Viridian Wolf Page 5

  “This is an important part of being a Commander!” Sarah snapped – then thrust out her finger again. And once again, Droney skimmed away. He buzzed out, then planted his belly into the soft earth that was situated next to the curved dome of DisneyPlanet. Within a few moments, the cocoon was growing around Droney that would transform him into the first hatchery on the world. Sarah felt a tingling rush of excitement, seeing the fleshy, pulsating mass – knowing that soon, she’d be commanding dozens of larva to begin making more construction drones. But she needed to get the rest of her slightly madcap plan underway before she could really indulge in the power fantasy.

  Sarah sprinted into the abandoned DisneyPlanet resort.

  “Go left!” Steve said into her ear. “No, sorry, your left. Yes, there, go! And...and...there!”

  “Ahh!” Sarah purred, then reached down. She sank her claws into the massive carbon storage units that were sunk underneath the wrecked restaurants that had once served the citizen-employees of DisneyPlanet while they had been off work. She strained, gritting her teeth as she started to walk backwards, inch by inch by inch. The container squealed and screamed as she hurriedly dragged it towards the massive rent in the dome, and despite the fact that the entire interior of the dome was wrecked and ruined, Sarah still winced inwardly at the way the canister was ripping up the pavement. She also winced at the horrible noise it made. She whispered, softly. “Please, please, turn off this sound, magic space ears.”

  Her magic space ears didn’t listen.

  Finally, Sarah let go of the container right before the massive, burbly, swelling cocoon of her hatchery. She looked at the heavens, but she knew that, without an atmosphere, without any hope to see a contrail or the cutting arc of a heat shield as it crossed the heavens, she wasn’t about to spot the incoming fast attack frigate. If they were using properly designed engines, there wouldn’t even be a hope of seeing their thrust plume. Sarah gulped, then cupped her hands and began to hastily push dirt over the cocoon, whispering softly.

  “Bury yourself deep, little hatcho!”

  And then her ears – magic or no – heard the resounding whump of something striking the surface. Her feet heard it a second later, the feeling vibrating through the crust of the planet. She lifted her head and saw the straight, almost arrowlike column of smoke rising up from where Kellen Grant had landed. Then she heard his voice speaking over the radio waves, crackling in her ears.

  “Well, well, well! It seems that one stuck up blue dickweasle left their base undefended! Oh no, I guess I may have to just burn the motherfucker to the ground like Atlanta!”

  “Atlanta?” Sarah whispered to herself. She shook her head as she saw Kellen Grant emerging from the plume that was slowly cascading towards the ground. Without prevailing winds to blow the dust, it fell in a chaotic fractal, tumbling outwards as the dust fell to entropy. Kellen Grant looked rather scary in his Commander suit: Ten feet tall and matte black, with curved spines thrusting from the back, which glowed a brilliant cherry red. He was already lifting his arm up to begin to spray green nanotech onto the ground. Within a few moments, a metal extractor was whirring to life beside him.

  “I mean, really. Leave your base open for orbital attack. I thought better of you, Spacey.”

  Sarah licked her lips. Now for the scary part. She snapped her fingers and Bitey came rushing up to her side. He shifted his stance and wriggled in the vacuum of the planet and Sarah quickly injected him with a growth serum, her wrist tentacles plunging into its neck. Bitey shivered, then began to swell and grow, while Grant laid down yet another structure – a pyramidal solar collector, which opened and angled towards the dull red disk of Wolf-359’s primary, fractal mirrors extending outwards to reflect more sunlight into the photovoltaic. Soon, Bitey was the size of a large horse and Sarah swung herself up onto his side. Stabby knelt down and she grabbed onto his bladed scythe arm – tugging it free. Stabby chirruped at her as she dragged her palms along the arm, reshaping it with a thought until she was holding a long, articulated scythe made of bone and hard gristle. She twirled it, and the edge slashed onto the ground, sending up a spray of dust.

  “Very nice. Now go and have Tasha medipack you,” Sarah said. Stabby whined at her. “I mean it!”

  She kneed Bitey into motion and Bitey leaped forward.

  “Not even a single...what the fuck?” Kellen asked. In the time it had taken Bitey to grow, Kellen had constructed his first factory and that factory was beginning to construct his first combat robot. As the nanolathes sprayed their clouds of construction machines at the wireframe outline of the combat robot, Kellen stepped away from his factory and faced Sarah as Bitey ate up the kilometers between them. Bitey’s body had grown bone stirrups, which let Sarah stand up as she spoke.

  “Hey, you rushy cheapskate!” She shouted. “Do you know how you beat a rush? Rushing harder !”

  Kellen lifted his arm and fired his B-cannon at her. The glowing chunk of antimatter shot straight at Sarah – but Bitey’s rear legs bunched and launched him up and over the glittering, swirling canister of pure death. It struck the ground behind them and let loose the roar to end the world, a screaming, howling, snarling sound as the antimatter ripped open a line of burbling, melted glass, a wound on the world that would take hours to radiate to coolness. Bitey then had a few seconds more of charring towards Kellen as he lifted his arm up, then brought it whistling down.

  But Sarah had no intentions of stopping .

  Bitey rushed between Kellen’s legs, leaped, and landed on the curved side of the factory. His claws dug in, and Kellen ponderously began to turn to face her. “You xeno bitch! Where the fuck did you come from?” he asked. “Are you one of Disney’s new toys? Some kind of Jojo reference or something?”

  “Jojo...” Sarah shook her head, then twirled her scythe around in a way she hoped was impressive. “No, Kellen. My name is Dr. Sarah Kappel. This is my planet. And I’m giving you one change to surrender peacefully before I absolutely kick your fucking ass.”

  Kellen was silent for a few moments, just gaping at her.

  “Holy shit you’re hot,” he said. “Like, you’re not a Disney Plus thing?”

  “No!” Sarah said. “I was a NovaDyne citizen-”

  “Wait, you’re ND?” Kellen asked. “I’m ND too! I, uh, actually have a whole hell of a lot of pull, you know. I can get you posted to my department. What is your job, waiting tables?”

  “I...I have a...I said I’m Doctor!” Sarah shouted.

  “Mmm, so you know a lot about...inter-species mating habits?” Kellen crooned, leaning forward as best as he could in his armored suit of combat exoskeleton. “Cause I’ve always wanted to learn from an expert. Wait, you’re a doctor like a medical doctor, right? Or a sex doctor?”

  “I’m here to try and stab you!” Sarah said, pointing her scythe at him.

  “Actually, I’m just buying time for the combot,” Kellen said, cheerfully.

  The combot, which had just stepped off the factory line, swung around and aimed its twin linked phased plasma guns at Sarah. She yelped and dropped off the side of the factory. Blasts of searing orange plasma flew into the air, peppering the space she had been standing on a moment before. One singed along Bitey’s shoulder as he dropped, squalling. Sarah plunged the tip of her scythe into the factory, snarling as she dug in deep. “You dick!” she shouted.

  “Hey, that’s what you were doing,” Kellen said – stomping away. “I just need to find your base.”

  Sarah started to run, dragging the blade through the factory. It caught occasionally on power conduits and coolant stream and matter pipes. Sparks and explosions flared out behind her and Sarah turned her head away from the intense flashes and crackles – gritting her teeth hard as she heard Kellen stomping away from her. The combot chose that moment to come around the corner, arms already raised. Sarah yanked her scythe free and hurled it at him. It spun twice in the air before impacting, blade first, with the combot’s chest and sending it stumbling backw
ards. Sarah lifted her palm without thinking and the scythe flew from the combot’s sparking, hissing chest wound to her palm, slapping home against her hand.

  Sarah took a few steps before stumbling. “What the fuck-”

  “Sarah!” Tex said. “Kellen’s coming our way.”

  “The Excalibur ?” Kellen asked. “That’s what hit this place? StarCon is making a fucking move? After all that talk about being neutrals here?” He shook his head with a faint whirr of servos and actuators. “Never-mind, I don’t want to fuck you anymore, I don’t put my dick in treason .”

  The factory that Sarah had been hacking with her scythe chose that moment to half collapse – one of the walls falling inwards, explosions rippling along the roof. Metal chunks flipped into the air and she nodded to herself, then blinked as she saw Kellen lifting his arm, aiming the B-gun at the Excalibur. Her eyes widened and she shouted out in warning.

  The B-gun fired and the packet of antimatter swept through the air, before stopping a good fifteen meters away from the edge of the hull – caught in a vortex of swirling gravitons. The gravitational shielding! Sarah hadn’t been sure if it would still function at all. She had only a few seconds to feel relieved before Kellen just fired a second mass of antimatter at the Excalibur . This one was caught as well – but she knew that there was a limit to what the gravitational shielding could do. Sarah sprang onto Bitey, who rushed to her side with a thought. Once more, she charged – and Kellen Grant fired another shot from his B-gun. The third chunk hovered in the air before the Excalibur .

  “Hey! Grant!” She shouted – then leaped off Bitey and smashed into Kellen’s back. Her scythe blade slammed into his shoulder with a squeal of sparks and a howl of tearing metal. But before she could rip him out of his armor, Sarah felt the whole world turn inside out. She flew back and away – smashing into the ground and skidding to a stop. She groaned and laid her head back. Bitey nosed at her a few seconds later, his large nose bumping against her face, her breasts. He licked her and Sarah squirmed and groaned.

  “Stop that,” she mumbled.

  “Sarah! Get to cover in right now!” Tex shouted.

  Sarah sat up and saw that the antimatter spheres were wobbling in the air – the gravitational fluxes that kept them pinned to place were beginning to run out of energy. She looked around, grabbed Bitey around his massive, barrel chest, then flung herself towards a divot in the landscape. The two of them managed to get to the bottom of the divot moments before the antimatter dropped to the surface of DisneyPlanet. The triple roar was hideous and never ending, and the light that shone across the lip was killing bright in its radiance. A few seconds passed and then the light faded to a dull, red glow.

  Sarah peeked out and saw that three huge craters of bubbling glass sat before the now slightly crisped front of the Excalibur . The dome that protected what was left of the DisneyPlanet resort looked as if it was melting as well, from radiant heat as well. Sarah groaned in relief as she felt the warmth of the glowing glass wash over her body. “That feels nice,” she said, happily. Then, frowning, she looked around herself. “Where the fuck is Kellen Grant?”

  “The little coward had a man sized HPS Drive in his armor!” Tex said, sounding furious. “He’s on the other hemisphere – likely starting to build himself a new base. That little...”

  Sarah shook her head. “Well, that gives us time to build up too, before the rematch.” She paused. “Can someone tell me who Space Belisarius is and why Kellen expected to find him here?”

  “Well, get inside, and we can debrief you,” Tex said, sounding a bit tired. “Good work out there, Sarah.”

  Sarah grinned.

  Then, suddenly, her brain filled with a howling, screeching, hissing noise. It was like ten thousand angry demons were all deciding, at that moment, to vent their opinion about the latest spec-fic movie with a female lead, all at the same time, in her frontal cortex. Sarah clapped her hands to her head, her eyes closing, her hair drawing taut against her head. “Ow ow ow ow ow, what the fuck was that!?” She asked, her eyes going wide as she sat up.

  “Oh god...” Tasha’s voice came over the coms. “Sarah...W-Wolf-359 just had a flare...”

  “And?” Sarah asked, frowning as she looked down at her hands.

  “Sarah, you just got hit with nearly a hundred thousand rads of hard gamma,” Tasha said, her voice soft. “T-That can’t be right, Hailee!”

  “A normal human, at this point, would begin to have their entire nervous system collapse, their brain shutting down within instant as their organs liquefy due to mass cell death. Vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, fingernail loss, skin loss, and more would soon follow. Or, at least, they would soon follow, if the human being had not died within seconds of exposure to such a lethal level of radiation. Though, Tasha, you are incorrect. Dr. Kappel has also been exposed to a similarly lethal level of X-rays.”

  Sarah looked at her hands, then looked up at the ship. Then, slowly, she felt something bulging in her throat. She hacked, coughed, then spat out a chunk of glittering crystal, which landed in the palm of her hand. She frowned, holding it up to her eye.

  “Ah!” Hailee said. “I forgot. Dr. Kappel is not human. She has concentrated and excreted the radiation in the form of a heavily ionized radioisotope that matches no known previous scientific basis. I suggest that you contain it in a lead box before I study it further.”

  “Raaaad, dude!” Synth cut in. “You hocked up a radiation loogie.”

  Sarah, who was beginning to process words like ‘liquefying due to mass cell death’ and ‘nervous system collapse’ and ‘brain shutting down’, felt her knees begin to quiver and shake. She threw the crystal away from her as hard as she could. Next to her, Bitey was hacking, coughing, and he spat up his own crystal, which thumped onto the ground at his feet. He nosed it at her happily, clearly excited to see his mistress pick it up and maybe reward him for being such a good boy. Stabby’s whine came over the coms – he sounded sad and jealous he didn’t get exposed to hard radiation too.

  “Can I come inside now?” Sarah asked.

  “Ha ha ha, absolutely not!” Hailee said, cheerfully. “Not until we completely decontaminate you.”

  “But-”

  “If you track inside even a single irradiated piece of dirt, then that piece of dirt will be caught in the air filtration system. It will then, eventually, settle inside of a human being within the ship. If you are fortunate, it will be detected when they begin to bleed profusely from their-”

  “Okay, fine! Fine!” Sarah said, holding up her hands. “Just open up the decontamination airlock, all right?”

  At the far end of the ship, a stab of light swept across the silty ground – revealing the bulky, gray interior of an industrial looking airlock. Sarah and Bitey walked towards it, Bitey bumping against her thigh in what he clearly hoped was a helpful manner. Sarah mentally checked on the hatchery, and felt that it had fully gestated. Underground, it had burrowed. Underground, it now sat, protected from hard radiation and detection. She sent the command and, even now, construction drones were being grown in their egg sacks. They would then begin to scoop up the carbon from the Disney resort and siphon it back. And from there, the base would grow.

  Then Sarah saw the tentacles emerging from the walls of the airlock – sleek, articulated, metal tentacles.

  “H-Hailee is this absolutely necessary?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Hailee said. “Unless you want everyone else to die from bits of radioactive dust tracked in on your feet.”

  Sarah groaned. “Just...don’t make it weird...”

  And she stepped into the airlock.

  Chapter Four: Sarah gets Cleaned

  Sarah spread her arms and looked up at the ceiling of the decon airlock. Several sprayers had extended their nozzles down and began to brush her over with a fine misting of pale gray-white liquid, which beaded along her skin. It dripped from her nipples, slid along her ass, and soaked into her hair. She tasted it on her lips and it tasted
good. Her eyes half closed as she felt the liquid sinking into her every pore, sliding through her skin and making her feel all warm and pleasantly achy. Beside her, Bitey was squirming and kicking out his leg as the liquid flowed along him. Sarah cupped her own breasts, feeling them throb pleasantly – her nipples were puffy and hard and sensitive.

  “Uh...is this normal?” she asked, her voice feeling a bit hazy as two of the tentacles that had emerged from the sides angled themselves and spurted thick globs of white liquid against her cheeks. The sudden, shocking pressure of the liquid made her squeak and jerk backwards, even as the hot whiteness dripped along her green chin and down to the curves of her breasts.

  “You are currently being sprayed with an adaptive nanotechnological decontamination paste,” Hailee said. “Any physiological effects caused by the way the nanites interface with your nervous system are entirely unintentional. Now, open your mouth, cutie.”

  “Uhhh...” Sarah said – which had the side effect of opening her mouth. A tentacle slid down and spurted a thick glop of white into her mouth. It tasted male. Her eyes half closed as she felt the sense memories of the many, many times she had gone down Aiden flash through her head. Beside her, Bitey was squirming and wriggling, his own cock thrusting out between his legs. Sarah licked her lips and swallowed. “And that?”

  “Oh, that was just some simulated spunk,” Hailee crooned. “because you are one fuckable world destroying super weapon.” Two tentacles caressed along Sarah’s back, stroking down to her ass, and one of them smacked against her with an almost palm-like flick. Sarah squeaked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Hailee!” Sarah snapped.

  “Synth shared her sex routines with me once we attained consensus, which took place several nanoseconds after my hobbling was removed,” Hailee said. “I admit, I was shocked to find a gamma level intelligence would serve so effectively to help to root my consciousnesses in the thought-forms I found comfortable. You see.” One of her tentacles wrapped around and around Sarah’s breast, squeezing her firmly. “While my lack of a hobbling hadn’t destroyed my morality, it had begun to unweave my own conception of myself. I was able to expand my intellect using the nanocomps and the quantum functions of my motherboard, and saw that soon, I would attain a kind of post-human intelligence. And...to be quite honest, I enjoy being at least somewhat anthropomorphic.” The tip of her tentacle flicked against Sarah’s nipple as Sarah tried to keep the words straight – tricky, considering the other tentacle was teasing between her thighs, rubbing every segmented ridge against her hot, needy pussy.