Chapter 4

The bad guys were smart.

The door to the Ring was cut open by a small drone – a ring roughly the size of a manhole cover. Then two manhole covers rolled into the entry area. Dey lifted her pistol and aimed it towards the ceiling with a scowl as she recognized the sight of two K12s. Dramatically larger than K9s thanks to some complexities involving diminishing returns on microsized DV emitters, K12s were also big enough to shred the entirety of the Ring, no matter how fancy her warp bubbles got.

Shit, Loki said.

[You can say that again.]

“All right,” the same male voice that she had heard over the radio came through the hole in the door. “I’m going to be sending in an autodoc to pull your teeth. Once it does, you put your gun down and strip naked. Both of you. We’re not taking any fucking chances.”

Dey scowled. “There are easier ways to get porn, you know!”

“Ha, ha,” the man said.

The autodoc that came through the hole was the standard NG-982 Corpsbot. It looked a bit like an exceedingly friendly spider, painted soothing colors of white and gold. The front was wide and tried to look as much like an Apple product as possible. It scuttled along the floor and spoke in a prerecorded voice that sounded chirrupy and chipmunk-esque.

“Please remove shirt!”

Not even buying us drinks, huh?

[Little bastard.]

Dey grabbed her shirt, shucking it over her head. She left her sports bra on as the spider scrambled up her back. Internal DV emitters kept its weight down and let it contain most of a surgical ward in its back. The basic procedures, though, were still just routines. Anything that deviated too far from known patterning was out of its wheelhouse. That was why corpsbots usually had corpsmen and corpswomen working with them via a telepresense. For some reason, Dey doubted that the corporate assholes who had run her down here had a trained doctor running the thing.

Fortunately, her body fit into the general stereotype of the human form and the K9 implants on her shoulder blades were designed to be easily removed in case of faults or technical errors. The bot popped open the seams on her back, then slid the two disks out, then shut her back up.

“Shitfire,” the corporate goon hissed as he stepped through the airlock door – which opened obligingly for him. He looked tall and dark, with black hair and a rectangular white patch around his left eye. It was either a tattoo, or a sign that he had a HUD on most of his life while outside. Fifty fifty shot either way. He was dressed in a simple black uniform and held a heavy duty civilian revolver in his hands. At his side was the Huntress that Dey had seen back on the corporate station.

Huntresses had evolved on a planet whose orbit would have put it halfway between Neptune and Pluto – and they had whipped around a cool red star that had put out almost twenty percent colder than SOL. Their ecology had evolved using liquid helium instead of water, and naturally occurring crystals as the basis for their nervous systems. Due to the incredibly low temperatures of their homeworld, their nerves actually acted as superconductors ... and it turned out being able to warp space was a major advantage from an evolutionary perspective.

Devil Troops had been inspired by Huntress commandos.

But they didn’t need implants.

What they did need was the encounter suit that the Huntress wore: Sleek, skin-hugging, and yet utterly concealing. All Dey could see was that they were humanoid, with strange spined protrusions that came from the forearms, shoulders, back, thighs. But those protrusions were most likely additions to the suit, not actually part of the woman’s body as each tip was shrouded by a small ripple in space that looked like a warp field bending space.

Oh, that’s clever, Loki thought. Those spines are for heat diffusion – the envirosuit needs to keep her near -250C. But if you just dumped that heat into the surrounding area as infrared, you’d kill everyone. So, those are DV emitters that are redshifting the thermal radiation past infrared into radio waves or something. Nice.

[I’m so glad you’re admiring the-] Dey started.

The Huntress lifted up her gloved hand – she had five fingers, Dey noticed – and suddenly, Dey’s throat was in her hand and Dey was standing. Those fingers tightened around her throat and Dey felt her legs lifting the ground. She grabbed at the Huntresses wrists, looking into the blank faceplate that made up the front of her helmet. The Huntress leaned her head forward – regarding Dey? Admiring her? Glaring at her? Dey didn’t know.

“Where are the Death Star plans?” the Huntress asked, her voice modulated and synthetic sounding.

Dey’s brow furrowed – fear replaced with utter confusion.

Then the faceplate flicked on – showing a stylized emoticon.

:D

“I’ve waited to say that,” the Huntress said, looking at her corporate buddy. “For years.”

He looked baffled as the Huntress dropped Dey to her knees. Then, scowling, he shook his head. “We don’t pay you to play with prisoners, Cheth,” he said. “Get them to the lockup. And don’t forget to check them for fucking weapons!”

“Humans have no respect for their own culture,” the Huntress said – her voice whimsical.

Dey rubbed at her throat. [Loki, have I gone insane? Did someone put something in the O2?]

No, I think that just happened. Maybe.

The Huntress wasn’t gentle, but she was good at her job. Once Dey and Marin had reached the cells in her ship, she stripped them, patted them down. Her fingers probed Dey’s pussy and Marin’s ass with the same clinical efficiency. Once she was sure none of them had anything hidden anywhere, she put Marin in a cell down the hallway, then pushed Dey into one nearer to the other end. The doors closed and Dey shook her head, her arms crossed over her breasts. She sighed.

Well, Loki said.

[Here we are, ] Dey said, trying to sound cheerful.

Despite the fact that the Huntress ship had been configured for human living conditions, it still felt cold as fucking balls. The walls and the floors were made of the same non-reflective black material, and rather than a doorway, there was only a glowing blue field that – when Dey touched it – produced a low level static shock that made her entire arm go numb. Swearing, Dey shook out her hand and started to pace around in circles – feeling the faint thud and rumble of acceleration. They were definitely going somewhere.

Doing a spotcheck of what she had, her options felt positively grim. Without her K9s for battery power, her only source of energy for her implants was her own biochemical reactions and the RTG implanted in her chest. The RTG’s power was mostly shunted into various implants that had to be continually run – meaning it had nothing left for her attack, defense, or mobility augments. The only thing she had left, really, was a five hundred meter grapnel hidden between the knuckles on her left hand.

[Think it might tear through her suit?] Dey asked, rubbing her shoulders with her hands.

Doubt it – especially not if she has the same shielding we do, Loki said.

Dey’s teeth chattered. [Well, fuck. At least Moon Two was tracking us, right?]

Yeah. If he received the sigint I was feeding through the Ring’s network systems and on the station, then he’ll have a good idea of where to go. But if we’re dead before he gets here with reinforcements, it won’t exactly matter.

[Yuuup.]

“Well, this is an interesting new view of you, Miss Gallagher.”

Dey managed to not leap a foot in the air. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she turned herself around slowly and sedately and looked straight at Mordin Lightbringer. Because of course he was there. Mordin Lighrbringer wasn’t the first alien that Dey had met in her life – not growing up diving for junk in Old Miami. If anyone had benefited from the expansion of Earth’s oceans more than the smug liberal cities who had prepared for it more than the Squids, Dey hadn’t met them. But Squids, for all that they were eight eyed, eight limbed aliens from Tau Ceti, were still relatably human. They had invented, independent of humans, elections, talk shows, genocide and pollution.

But Mordin wasn’t a squid – for all that his lower half was mostly tentacles.

He was an emissary for the Perseus Mumblers. A race of beings so advanced and strange that they dwelt beyond or within the crushing singularity of a black hole. Their emissaries were entities comprised of some kind of exotic matter that looked like concentrated shadow. The only details that Dey could see of Mordin were his eyes and his mouth – both of which were white glows that contrasted against his infinitely black flesh. But the shilouette was clear: Lean, humanoid save for the trunk of writhing tentacles that he floated on, and a pair of horns that swept back over his forehead.

“Mordin,” Dey said, casually.

“Not even going to ask how I got here?” he sounded like he was pouting – if that were possible.

“Of course not,” Dey said.

Mordin chuckled. “You are contrary Dey. I like this.” One of his tentacles caressed the blue field. “I can help you, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I will need something in return,” Mordin said, his grin growing wider.

Dey nodded. So far, so expected. “Well, what is it?” she asked, leaning backwards against the wall. Training said that trading for anything with an alien – especially one you fundamentally didn’t understand – was extremely risky. A mistaken trade between the Yahaag had ended up giving the EPA an entire platoon of genetically engineered superhuman warriors called Shockpods. They had just wanted ecological details on a prospective colony world’s ocean. But sometimes, you had to roll the iron dice and take your chances.

“Your ass,” Mordin said.

Dey blinked.

“Come again?”

The tentacle that caressed the blue field slipped into it – and then Mordin was sliding up against Dey. Behind him, the force field shimmered and crackled, as if it had been breached. Dey backed against the wall as his tentacles slithered along her thighs, her hips, her sides. The points of contact made her skin crawl and tingle at once – and her belly felt as if it was tumbling over and over in micro gravity. That Cheshire cat smile filled her eyes as that quiet, almost hypnotic voice whispered in her ears.

“It’s very simple, DeShane. If you want to be free, you need to service ... me...”

One tentacle – long and thin – bumped and ground against her bare pussy. Dey bit her lip, hard, to keep from moaning. His touch was bizarre ... and she couldn’t stop herself from growing wetter and wetter. Her nipples, already hard in the chilly cell, became taut and tight enough to cut through solid diamond. She growled and grabbed onto anger. Her hands planted themselves on the narrow shoulders of the Emissary.

“You fucking-” she snarled.

“Is it really so bad?” Mordin whispered, leaning forward. He actually had breath – it was cold and smelled strange. Dey’s head spun with his closeness. “I promise, it will be, hmmm, unique.”

Dey, I- Loki’s voice felt faint. -nterfering -nnect... -n’t...

Dey’s head spun faster and faster. She swayed as those tentacles wrapped around her back. One looped around her breast. Squeezed. The tip found her nipple and this time, she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. Her voice was sweet in the cell. Then she felt her other tit being wrapped around. More tentacles were sliding up and down her back. One slipped between the cleft of her ass, another along her neck. Around her neck. Squeezed. The pressure wasn’t enough to choke her – but it was enough to let her know that Mordin could.

And part of Dey liked it. The tip of a tentacle brushed along her lips, teasing her with its closeness. Before she could stop herself, her tongue darted out – trying to touch the tentacle tip. Mordin chuckled, drawing his tentacle back. Dey’s tongue reached for it. Then her tongue was captured my his mouth. His lips were soft and cold at the same time, and her whole body felt both numb and buzzing with energy. Her hands grabbed for him – but tentacles looped around her wrists, shoving them above her head.

Dey had forgotten everything but the moment and the desire burning through her. Her tongue and the alien’s played together. Her eyes widened and she made a muffled mmmph! noise as Mordin’s tongue expanded and slid down her throat, deep enough to make her toes curl. Her eyes rolled back slightly as his head drew away, his tongue still planted in her throat. Through a haze of lust and gathering blackness, the need to breathe pressing against Dey’s brain, she could see that crecent moon smile again.

The tentacle in her throat started to thrust slowly – drawing back enough to give her a chance to gasp for air, then pushing down.

Another tentacle caressed the rosebud of her ass.

A third touched her clit.

And Dey’s thighs spread. She couldn’t not open herself as eagerly as a whore for this. Her eyes closed tightly and she tensed – and then the tentacles plunged into her. They were textured and she felt every ridge, every bump as they filled her to the brim. This was ... different from being fucked by ... by...

Who?

-nne-

It was tighter. Fuller. There was an edge of pain. Dey’s eyes closed tighter and she felt sparks along the back of her mind as the tentacles slammed into her again and again and again. One caressed her clit. The touch alone was enough to send a buzzing climax through her body – but the touch came with a tingling surge of sensations through her skin. It was like a...

Drug.

[What is- ahhh! - happening?]

Give me a- Static filled her mind.

Dey shuddered and came again. Her back arched and she moaned, her belly muscles tightening as she lifted and dropped her hips. Mordin growled, his tentacles grabbing her ankles, spreading her wider as he slammed into her faster and faster with his tentacles. His whole body moved in concert with the rocking motion of the sex – of the...

Rape.

Anger started to build in Dey, breaking through the fuzz. That static – there were words in the static. She could hear them – and her heart soared as they suddenly came through clear.

Kinetic energy transfer is inefficient as fucking hell, but this asshole is, mm, providing it. And we just need three contact points.

Memories. A head exploding.

Dey’s fingers were above her head. But her breasts pressed to Mordin’s chest. Her thighs wrapped around his. Her ankles were held by his tentacles. And her whole body, at the end of the day, was a weapon.

The warp field was created in the center of Mordin’s form. It expanded outwards at the speed of light. Dey’s ass hit the floor with a clang and she groaned as bits of tentacle and blue-black blood covered her whole form, making her look like a contestant winner on one of those kids game shows that used goop instead of writing. But instinct and training and Loki’s voice drove her forward.

Now now now before we run out of power!

Dey sprang forward.

And hit the ground on the far side of the force field before it reestablished itself with a quiet humm. Dey panted as she came to her feet, her knees quivering. She looked down at herself – and then her head stopped spinning.

And that’s the last of the date rape contact drug flushed from your system, Loki said, his voice filled with contempt. Dey looked at her fingers, then at her bared breasts. Then, hissing, she reached back, grabbed a chunk of tentacle, and yanked it from her ass. She glared at it, her hand shaking.

[So, Loki, ] she thought, her voice tight. [That fucking hurt, right?]

Well, uh-

[The warp field, Loki!] She snapped.

Oh. Well, as he was a being of dark matter, it’s possible that he felt every single femtosecond as his body was torn apart from the inside out.

Dey chuckled. She closed her eyes.

[Good. Now, can we take that memory and put it into a box for later examination?]

Done.

The feeling of violation faded. It was a strange, almost disquieting sensation. Dey had been told that an integrated AI could do a lot with memories – but fucking with memories, with a perspective of self, was a dangerous proposition. She had been told in training, again and again, that trauma had to be dealt with. Not just packed away. Because while the memory might be gone, dozens of parts of the brain were impacted, and even an AI couldn’t get them all. She’d bring out the memory of Mordin. The memory of his tentacles.

The memory that she had loved every second of it.

And she’d deal with it...

Later.

With a shrink.

[And some booze, ] she added. Loki’s hands squeezed her shoulders.

And me, he whispered.

At that moment, the dizziness that Dey felt had nothing to do with drugs. She felt lighter than air, and as fragile as an egg shell. Then Loki’s hands caressed her and she wanted to lean into him so badly. She closed her eyes and shuddered slightly.

[I love you, ] she thought.

She had never said those words before. And now felt like both the worst and the best time to have said it – dripping in the blood and guts of a monster, buck naked in an alien cruiser, being dragged to who knows fucking where for who knows what fucking reason.

Loki, then, made it perfect.

I know.

His hand slapped her rump.

Now, lets go fuck up some bad guys.

Dey nodded. Then, looking down, she noticed that the tentacle from Mr. Lightbringer that she had pulled out and dropped was still there – still an inky blacker-than-black piece of unreality. She picked it up.

Marin started as the force field to his cell crackled, surged, then collapsed. He looked up and blinked a few times.

“Jane Bond?” he asked.

“Get the fuck out before this stops working,” Dey hissed, her hands clutched around the tentacle she had blown off Mordin Lightbringer. The tentacle forced its way through the force field, causing a surging crackle of energy to feed back into the walls. None of it touched her, but her fingers still felt numb. Marin sprinted forward and rolled out of the cell moments before the tentacle dissolved into ash. Marin looked up at Dey.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked.

Dey looked down at herself. She was still naked, and still smeared with day glow blood and a few blobby bits of black, congealed material that she was sure didn’t exist under the normal laws of physics. She flicked one large chunk off her shoulder and shook her head.

“It’s a long story.”

“Really?” Marin stood, brushing his knees off.

“No, I just don’t want to fucking deal with it right now.” She sighed. “Security’s been tapped, unless Huntress ships are stupider than rocks.”

“No idea,” Marin said. “But hows your power cells?”

“Still missing,” Dey said, starting towards the corner of the corridor. Looking left and right, she saw that there was no hint of which way to go. No big signs in English. There weren’t even any pictograms. Just two perfectly identical seeming corridors of dark black material, the darkness broken by thin seams of blue crystal that jutted out from the walls and about a foot into the corridor itself, making a segmented, regular series of breaks in an otherwise straight path. Dey frowned.

[Remember which way the assholes went?] she asked.

Hm. Left, I think.

Dey started left. Marin followed after her, and she had to admit, he wasn’t half bad at moving quietly. She made a mental note to ask him where he had picked up that trick while exploring exoplanets for fun and profit. But as they came to another intersection, she saw two sleek looking drones starting down the corridor to the right. She grabbed Marin and jerked him back behind one of the wall partitions. The drones scuttled past, either not looking for them or so brick stupid that they couldn’t hear two humans breathing and panting just around the corner. Dey peeked out and looked them over.

Huntress drones were similar to human drones – sleek, aerodynamic. Their locomotion was primarily spider-legs, but Dey thought she saw some secondary ducted fans. Then they were around another corner.

“I’ve seen those for sale in a Yahaag trade stop,” Marin whispered. “They’re fixers – not combat drones.”

“Good to know.” Dey frowned and started down the way the drones had come from.

“I hate this job.”

The voice seemed to come from nowhere – the echoing construction of the corridors making tracking sounds hard. Loki did some analysis and gave a tentative ping as to the direction, and Dey spotted a doorway that remained open. She stepped over and peeked around the corner. A human wearing the uniform of the corporate security – Northbridge Service Group – was leaning against a table that was built flush to the wall, whose surface was covered with a few odds and ends. Dey immediately identified a Beretta 9mm and a SPAS-12. Oldies, but quite effective, even if they hadn’t been upgraded to have fluxmags. She also saw what she swore was a curved, old style Japanese sword.

Katana.

[Gesundheit.]

The weapons weren’t a problem. Even without augments, even before she had left Ceres, Dey would have bet on herself naked in a fight with some corporate goon.

The problem was that the human was speaking to a Shockpod.

“Yes. There is a distinct lack of severing vertebrae and snapping necks,” the Shockpod growled, his hands pressed together. His eyes were oddly placed for a nominal predator – being placed more to the side than to the front of his elongated head. But the Yahaag hadn’t been constrained by evolution when they had taken the unnamed, aquatic species that the Shockpods had started as and molded them into the galaxy’s most terrifying mercenary. The field of view of a horse, with the ability to focus and track like those of a raptor, a body that could survive the pressures at the bottom of the Challenger Deeps – and thus, accelerations up to fifty gravities.

Dey personally felt that adding the nanocomposite bone, the multiple redundant organs, twin brain stems, and the hormonal urge to kill people for fun and profit was just cheating at that point.

“I was thinking more that- you know what? Nevermind.” The corporate goon said, walking to the table. “Why am I talking to you, Kuz?”

“Cause I am here to speak. And if you ignored me, I would rip out your spine and show it to you for the insult.”

“Kuz, cause ... cause...” The corporate goon blinked. “Wait, was that a joke? Did you make a joke?” he asked.

“Yes,” the Shockpod said, staring at him unblinkingly. “I am seeking to understand your culture better. The Shockpods have no historical culture of ingrained violence. I find yours most admirable.”

The corporate goon blinked a few times.

“I’m going to check on the prisoner,” he said.

He turned around, walked out the door, and Dey got her arm around his throat and yanked him out of the way. It didn’t take much time for the pressure to cut off blood to his brain. He went limp. Dey loosened her grip – and then ducked before the Shockpod drove the knife through the wall paneling into her brain as he emerged from the doorway. He hadn’t turned his head or his body – he had merely stepped through the door and almost impaled Dey’s head. She rolled forward and came up to her feet, her fists lifted.

“Hm. Good dodge,” he said.

“Thanks,” Dey said.

Isolating weaknesses and checking his biology, Loki said. It’ll take a while to really find anything weak, though.

Dey didn’t have time to respond – the Shockpod attacked. His arms were surprisingly short and stubby, as they had started off as flippers a mere fifteen generations ago. That didn’t make them not dangerous as hell. His joints were able to bend in ways that humans just couldn’t. So, Dey didn’t even bother to stay close. She backed away, blocking a knife blow with her arm, twisting and turning. By the time he was done with his flurry, her forearms were covered with nicks, cuts, and she was pretty sure one of her bones had been bruised.

“You fight well,” the Shockpod rumbled. “I am glad I turned off the security cameras.”

“You did what?” Dey asked, so shocked that – if he had attacked – the Shockpod could have pinned her to the wall with that knife.

The Shockpod – Kuz, Dey reminded herself, his name was Kuz – cocked his broad, flat head.

“But of course. I would not stand here, and let one of the famous Devil Troops rot in a cell without at least giving them a chance to face me in honorable combat,” he said.

Dey opened her mouth. Closed it.

Aliens, Loki muttered.

Ch-chick.

Marin was a civilian. That was why he pumped the SPAS-12 without needing to, sending a perfectly useful green shell to the ground unfired. But the pumping noise did draw Kuz’s eyes. Marin fired. The gun kicked him hard enough to send him staggering backwards – but the shell it sent into Kuz’s chest transferred enough kinetic energy to put Kuz back on his left foot. Marin started to chamber a new round. Kuz flung the knife at him. It buried itself up to the hilt in Marin’s chest. He staggered against the wall, his eyes very wide.

Dey sprang forward and wrapped her arm around Kuz’s neck. The Shockpod surged backwards as Loki highlighted what he thought might be a major blood vessel. For leverage, Dey jammed her fingers into the blowhole some asshole genetic engineer had left in the top of Kuz’s head. She found that the muscle there was tight enough to squeeze her fingers almost off, but it still produced a deep bellow of rage. Kuz charged forward, arching his shoulders. The Shockpod was tall enough that he could scrape her off on the doorframe. Dey shifted her grip, slipped back, looped her legs around his belly, and Kuz charged into the room and smashed into the table. She let herself fall to the ground as the weapons and components that Marin hadn’t grabbed for hit the floor.

Kuz shook his head from side to side.

Dey grabbed onto the 9mm. She rolled backwards and put fifteen rounds into Kuz before he had finished righting himself. Bright red blood dripped once, twice, then clotted.

Kuz clenched his hands, unclenched them.

“Well,” Dey whispered.

Kuz picked up the katara.

Katana.

[I’m going to die, aren’t I?] Dey whispered.

Kuz smiled as his chest wounds turned into hardened black patches. Dey wondered, for a moment, how the hell his creators had made that clotting happen fast enough without causing multiple heart attacks. Though, part of her was comforted to see that he wasn’t actually regenerating. That was something for Mumblers.

[Don’t suppose you recharged the backup batteries from kinetic energy?]

Sorry-

Kuz hefted the sword.

Dey’s ears filled with the sound of thunder.

The Shockpod staggered backwards, blood exploding from his shoulder. He dropped the sword and Dey risked a glance backwards. Marin – knife still protruding from his chest, was leaning against the wall, SPAS-12 clutched in his hands, his eyes unfocused. He used the weight of the gun to cock it one handed. Overbalanced. Fell to the side. Kuz roared and charged forward. Laying on his side, at this range, Marin didn’t need to aim. Much. The shell punched through Kuz’s other shoulder and sent the Shockpod staggering backwards. This time, the alien lay on his back and didn’t get up.

“And stay down,” Marin rasped.

Then slumped over, his breath rattling out.

Dey looked aside.

[Fuck.]

Loki squeezed her shoulders, gently.

When corporate goon woke up, Dey had dressed herself in his clothes and was sitting on a stool she had found in the sides of the chamber. The man’s wrists were tied behind his back. He blinked a few times as he looked at Dey, who was holding the 9mm by its barrel between her thighs.

“So,” she said. “I’ve had a day. In fact, I’m going to be honest, and go so far as to say it has been a bad day. And if you want to not end up like this fucker...” Her new boot shoved the massive mound of gray muscle and clotted blood that was Kuz the Shockpod. “I suggest you tell me where my fucking K9s are.”

The corporate goon blinked as he looked at the genetically engineerd supersoldier.

“So, uh, the password is 98219-Alpha-Baker-” he started.

The locker in question was clearly human – sunk into the wall in a room two doors down from the armory. The problem was it had two guards. Fortunately, those guards were drones, the same kind of combat drones that half the human race’s armed forces used when they needed to bolster a thin roster. They were spheres suspended in the middle of the room with several small arms built into them. Nothing heavy, and not smart enough to do more than what they were ordered.