caused you to block parts of it from your mem­ory,” he sug­gested.

  “I sup­pose that’s pos­si­ble.” Cas­sidy looked sad. “I shouldn’t judge her so badly con­sid­er­ing what I’ve done. ‘Judge not lest you be judged.’ That’s what the Word says.”

  “What of love, pre­cious girl?” De­gorsk smiled and stroked her hair to soothe her. “Does your re­li­gion men­tion any­thing about lov­ing some­one so much you’d give up ev­ery­thing?”

  Cas­sidy smiled brightly, like a child who knew her lessons by rote. “‘For God so loved the world He gave us Je­sus, Mo­hammed and Moses to die for us, to save us, to lead us from in­iq­uity so we may not per­ish but have ev­er­last­ing life.’”

  De­gorsk nod­ded the ap­proval she looked for. “That’s a great love. And though I don’t know your re­li­gion so well, I can as­sure you I love you enough to die for you, if it is ever re­quired.”

  Her face soft­ened at his words. “You would?” she whis­pered.

  “With­out hes­i­ta­tion.”

  Cas­sidy came to him, slip­ping onto De­gorsk’s lap and wrap­ping her arms his neck. Her hands caught up his heavy braid, and she kissed him long and deep as her nim­ble lit­tle fin­gers un­did the plait. He ran his hands up and down her spine, pulling her close to mold her soft­ness against him.

  When his hair fell loose, she combed it for­ward with her fin­gers, pulling the black waves around them like a cur­tain. She loved the feel­ing of De­gorsk’s tresses against her bare skin, con­ceal­ing her from all but him, even though they were cur­rently alone in the quar­ters. She moved against him, bask­ing in his warmth. He lifted her, and she wrig­gled in de­light to feel the dual pen­e­tra­tion of his sexes. He fit her so well. The thick­nesses of his cocks caused a scrump­tious fric­tion that made her toes curl with elec­tric re­ac­tion.

  Strad­dling his lap, Cas­sidy’s feet didn’t touch the floor. She rocked back and forth, only mov­ing him in and out of her cling­ing sleeves a bit. She whined in frus­tra­tion, want­ing to feel his full lengths driv­ing into her. De­gorsk gripped her waist, slowly rais­ing and low­er­ing her, and her be­seech­ing whim­pers set­tled into throaty moans.

  “Is that bet­ter?” he asked, his voice teas­ing.

  “Won­der­ful.” She kissed all along his jaw, down his throat, nip­ping a lit­tle with her teeth to make him growl softly.

  The Imdiko stood and leaned over so that Cas­sidy lay on the ta­ble top. With the hard sur­face be­neath her, she was at last able to move bet­ter against him, to meet his thrusts with her own. The ta­ble was the per­fect height for the tall Kalquo­rian to take her.

  De­gorsk straight­ened so they could both watch him dis­ap­pear into and re-emerge from her core. See­ing the dark shaft pierce her pink-ivory flesh was a de­light to Cas­sidy’s eyes. Her pas­sion grew at the sight, and she propped her­self on her el­bows to get a bet­ter view. The moist sounds of cou­pling and their min­gled scents of cin­na­mon and sea salt added to the de­lec­ta­ble sen­sa­tions.

  The deep tickle in her nether re­gions grew trem­bling sweeter with each plunge. De­gorsk pushed with in­creas­ing force, his mo­men­tum quick­en­ing. He looked into her eyes, hold­ing her gaze with the blue-pur­ple depths of his stare. The in­ti­macy of his gaze seized her as if in a gen­tle trap. De­spite the in­ten­sity, Cas­sidy couldn’t look away. She came that way, grasped in the em­brace of his un­blink­ing re­gard.

  As she shud­dered be­neath him, her face lost in rap­ture, De­gorsk sur­ren­dered to the gen­tle spasms milk­ing his flesh. He groaned, re­lin­quish­ing his seed in teeth-clench­ing bursts.

  When the strength re­turned to his legs, he picked Cas­sidy up and car­ried her to the bed­room. Al­ready her warm cen­ter stirred him anew. Would he ever get enough of his pre­cious lit­tle Earther?

  No. If they both lived a mil­lion years, he would never be fully sated. Of that he was sure.

  “De­gorsk, you’ll keep me safe, won’t you? You won’t let Earth have me, no mat­ter how things turn out?”

  The medic’s brow fur­rowed at the un­ex­pected fear in Cas­sidy’s voice and at the ques­tion that seemed to come from nowhere. She was usu­ally so con­fi­dent. The drug had made her very vul­ner­a­ble in­deed. “You have noth­ing to fear from Earth, Cas­sidy. Your clan will keep you safe.” He smoothed the al­most-white hair from her face.

  “Safe,” she whis­pered. She smiled at him, as sweet as any an­gel of her re­li­gion. The mus­cles of her hearth clenched around De­gorsk’s de­sire. Oh yes, he wanted her again. There was no ques­tion of that.

  * * * *

  Tra­nis and Li­don stood out­side the one con­tain­ment cell that held a pris­oner in the de­ten­tion area. The other Earther cap­tives were kept else­where on the trans­port.

  The Earth­ers’ code of ‘take no pris­on­ers’ was never more ap­par­ent than the tiny de­ten­tion area. With only six cramped cells, the 75 mem­bers of the Earther trans­port crew and nearly 200 Mataras wouldn’t fit. Not that the Kalquo­ri­ans would have held women in such a man­ner any­way. The now-aban­doned forced re-ed­u­ca­tion of the fe­males had been in­sult enough. Treat­ing them like crim­i­nals as well would have been bar­baric.

  Only Gen­eral Hamil­ton oc­cu­pied the de­ten­tion block. He sat on a small bench, his hands folded mod­estly over his gen­i­tals. A waste dis­posal and sink were his only other fur­nish­ings.

  “Back to gloat, I see,” he sneered at them. There was no sign of fear on his ex­pres­sion.

  Tra­nis won­dered how fast the Earther would cower if Li­don low­ered the trans­par­ent shield and walked in with him. It was the Nobek the gen­eral watched.

  “We’ve bro­ken the codes to ac­cess the se­cu­rity grid,” Tra­nis said, let­ting tri­umph fill his voice. “An in­va­sion fleet of Kalquo­rian war­ships is on the way. Earth will be ours in a mat­ter of days.”

  He watched Hamil­ton’s haughty ex­pres­sion sag. “Your forces have got­ten through the outer perime­ter?”

  “Two days ago with heavy ca­su­al­ties on both sides, un­for­tu­nately.”

  The re­ports had been as bad as Tra­nis had feared. The in­va­sion was in­deed the Em­pire’s last-ditch stand. With­out vic­tory and enough Earther fe­males to carry their chil­dren, the Kalquo­rian civ­i­liza­tion wouldn’t last much longer.

  The gen­eral’s ex­pres­sion was sat­is­fy­ingly bleak. “You must have thrown ev­ery­thing you had at us.”

  “The de­fenses of the Kalquo­rian Em­pire are still well manned, but our al­lies have been over­run. It won’t mat­ter once our fleet reaches Earth.”

  “Cut off the head and the body dies.” There was grudg­ing re­spect from Hamil­ton.

  “We’re not plan­ning to de­stroy your world or peo­ple.”

  “But you will. And then like car­rion eaters, you’ll feast on our flesh and bones. You are god­less an­i­mals.”

  Li­don snarled, “You de­clared war on us. All we wanted to do was sur­vive.”

  The Earther’s lip curled, match­ing Li­don’s scowl. “By pol­lut­ing God’s great­est cre­ation with your in­fer­nal seed. Did it ever oc­cur to you your kind’s ex­tinc­tion might be part of a di­vine plan? That the virus that killed most your women and left the rest bar­ren was God’s will?”

  Tra­nis gripped Li­don’s arm to stop an­other lengthy and loud de­bate be­tween the two men’s ide­olo­gies. Hamil­ton was a fa­natic and dis­put­ing his views was wasted breath. As Li­don liked to quote, ‘Blinded by thought­less faith and deaf­ened by clam­or­ing zeal, the in­tol­er­ant stum­bles in an ex­it­less maze of his own mak­ing, never to find his way out.’

  The Nobek
’s ten­sion eased at Tra­nis’ touch. In­stead of ar­gu­ing he said, “With the tak­ing of Earth, I’m cu­ri­ous about the sev­eral no­ta­tions of ‘Ar­maged­don’ imbed­ded in the codes. I’m par­tic­u­larly in­ter­ested in the ref­er­ences to unau­tho­rized use of the worm­holes. As I’m to un­der­stand the def­i­ni­tion of Ar­maged­don, it in­di­cates the end of your world as you know it. In other words, the over­throw of your gov­ern­ment’s regime. Is that cor­rect?”

  A myr­iad of emo­tions ran across the gen­eral’s ex­pres­sion: sor­row, ha­tred, and fi­nally res­ig­na­tion. “‘The just will be up­lifted by God, and the in­fi­dels will per­ish.’” His smile was a pained gri­mace. “All things serve God’s will. Even mon­sters like you. It is the Flood again, wip­ing the slate clean of our sins.”

  Tra­nis had heard enough, but Li­don per­sisted. “Talk sense for a change.”

  Hamil­ton rose. Not both­er­ing to hide his naked­ness, he strode for­ward to face them. Slow tears ran from his eyes. “I see now it is God’s will for this end. It is writ­ten, set down by the hand of God mil­len­nia ago. ‘As for the cow­ardly, the faith­less, the de­testable, as for mur­der­ers, the sex­u­ally im­moral, idol­aters and all liars; their por­tion will be in the lake that burns with fire.’” His head hung down. “My pun­ish­ment will be see­ing this come to pass be­fore I too am cast into the pit. God for­give me.”

  Tra­nis shook his head. “He has noth­ing more of worth to us, Li­don. Let’s go.”

  They left Hamil­ton sob­bing in his cell.

 

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