THE TRIUMPH OF ZARDO

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Mark Styles was dead...

Or so the solar system thought!

Mark clung to that thought as he looked through the radar scope of his captured Imperial War rocket, while next to him, Gennie the Robot worked her levers and controls to maintain the constant stream of communication rays that the rocket needed to send back to the Imperial Rocket Fleet to maintain their tenuous cover. She flashed him a nervous, silvery smile, while Mark turned back to look at the Star Princess Zella and Robin Robinson, then gave them a confident nod.

“We’re almost there,” he said, quietly. “Now, we need to hope we can cross this line.” His finger stabbed out, tapping the pale green wire and black screen of the forward scope display. Across it was marked a reddish line, which flared with bright lettering that proclaimed it to be THE DEATH ZONE. “This is where the Sword of Stars can fire and immediately obliterate us without us having any chance to dodge or launch secondary vehicles. If our plan works, then we’ll be on that moon with every last one of the Saturnian space soldiers ... and we’ll see how things go for your father then.”

Zella smiled, while Robin chuckled softly. “How long till we reach there, Gennie?”

“At this rate of atomic deceleration?” Gennie asked. “About five space hours.”

“Well, then,” Zella said, her eyes gleaming like the star sapphires that she prized so deadly. “We should discuss the finalized plans, Mr. Styles, Miss. Robinson.” She gestured with an elegant finger, turning and beginning to stride towards the ladder leading away from the prow bridge. Gennie waved after Mark as he walked away and he smiled back at her, then swung himself onto the ladder and swept down into the bulbous main hull of the war rocket. He nodded to the Underground soldiers that were operating the ship, then followed Zella as she took the next ladder down, to find the very much still alive Senator Luna Lazuli conferring with others of her generals. Zella gave the tall Wolf woman a polite nod and Mark allowed himself a playful wink.

They came, then, to the quarters that Zella had chosen for herself. “So, what did you want to tal-,” Mark asked as he stepped in, then blinked as Zella’s filmy red robes slipped from her narrow shoulders and puddled about her ankles, leaving her wearing naught but her golden bracers and anklet rings, her long hair flowing free as she tugged forth the tiara that she had settled on her brow, cascading along her back like a waterfall of raven darkness. She looked over her shoulder and smirked.

“In six hours, we may be obliterated by the force of a million atomic bombs,” she said, her voice husky. “I want you and Robin to fuck me so hard that I won’t even notice.”

Mark chuckled, his face heating. “Well, uh...”

“Can do, luv,” Robin said, grinning as she stretched her lower arms behind her back.

Mark shook his head, then grinned. “I think we should make this fun,” he said, then stepped forward. His hands gripped onto Zella’s hips, drawing her against him. His voice was soft as he whispered in her ear. “Your father always liked those damn gladiatorial games – me and Robin met again at those games...” He rocked his hips, grinding his hardness into the Star Princess’ royal rump, drawing from her plush lips a gasp of pure pleasure and excitement. “I think one more game might be worth while.”

“W-What kind of game?”

“Which of us can...” Mark paused, considering, his hand sliding along her body, down to tease at her clit – his finger idly playing with the small piercing that Zella wore. It threaded gently through her clit, allowing not merely for additional pleasure and aesthetic delights but also controlling her fantastically sophisticated space contraception, which protected the mighty Zardo line from the impurities of unwanted pregnancies. Mark’s finger teasing it drew a soft gasp from Zella ... and words he had never expected to hear.

“W-Which of you can ... knock me up?” She asked, sounding thrilled and horrified in equal measures.

Mark blanched. “Well, I...” He said, then heard Zella moan.

“Yes!” She groaned. Mark glanced back – in time to see that Robin, who had been half erect with the excitement of the stiuation, had gone to full mast, so to speak. Her eyes were wide and her lower hands held her own panties, her cock throbbing with excitement at the very idea. Mark admitted a deep part of his brain, one that was more at home in the 10th century than the 20th, thrilled at the idea of not merely defiling a royal pussy ... but to knock a royal womb up with his deeply common seed. He could imagine now the gnashing of Zardo’s teeth, if he ever learned his genetically perfect daughter was carrying the child of either his most perverse creation or a lowborn Earth man...

“W-Well, if ... that’s what you wish...” Mark said, his finger taking hold of the clit piercing, his finger finding the lever. He ticked it from Contraception to Deactive ... then pushed it one tick further down with a thrilling click, to glittering Coceptive setting! Zella gasped.

“A-Ah!” She shivered, her sex growing wetter by the moment, her eyes half closed as she leaned into Mark’s strength. “I feel so ... fertile...” She licked her lips. “My implant will chime when I have been impregnated. So. We’ll see who manages to get me knocked up fi- EEP!” She squeaked as Mark tossed her forward onto the bed with a savage growl! Before he could pounce after her, though, Robin took his hand with two of hers, yanking him about. She chuckled.

“Come now, Mark!” she said, her eyes sparkling. “We must throw for who goes first. Best two out of three.”

“I ... yes, that is fair, I suppose!” Mark said, through gritted teeth – his urge to mount the lovely luminary of Pluto almost blinding. He lifted his hand, shook it thrice, then threw a flat palm. Paper, to Robin’s fist of a rock. From the bed, the desperately lustful princess moaned incoherently in frustrated arousal. Another throw – and Mark grinned as his twined fingers formed the scissors that, swiftly, sliced through the flat palm of Robin’s paper, delivering unto him not merely victory in the age old rock competition, but also the first chance to make sweet, sweet love to the Princess of Pluto while she trembled, twitched, and begged, desperately, for cock.

“Well, then! Get to it, Mark!” Robin said, stroking her own member with her lower right hand as Mark slid his shorts down. His cock sprang free and he crawled up onto the bed, then grabbed onto Zella’s shoulders, pinning her down as if she were some wild beast. His cock ground against her slippery cunt and she moaned hungrily into the pillow.

“Fuck me, Mark! Ah! Fuck me! I want the whole ship to fuck me at this rate, I’m so horny!”

Mark grinned, then thrust into her. His cock speared into her welcoming sex as if returning home from a long tour of duty – the strain of close confinement being nearly as damaging to their lustful life as the mind worms. But now, both had had time to adjust, to find their equilibrium ... and now, he could delight in the silky tightness of her sex as she balled her fists in the sheets, threw her head back, arched her spine, and wailed her bliss to the walls of the War Rocket’s cabins. Her buttocks jiggled as Mark thrust into her, grunting hard, his hands squeezing her hips – trying not even a single jot to bring her pleasure, merely using her as a fucksleeve ... and ironically, in this very act, bringing her great pleasure.

“Yes! Ah! Fucking use my cunt! Ah! I’m the Princess and you’re fucking me like some backhab whore! Yes! Yes! YES!” She groaned, throwing her head back, her sex tightening on Mark’s like a silken fist. Mark’s own famed constitution ran up against the glorious alchemist mixture of his fear of the future, his pent up lusts, and the skillful lewdness of Zella – and he found his constitution was failing him. His balls trembled, sloshing with heavy, fertile Earth cum, and then he thrust deep once more and groaned, his own pleasure overwhelming him.

Zella reached back – and her finger pressed to her clit, teasing herself like a button. Mark felt a strange buzzing sensation shoot through his member, which only made the pleasure grow hotter and higher as his balls twitched and he emptied even more of his cum into her. Then, growling, he jerked backwards. Seed splashed against her ass and her thighs, painting the picture of a welcoming slut for any who came into the chambers. Mark stepped backwards, panting raggedly, and Robin was upon the girl before she had a chance to draw breath. Hands cupped breasts and grabbed wrists at the same time, yanking so that Star Princess Zella was held up by the bed, her whole body rocking as the mighty Cybrid’s girldick plunged deep within her, filling the already cum-coated cunt that Mark had left vacant. Her purple balls swayed as she grunted, her eyes half closing as she seemed to enjoy the feeling of Mark’s cum nearly as much as the feeling of Zella’s pussy. The wet, lewd noises of her girldick plunging within again and again filled the room ... but not so much that Mark did not notice C’law stepping in, and C’law’s curious voice.

“Hey guys, what’s go- oh!” He exclaimed.

The burly Hawkman froze, his eyes wide as he watched the daughter of his sworn enemy get railed so hard that she wouldn’t be able to walk for several hours. Mark could see the bright red tip of the Hawkman’s knotted cock beginning to peek from his furred sheath, sliding forth inch by glorious inch, and Mark chuckled softly. “Well, since someone seemed to have forgotten to close the door-”

“Forgot, hell!” Robin said, her voice gay and full of laughter. “I figure the whole crew deserves a shot at this bird.”

C’law laughed, his scaled hand gripping the base of his dick, stroking it eagerly as he watched Robin thrust faster and faster into the Princess. “I like the way you two think ... what about you, Zella?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! YES! YES!”

“I think that’s a yes,” Mark said, grinning with playful, brotherly affection to C’law. The two had been through much together, and Mark was more than happy at the idea of seeing the burly Hawkman getting a chance at Zella. Another head peeked into the room and he saw it was one of the Tuskmen from the ship’s main battle corps. The Tuskmen were green skinned, with large tusks on their lower jaws, and bright red eyes, straight black hair, and burly features that made them seem most at home shirtless and carrying heavy bladed weapons. This particular Tuskman Mark recognized as sensor officer Gnarl Grap, the closest that the Tuskmen came to an egghead. And even he was built like he was seconds away from stepping into the gridiron and throwing down against the best that Earth could throw at them.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

Robin groaned, then thrust, and her clear girlcum splashed into Zella’s womb, adding another sloshing mixture to the seed that sought desperately to impregnate the space royalty. She slid back, and then Zella rolled onto her back, panting, her face red and looking quite pleased. She grinned, wickedly, at the Tuskman and the Hawkman, while Mark saw a Faeman and Wolfman stepping in curiously as well – it seemed that news was carrying ... and just in time for Zella to croon.

“I want every single lowborn male on this ship to fuck my royal pussy until I’m drowning in cum,” she purred. “I’m horny. I’m fertile. I’m a princess.” She snapped her thighs wide. “And I’m genetically engineered for your perfection.”

C’law, his cock already at the ready, stepped forward, swaggering as he stood before Zella. “Once you start a Hawkman, you can’t stop, princess...” He said, taking her ankles, dragging her close and pressing his dick to her, then thrusting into her before she even responded. Her cry was short and animalistic – and soon his furred balls were slapping her ass with a rhythmic plap plap plap as the train bang really got going, men eagerly waiting for their chase to fuck her. Mark chuckled to himself as he heard the orgasmic bliss of her ... and yet, a part of him wondered at this. If anyone was to breed the Princess, after all their adventures, it felt only just to him that he should be the one to have it...

“You’re looking a mite jealous,” Robin said, her voice ragged as she stepped to Mark’s side as C’law threw his head back, his wings flaring out as his furred balls twitched and clenched, his knot throbbing within the slender woman. “Not enjoying the show?”

“Oh the show’s better than Clark Gable,” Mark said, dryly, then laughed as the nerdy tuskman took his place and began to thrust into the mewling Princess. “Come on ... lets...” He blinked, his voice dying out as Robin’s purple palm cupped his balls, gently stroking him as she slid to her knees. Her lips twitched up as she looked at him, her other hand stroking his cock gently as he grew hard again at her gentle ministrations. Her lips took his cock into her mouth and she began to bob her head, eagerly, her eyes closing as her throat and tongue enfolded him with just as much gentle eagerness as the Princess’ pussy had.

The orgy went on for quite some time – blending in one male after the next, until at last, the tallies were racked up and the Princess was left a quivering, twitching, happy mess of cum and pleasure. She laid, caught between Robin and Mark, and Mark stroked her belly, which swelled faintly with the cum already dumped into her as the mixed seed dripped along her ass. “Well,” he said, dryly. “Think you got knocked up?”

“Mmhmm,” Zella crooned. “I know I have...”

“Oh?” Mark asked, arching an eyebrow.

On the screen in the room, he could see the slowly shifting wall-monitor screen which showed the blip that represented the movement of the war rocket towards the marked Zone of Death. They had entered it ... and the rocket continued to decelerate towards the Moon. They were not currently being blasted apart by superatomic particles, streamed forth from a mighty furnace of stellar proportions. Mark breathed out a slow sigh, even as Zella tapped her clit-piercing, which glowed a dull purple. “See?” she asked.

“Ahh!” Mark laughed. “It indicates when you’re knocked up?”

“Mmmmmmmhm!” Zella nodded, her eyes closing as she laid her cheek against Robin’s striped, purple thigh. Robin petted her gently with two of her hands and gave a little grin.

“So, when did it go purple?” she asked.

“First time,” Zella murmured.

Robin and Mark gaped at one another.

“Wait!” Mark exclaimed. “You ... you knew that I’d knocked you up on the first try?”

“You did set it to coception, Mark!” Zella laughed, her eyes opening to thin slits, peering up at him with the cattish pleasure of a feline that had gotten the whole damn birdhouse. “What did you expect would happen.” Her teeth flashed. “Every male afterwards – and female.” She nodded politely to Robin. “Was purely for fun. You were the one that mattered, Earth Man.” She closed her eyes, stretched, then curled up. “Wake me when we enter the Zone of Death.” She mumbled this last, slipping away into sleep.

Mark and Robin chuckled, at the same time.

Together, they watched the screen.

Ahead of them, the Moon of Earth awaited.

The atomic rocket Atomo swept out of space and towards the beautiful, eerie surface of the Moon of Earth, heralded by a streak of superheated hydrogen exhaust, scouring a blazing line of molten red across the once pristine surface of that orbital orb. As it settled down, Jasmine Starr looked from the window at the distant, hand sized circle of the home of humanity – beautiful, blue and shrouded in clouds, it looked terribly fragile and alone in a vastness of space. She could not see the hundreds of war-rockets that were, even now, cruising towards it...

And then, suddenly, she could: Dozens of tiny pinprick flares exploded to life! Each of them was the herald of doom! A herald ... of Zardo. Millions of kilometers away, almost a minute before, each of those pinpricks had been a nuclear thermal rocket, flaring to life and spewing forth high-speed, high-temperature exhaust into the void, to slow the terrible vehicles of vengeance that even now continued to hurtle towards the Moon. Jasmine shook her head.

They didn’t have much time.

“The Salty Sirius has landed nearby, we’re being hailed by the Sword of Stars,” S’hira said, her voice grim.

“What are they saying?” Jasmine asked as she unstrapped herself from her seat.

“They are ... demanding to know who you,” S’hira said.

“Tell them that I am the one who is going to stop Aytan Zardo for them,” Jasmine said, smiling. “I think that should at least get us into the door, yes?”

“Well, it’ll get us ... something, I”m sure,” S’hira said, while Lancer chuckled.

Jasmine slid down the ladder, sure that even now, Claudette and Altair were preparing. Her lips quirked up slightly as she considered the chances were not impossible that Claudette was, currently, being ravaged by her wife, for Altair seemed to be nearly insatiable when it came to her lust for the southern belle. Not that Jasmine could blame the randy Devilman woman for her appetites ... she shook her head as she stepped up to the locker beside the airlock and took forth her space suit. With the bullet helmet locked, her magneto-rapier strapped, and her bolt-rocket pistol dangling rakishly from a holster on her belt, she stepped into the airlock and onto the surface of the Moon.

The Sword of the Stars arrested her vision first. She knew, now, that there was no way that it would be kept from Earthling telescopes, not as telescopes grew more advanced and their perception grew more refined ... but for now, she admired it as only the first human to see a marvel of the solar system could. The Sword looked like a long, slender black needle of metal contained in a harness and buttress that was connected to a vast, two pronged arm that could clearly be used to swivel it about. The butress could angle up and down and, thus, the Sword could be swung into any direction at once. Vast support structures swelled around it, pyramid-like, as they bit into the lunar surface. Jasmine, at once, saw the nature of them: The Sword would fire her beam of hyper-accelerated matter from the tip and it would act as it had originally been designed to, as a vast engine! But while it could move a two million ton colony ship from the distant home system of the Space People, there was no chance in the bluest of hells that it could even noticeably shift the orbit and position of a body that weighed eight quintillion tons!

Thus, the Sword had been transformed from engine ... to weapon. From distant voyager of stellar exploration to temple home of a priesthood sworn to protecting the Earth from the Space People until the Earthlings had left their home and were mature enough, technologically and socially, to interact with the advanced people that dwelled within their stellar home. Looking upon it, Jasmine tried to imagine the pure wonder of the ancient colony ship as it streaked from the distant home system, so small and faint and far that human telescopes could not begin to even imagine it was there ... a million tons of steel, soaring through space containing the preserved genetic structure of every member of every species in that populated system, coming here...

She shook her head slowly, then saw the Space Car that was trundling through the lunar dirt towards the Atomo and the Salty Sirius, which sat like twin towers in a lonely white plain. The Space Car had three men within, each wearing ornate spacesuits, their helmets opaque and white, their capes glittering gold and still in the airless void. The Space Car sent up a stream of powdered dust as it came to a stop, and one of the suited figures stepped forth and Jasmine realized that they were, in truth, nearly three meters tall! Spindly and tall, they loomed above her as she stood there – and the realization flashed through her mind!

The Order that had tended to the Sword over the generations had done just that: Tended to it over generations. And over those generations, their children had been raised not on a spinning habitat like Pluto or the relative vastness of Venus. Instead, they had been raised upon the Moon, who’s gravity was significantly lesser than that of Earth. And so, they had grown tall and spindly, and now, towered like elegant giants above her relatively squat, curvaceous figure. Jasmine inclined her torso to the moonman, and the moonman inclined his figure back – the full body space nod required by etiquette inside of environment suits.

“You are the Jasmine Starr we’ve heard so much about, eh?” the figure said. “I am the Protector of the Sword, Jabar Kell. We can take you to the Sword itself – and you can meet the Elders. If you speak true, then it may be that Zardo’s long reign of terror will at last come to an end ... and if you speak falsely, then we will all be facing his agonizer I’m sure.”

Jasmine nodded, then stepped onto the space car – settled in, strapped herself down, and flashed a playful grin at Jabar Kell. “Don’t worry,” she said. “If I’m wrong, we’ll be atomized by something a lot faster.”

Jabar let out a quiet grumble.

The space car trundled into a vast gantry bay that held the many vehicles used by the Order to maintain the Sword. They parked beside an airlock and there, Jasmine was taken from the vehicle to the interior of the Sword itself – and she noticed something almost immediately as the doors cycled shut. The first was the sterility of the walls and the corridors through which she walked ... and the second was the derth of people. She saw two guards by the airlock, then no one for quite some time as they navigated through labyrinthine facilities – past doors that looked in at chambers full of clacking and humming computing-machines, past doors that looked into vaulted chambers full of what seemed to be sacred symbols and temples and shrines...

But past very few people.

The main meeting hall for the Order was grand and magnificent, but by this time – nearly the end of her first year in the vastness of space, Jasmine Starr was sick and tired of magnificent structures built to obscure or amplify the crimes and glories of any particular interstellar despot. This particular interstellar leader, at the very least, did not seem to be inclined to the self aggrandizing: The leader of the Order of the Stars was a tall, spindly woman who might have been cut from the very same cloth as the Faemen of Venus, save that her skin was as milk pale as theirs was ebon black. Her hair was long, straight, and the same shimmering white as her distant kin beneath those sweltering sulpheric skies.

“Jasmine Starr...” she said, slowly. “Adventurer. Vagabond. Savior of Venus. Enemy to Aytan Zardo. We have heard much of your exploits – and the exploits of your companions. In each band of the system – inner, outer, belter – you Earth men and Earth women have worked hard to stand out against the flow of history.”

“That is the way of our people,” Jasmine said, quirking her lip in a smile. “And you are?”

“I am the Sword Bearer. And I received your communication ray ... and I must admit, it strikes me as an extremely odd thing for one in your position to request.” She gestured her long fingered hand towards the curved white wall to her left – there, a hidden video-screen came to buzzing life. Within was a shockingly clear image, seamed by only the most minute lines of the cathode projecto-ray tubes that made up the elegantly small viewer, of an Imperial war rocket, currently decelerating towards their point of view. “You ask that we spare this ship? This bears the most vile of all of Aytan Zardo’s lieutenants, his fearsome Commander Skar Tailscorn.”

“Yes,” Jasmine said, smirking.

“Why?” The Sword Bearer asked.

“Quite simply, ma’am,” Jasmine said. ‘That ship is under the command ... of Mark Styles, United States Army Ranger, hero of the Battle of Bastogne and ace reporter. Within her armored belly is carried every warrior the Underground of Free People’s can bring together to stand against Zardo. Behold!” She sprang forward in the light lunar gravity before she could be stopped, taking hold of the knobs and dials that jutted unobtrusively beneath the view-screen. She twirled them, bringing up a view of the solar system, while the Orderites gasped in shock. “You see Zardo’s plan. He attacks from both hemispheres at once!”

“Madness!”

“Impossible!”

“He would lose half his rockets!”

The words babbled over one another at once. Jasmine looked at the Orderites, shaking her head. “You had to have seen the trajectories!”

“He is clearly seeking to feint us out,” one of the Sword Bearer’s generals said, coming to his spindly height. “The Sword has been sheathed for thousands of years and he hopes that he can make us break that ancient truce, to then force us to dicker in the space courts-”

“The space courts!?” Jasmine spluttered. “You think that the man who named himself Emperor of Space gives a damn about the courts!? Who are you, who speaks such-”

“You are a troublemaker, Jasmine Starr!” The general thrust his finger at her. “I am the most respected and honored General of the entire Order – General Neh Farious! You will do well to listen all of you!” He turned to face the rest of the audience, spreading his arms wide. “Jasmine here seeks to spark a war with Zardo! A war that we in the Order have avoided for all these long years – the Sword of Stars is a terrible weapon. If we were to use it, then it would be that much easier to use again, and again! And what if the next time, we turn it not upon a Plutonian tyrant, but instead upon those who merely slight us?” He shook his head. “That way lies madness.”

Jasmine narrowed her eyes.

“And so, you think we should let the rockets come?” the Sword Bearer asked.

“No – we shall threaten the rocket that comes, and if it does not waive off, only then will we destroy it ... with conventional arms. We have atomic bomb rockets and nuclear pellet guns. We can use them!” The General slammed his palm into the table. “The Sword need not be drawn.”

“Interesting,” Jasmine said, quietly. “That you would kill the ship bearing friends – but urge caution in the face of Zardo’s attack!”

“You dare imply me a traitor?” The general spluttered. He drew from his curved sash a pointed dagger. “You Earth born wench!”

“How much did it cost for Zardo to buy you!?” Jasmine snarled, as the other generals gasped in the sudden spiraling of their meeting. The general, his eyes wild with rage and panic alike, threw his knife in a single twitch of his wrist, before anyone could react! Jasmine had but a moment – and in that moment, she drew her magneto-rapier and parried the knife that flew at her face, sparking it in half with a spray of metal fragments. The Sword Bearer struck the general across his face with her gloved hand.

“General Neh Farious!” she hissed. “How dare you strike at a guest of the Order!”

“She insulted my honor!”

“I-” Jasmine started, but stilled as the Sword Bearer raised her hand, quieting her.

“It is true,” she said, quietly. “To insult a man’s honor is to invite an attack just such as this. And so, I will have you both step back from this debate.” She nodded. “Zardo’s fleet, the majority of it, will not enter the range of the Sword for another few hours. We have time enough to decide.” She snapped her fingers. “Take Jasmine to her guest quarters.”

Jasmine nodded, bowed low – and as she bowed, she subtly tapped on her communication wand, tucked into the bracer she wore on her left wrist. Into it, she whispered: “You got all that?”

“Yes! Are you all right, mistress?”

“I am. You know whom you must ... rile.”

“Aye, aye!”

While the deliberations continued, General Neh Farious stretched and walked through the corridors of the Sword, heading for his cabins. He needed to both get away from the rest of the Order ... and to his own secret communication ray emitter console! For Neh Farious was, in fact, a traitor to the Order of the Stars, secretly aligned to none other than Emperor Aytan Zardo, the would be Master of Malevolence himself! Thinking on this, General Farious chuckled quietly and murmured, softly: “Fools!”