Alpha Colony (An AB/DL Space Opera) - Chapter 4, updated September 5th

[PeculiarChangeling]

An experiment with genres. If you liked The Fifth Column, an older story of mine, I'm really hoping to incorporate some of those styles and concepts but flesh the world out better and incorporate the kink and the plot more smoothly. The planned story is a mix of some new ideas, a lot of things I've learned about writing in the past couple years, and some very, *very* old ideas of mine that I've never been able to execute in a way I'm satisfied with until now. 

This project isn't planned to be a focus, and updates will be less regular than The Product Tester, but if you enjoy it and want me to put more focus into Alpha Colony, please let me know. Also, if you enjoy my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I can put more time into working on my AB/DL fiction! https://www.patreon.com/PeculiarChangeling


Chapter One

Lucas stared into his drink, watching the blue liquid swirl. It’d been a long day, and what he really wanted was to relax and unwind. 

The pulse-pounding music of the Fifth Rock Nightclub wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d told his friends as much, but they’d been insistent. It was loud, raucous, and he could barely hear himself think let alone the chatter of his buddies at the bar, but maybe they had a point. If he couldn’t think, he couldn’t brood. 

He almost didn’t notice that someone was tapping on his arm until the tap turned into an insistent nudge. Looking up from his drink, he took in the stranger sitting next to him. 

The girl next to him had an appearance that seemed full of contradictions. In one sense, she was the picture of prettiness. Her face was soft, her blonde hair was long and well maintained. Even her hands felt smooth and manicured to the touch. 

Ignoring those aspects, though, she could have been mistaken for one of the colony’s many Class-D workers. Her arms were strong and thick. The shapeliness of her legs, visible beneath tight fabric pants, showed even more lean muscle, leading up to… 

He frowned at the bulge he saw, admiring the thickness of this woman’s butt. It was only when she nudged him again that he realized he’d been blatantly staring at her ass. 

“What?” he shouted, trying to hear over the sound of the music. 

She opened her mouth, gesturing wildly, then shut it and rolled her eyes. Before he could try and shout another unheard question, she retrieved a clear, rectangular communicator and raised it up, wiggling it for emphasis and pointing back at Lucas. 

Frowning, he reached in his pocket for his own communicator. Without another word, the girl reached over, tapped a few times on the screen to bring up the settings menu, and edited the compatibility mode. 

In an instant, the sound of the bar was lowered to a background thrum as Lucas’s earpiece filtered it out. He frowned, uncertain what the point was, until the girl spoke again. 

“Can you hear me?” Her voice was a little hesitant, but came through clearly. He nodded, and she rolled her eyes again. “I can hear you, too. Just talk normally, your earpiece will pick it up.” 

“I didn’t know they could do that,” he said, tentatively. She seemed to follow along, nodding with what he said. 

“A lot of people don’t. Your communicator’s pretty versatile, you just have to know how to use it.” She tapped on her own device, and pointed at the bartender, who was in the middle of checking a screen. “A lot easier than trying to call him over and make your order in person.” 

“Right.” Lucas looked at his communicator for a moment, then back at the girl. “Uh, so…” 

“Sorry, I’m bad at this,” she said, sticking out her hand. “I’m Sara.” 

“Lucas,” he said, accepting the greeting. At a loss for how else to start the conversation, he added, “Come here ofte-?” 

“Do you want to have sex?” she interrupted, blushing part way through. “Uh, sorry, I uninterrupted you. What were you asking?”  

“Uh… Em- That is...” Lucas stammered, completely at a loss for how to respond. “I was asking if you came here… What did you just ask?” 

“I know, I shouldn’t interrupt people like that,” Sara said, nodding. “I stop by occasionally. I’m not usually one for clubs, though.” 

“No, I mean-” Lucas stared at her, the flashing lights of the club playing over her well-tuned body. “Did you ask if I wanted to have sex?” 

“Well, yeah.” Sarah tilted her head a bit, staring back at him. “Do you not? I noticed you looking at the women who were dancing, and I assumed you were-” 

“No!” Lucas started, before shaking his head. “I mean, yes! I do, but- you don’t even know who I am.” 

Sara seemed even more puzzled. “Does that matter? You look appealing and you’re not coupled with anyone else as far as I can tell.” 

“I… huh.” Lucas raised his communicator, looking for a distraction. “How do you order a drink on here?” 

“I’ll get it for you.” Sara raised her own device. “What do you want?” 

“Another ‘Blue Moon’,” Lucas said, raising his glass. “It’s the house cocktail.” 

“There you go.” She punched in the order and pocketed her communicator, beaming at him. “So, is that a yes? Once you’ve finished your drink, that is.” 

“Uh…” Lucas considered his options. She didn’t seem to be drunk or not in control. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, and it had been a while. “Yeah. Yes. I’d like that.” 

“Great!” She grinned at him, legs kicking a little over the edge of her barstool. 

A thought struck Lucas, and he asked, “How old are you?” 

That caught Sara off guard, and she had to think for a moment before she answered. “Chronologically? Or how old is my subjective consciousness?” 

She came here on a ship, then. “Your consciousness, I guess.” 

She nodded, putting it together. “Nineteen.” 

That made a few things click in his head. They didn’t let kids come in on colony ships, but they did let pregnant people board. This ‘Sara’ must have spent half her life on travelling in a small, isolated ship community, and the other half living in a growing colony. No wonder her social skills were a bit… uncalibrated. 

The bartender dropped off two drinks, another glimmering blue cocktail for him, and something pale and opaque for her. 

“So, what do you do?” he asked, sipping at the new cocktail. 

Sara looked at him, then past him towards the door. “I don’t want to…” her gaze hardened, and she shook her head. When she spoke again, her tone, even her accent was completely different. “Excuse me a moment.” 

“Huh?” 

Lucas watched her get up out of her stool and make a beeline for the front entrance. Shifting his gaze, he spotted what she was heading towards. 

Four security guards were talking to the bouncer, decked out in thick plates of stormtrooper armor and lugging stun batons as big as Lucas’s head. The bouncer, in turn, was pointing towards the seat right next to Lucas. 

Right where Sara had been sitting.

His eyes darted through the crowd, trying to spot her. Why are security guards looking for her? 

More importantly, Where did she go? 

A voice crackled in his earpiece. 

“They weren’t supposed to find us here. What the hell? I know. They must have tracked our communicator. They couldn’t have tracked it! It’s completely off the grid, it’s not even connected to the net, unless- You just put it together, didn’t you? Fuck, you’re right.”

It was all dreadfully confusing to hear. It was all Sara’s voice, but every sentence or two it changed, the pitch tone fluctuating back and forth.

He still couldn’t spot her in the crowd, though. Whatever she was doing, she was keeping her head down, and-

There was a crashing sound, loud enough that he heard it even over the music and the muffling from his earpiece. Snapping his vision back to the entrance, Lucas saw only three guards standing, helmets looking back and forth in alarm. 

Through the crowd, details were impossible to make out. Someone was taking on the guards, and their heavy stun batons were tearing through the air but, by the sound of it, hitting nothing. In his earpiece, Lucas could hear heavy breathing, but Sara had stopped arguing with herself while she focused on the task at hand. 

Another guard went down, apparently dragged by the legs and toppled. He didn’t get back up. A moment later, one of the stun batons was turned against its owner, crackling energy bringing the next armored figure low. 

The last guard didn’t stick around. Shouting into his own earpiece, he turned to flee out the door. Nobody pursued. 

The music hadn’t stopped. A few people were staring at the commotion, but some hadn’t even noticed. 

Lucas could only stare in confusion, trying to puzzle together what he’d even witnessed. Four guards had been neutralized by… what? Sara? Surely a girl like her, even as fit as she seemed to be, couldn’t take on four armed guards and win. 

Before he could puzzle it out, Sara was behind him. “Hey.” 

He almost fell out of his seat. “What the fu-” 

She caught him, steadying Lucas before he could tumble. “I had to take care of something.” 

“Did you just fight those guards?” he asked, turning to stare at her. “What was that? How-” 

Sara cut him off, leaning forward to plant her lips on his. 

The kiss short-circuited Lucas’s brain, skipping his complaints. She grabbed one of his hands and moved it to her breast, and any uncertainty that was still kicking around at the back of his head vanished. 

He slid off the stool, and Sarah pulled her body close to his, deepening the kiss. She wasn’t holding back at all, unconcerned with anyone who might be watching. Lucas was vaguely aware that his friends had caught on and were eyeing the display, but he didn’t much care either.

Reaching back, he put a hand on her ass, squeezing and-

Crinkle. 

He frowned, a little confused, but Sara didn’t pull back from the kiss. 

Maybe it’s some kind of armor? Like, a mesh, that- 

Exploring around with his fingers, Lucas quickly put that idea out of his mind. He could feel the fabric of her pants slide over whatever it was that was crinkling. Beneath the pants, there was something thick, soft, and as he worked his hand a little lower, he felt it squelch. 

Sara didn’t seem to care, pulling herself closer into his body. As far as she cared, he was just grabbing her ass to pull her in tighter. 

Had he been sober, had a gorgeous woman not been slobbering into his mouth and aching to drag him to bed, he might have cared more. As it was, he decided that it wasn’t his problem. 

Then, in the middle of the kiss, Sara suddenly tensed. 

Lucas didn’t know why, until he felt the back of her pants begin to expand, subtly swelling beneath his hand. He had a suspicion of what was happening, that was confirmed when the smell reached his nose, even over the aromas of alcohol and sweaty bodies that the nightclub was generally filled with. 

Sara pulled away, suddenly, shaking her head. “No. But I- NO. Fucking hell, no! This is where I draw the line!” 

Lucas stared at her in confusion. “Are you alright?” 

Speaking softly again, Sara tried to move in for another kiss, then pulled away once more. “No.” 

Without explanation, she turned, running towards the exterior deck. Baffled, Lucas ran after her, but despite the fact that she was running with a heavy load between her legs, she still managed to weave through the crowd far more gracefully than he could manage, and she got outside well before him. 

Shoving through the door, Lucas looked around at the crowd, trying to spot her. It wasn’t a large space, and in the chill night air, it wasn’t half so crowded as the dance floor inside. 

Sara was nowhere to be seen. 

“Huh?” he said aloud, walking towards the railing. The balcony was fifty feet up, built on an outcropping that overlooked the rest of the colony bubble. Jumping down would be impossible, and the only door in and out was the one she’d gone through. 

She was just gone, with only a slightly stinky puff of air to tell that she’d ever been there. 

 

[BoTox]

Interesting. I have a suspicion but I'll keep it to myself until more is revealed.

[PeculiarChangeling]

4 hours ago, BoTox said:

Interesting. I have a suspicion but I'll keep it to myself until more is revealed.

I want to hear your suspicion! I love to hear what theories people come up with - it lets me know if I'm foreshadowing correctly. :)

[BoTox]

:Perhaps she is one or more of these:

• from the future and/or has multiple consciousnesses in her head. One that doesn't want her to have sex and picked a stinky way of killing the buzz. There is also a personality that is the future equivalent of Chuck Norris
• grew in cryosleep and while her body developed, her mind did not. She is a 13 year old mind in a 19 year old body.
• is being remote controlled by an AI that wants to learn about human emotions and experiences.
• the most obvious answer but no fun at all - Off her meds and escaped the asylum.

Those are the things that came to mind. I'm sure it will take an interesting turn if I'm right or wrong.

[Kingdark]

Seems very interesting so far. Looking forward for more.

[PeculiarChangeling]

Chapter Two

 

Lucas held tight to the handle as the tram slowed. The magnetic braking was fast and efficient, but it was hardly a gentle stop, and he’d stumbled more than a couple times from lack of care during his first days on the public rail. 

His mind was still on the scene at the club. On that girl. She’d shown up, ready to rip his clothes off and take him right there on the bartop. Then she got in a fight with colony security, crapped her pants, and vanished without a word of explanation for any of it. 

Who was she? 

The door hissed open and he stepped off, looking around the dim lighting of his stop. He was on the fifth layer down, where no natural wolflight would filter down, and this late in the loop, the faux lighting had been dimmed to simulate night. The filtered air was more stale than the upper levels, but they were up far enough from the waste processing plant that it wasn’t acutely unpleasant.

It was the level for cheap, functional lodging. Most laborers in the colony had an apartment somewhere down here, unless they opted for a plain bunk to save money. Lucas liked having a little space to stretch his legs and his own shower, so he’d sprung for the apartment.

Strolling towards his home by memory, he pulled out his communicator, tabbing through the menus. The girl, Sara, had linked hers to his so that they could talk in the bar. Maybe she’d left some kind of signature, a tracking number, some way for him to contact her. 

An ID number would do it. Heck, a last name would be enough to isolate her - everyone was in the system, and there weren’t enough people on the colony for many duplicate names. 

Frowning, he decided to pull up the registry anyways. ‘Sara’ was a common first name, even taking into account all the possible derivatives and nicknames. All he had to do was look at the list of colonists with the name, and he could narrow it down to a few options. 

As it turned out, there were sixteen people named either Sara or Sarah who had come to the colony. Tapping through the list, Lucas was able to rule out a few right away. 

Three were still listed as primary school students, so that ruled them out. Another two were deceased, and a third, one of the original scouts from the Griffin debacle, was ‘presumed dead’ since they’d never found the body. 

That left ten names for him to sort through. He looked for any recent arrivals, since he suspected she'd spent some time on a colony ship, but nothing stood out. 

It was a puzzle for later. At the moment, he wanted to get into his apartment, drink some water to stave off a burgeoning headache, and get some sleep. 

Instead, he almost walked into the slender figure standing at the bottom of his apartment’s stairwell. They wore a long black coat and a broad-brimmed hat, and they were standing square in front of his door. 

Lucas frowned at them. “Can I help you, uh…” 

“Were you at the Fifth Rock nightclub this evening, sir?” Their voice was stiff and scripted, like someone attempting to sound pleasant while reading out a shopping list. 

Well, that’s a loaded question. “What’s this about?” 

“There was an incident at the club involving our security personnel. We’re looking for witnesses who can give us information about a certain person of interest. Were you there?” 

He couldn’t place their voice. It sounded unfamiliar but reminiscent in a way that made his spine shiver, like something he’d only heard in a dream.

Whoever it was, they were asking about Sara. Obviously. Lucas could connect the dots when the dots were this huge and clearly labeled. “I didn’t really talk to the girl much, but I’ll tell you-” 

Technically, he didn’t stop talking. The next sounds out of his mouth, though, sounded something like ‘bghhhfffjuuuh’ and were not intelligible in any known language.

Nonlethal detainment methods had moved far beyond simple electrical charges. Modern, colony-approved stun guns fired needles that would send regulated pulses of neural information, scrambling their victim’s entire nervous system. Lucas didn’t feel pain, even as his body tumbled down the stairs, but that was because he couldn’t feel anything. 

At least when he came to a stop, he’d rolled face-up, so he could get a view of what they were doing. 

Keeping a hand on the stun gun’s trigger so that the containment signal would continue to scramble Lucas’s body, they pulled out a radio with their other hand. Not a communicator, but an honest-to-god radio, complete with a cartoonishly long antenna. 

Lucas could also see that their hand was an advanced bit of cybernetics. A prosthetic, but one that was more useful than the original limb it was replacing. 

They raised the radio, speaking softly into it. “I bagged him. Getting ready to come in for interrogation and correction.” 

If Lucas could have frowned in confusion, he would have, but he had no control over his facial muscles as they looked down at him. Whatever expression they wore, it was concealed by a mask, a simple reflective visor. 

But he wasn’t looking at their mask. He was looking above them, at the quickly descending boot coming falling from a level above, aimed right towards-

CRACK. 

Sara drove her foot into the figure’s shoulder blades, driving them to the ground next to Lucas. 

Whatever happened next, he didn’t see it. He was distracted by the sudden flooding of sensory inputs as the stun signal ceased to course through his brain. 

His back hurt. He’d landed on it funny, and then kept his weight on his shoulder in a weird way. There was a bruise on his cheek, and his pants felt strangely warm and wet-

Oh. Right. Loss of bodily functions. 

At some point between falling and regaining control, Lucas had wet his pants. By the smell, he’d probably done more than that, but he had no time to worry about what was weighing down the back of his pants. 

The needle in his neck was yanked out, and he turned in surprise to see Sara jam the needle into the figure’s own neck. They were splayed on the ground, reflective mask cracked, and Sarah reached down and manipulated their fingers so that they were clamped down on the grip of the stun gun. 

Body going rigid, they gave up struggling. 

“They’ll be down until someone comes and takes their hand off the stun gun,” Sara said, offering Lucas a hand. “If you want to keep your mind intact, you’re going to come with me.” 

Lucas accepted her hand, using the wall support as he got up, feeling a squelch in his boxers. Yes, I definitely- 

“This is your place, right?” Sara asked, gesturing to the door. 

He nodded, then shook his head to clear up the fuzzy thoughts that were still swirling around. The lingering buzz from one drink too many was making this all hard to take in. “Y-yes.” 

She looked up, eyeing something that was past his field of view. “Is there anything in there that you would hate to lose? A personal effect, something like that.”  

“Not really. I don’t keep many souvenirs.” He frowned. “Why-” 

“Because you’re not coming back.” Grabbing his hand, Sarah pulled him up out of the stairwell, running at a pace that he could just barely keep up with. 

“S-slow down!” he said, as the level’s dim lights spun around his head. “I can’t-” 

Groaning, Sarah stopped, tugged up on Lucas’s arm, and flipped him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Despite the fact that Lucas had to have thirty or forty pounds on the girl, she took off running at top speed and was quickly outpacing his best sprint. 

“Where are we going?” he shouted. 

“Tramway!” she called back. 

That didn’t make sense. If she was running from the authorities, putting herself on a tram would be the same as shipping herself straight into their hands. All the security police would have to do is wait at the next stop and boot the tram, and Sara would fall right into their grasp. 

He almost said as much, but considering how his night was going, ultimately decided that it was best to default to her knowledge. 

The platform was empty, and a new tram was rolling in just as they arrived. Barely waiting for the doors to slide open, Sara jumped in, dumped Lucas onto a seat, and then turned to look the way they’d come. 

Only when the doors shut did she breath a sigh of relief. The tram took off at top speed, jolting Lucas to the side in his seat. 

Sara stood through the change in inertia, barely seeming to register it. 

“This tram runs up to the first level,” she said. “Direct route. We’re lucky that we got on this one, and not a route with more stops.” 

Lucas stared at her, wild-eyed. “Why is that lucky?” 

Sara reached down, pulling off her shirt and stepping towards Lucas. She wasn’t wearing a bra. “Because it means we’ve got six minutes alone.” 

“Woah!” Lucas jumped out of his seat, hopping back a few steps and falling as the tram turned slightly. He landed with a squelch, reminding him that he still needed a change of pants. “You’re still- you’re not even going to explain what’s going on?” 

“You’re safer not knowing,” Sara shrugged, unzipping her pants and fiddling with the button. “And this is probably the last chance either of us will get for a long time, and fuck me if I’m going to waste that opportunity.” 

“I- But-” Lucas stammered. “I… I pissed myself when the stun gun hit me.” 

Pulling her own pants, Sara uncovered a plain, white diaper, which she started to untape. “I don’t care. Yes I d- I. Don’t. Care. Do you? You were interested back at the bar, I assumed that still applied.” 

“No it doesn’t apply!” Lucas got to his feet, holding onto the wall for support. “I was interested in you when I wasn’t in a life or death situation! What the fuck is going on?” 

Sara looked genuinely disappointed, and a little confused. “I told you. Can I please handle this?” 

Lucas’s confusion deepened. “What-” 

She stamped her foot, throwing back her head with a petulant groan. “Fiiine.” She stuck the tape back down on her diaper, knelt to pull her pants up, and said, “The security police and I are not on good terms with each other.” 

“No shit,” Lucas said. “Who was that person back at my apartment?” 

“An instigator. They’re raised from birth, black ops types.” Sara picked her shirt up off the floor, pulling it back into place. 

Lucas’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember details. “I’ve never heard of them.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t have. They’re good at black ops. They are the only one on the colony that I know of, and they’ve been tracking me for a few weeks now.” Dressed, she walked to the side to peer out the window. “Since they’re worried that I’m trying to cause damage to the colony, and that I might know information that could cause real harm to their image, they want to kill me and wipe anyone who I’ve talked to.” 

“Wipe… like, erase my memories?” Lucas stammered. “I didn’t think they could do that.” 

“They can’t. They can give your brain a hard reset, though. You’d have to relearn your potty training and your ABCs, but that’s a price they’re willing to pay, as long as its your life they’re paying with and not theirs.” Sara sighed, turning and slumping into a seat. 

Lucas realized he was still panting, and tried to catch his breath. Focused on his breathing, he couldn’t help but notice how badly he smelled. “Why do they want to kill you?” 

That got a smirk out of her. “They think I’m responsible for the explosion at the terraforming engine.” 

Lucas blinked a couple times. That had been on the news for almost a month, with constant coverage and updates on the repairs. He stared at her. “...why do they think that?” 

“Do you want me to make you a new identity?” she asked, stretching her arms, making him struggle to follow the non sequitur. “I can probably find someone MIA from the old crash and poke around in their system to give you their ID numbers. You’d have to go to the far side of the colony and avoid your old friends and anywhere you hung out, but you could live a life like that.” 

“You mean the OSC Griffin?” He sat up, making a few connections. “Is that what you did for yourself? You made an identity from one of the crash victims?” 

“Focus on yourself.” Sara stood, pacing up and down the platform. “We’re going to my safe house, and you can stay there a couple days, but it’s not a long term solution. You’ll need to put this all behind you, one way or another.” 

“I… I’m more worried about the officers that are going to be waiting for us when this tram stops, honestly.” Lucas rubbed at his forehead absently. “Aren’t we going to be facing a whole battalion’s worth of fire once we step off the platform?” 

“No, of course not.” Sara paced, and Lucas was relieved until she added, “The main station is going to be crammed full of people, and they want my capture to be private. They’ll follow us until we’re isolated, then hit us with everything they’ve got.” 

“That’s…” Lucas swallowed. “So what are you going to do?” 

Sara grinned, and for the first time, Lucas noticed her teeth. She had too many teeth. “I’ll hit back.” 

 

I hope you enjoyed! As always, if you want to support my writing, consider checking out my Patreon. 
I've also got a short story for sale on Gumroad! "Delta Lambda's Little Stinker". It's very kinky. If you like public teasing, hypermessing, and a little magic with your AB/DL fiction, consider checking it out!  

[kerry]

I quite like this story, PC. It is completely different from anything else on here, and that alone is a good reason to read it, but it also is laying out a good mystery: just who is Sara? One thing for sure: Lucas is in way over his head. ?

[PeculiarChangeling]

16 hours ago, kerry said:

I quite like this story, PC. It is completely different from anything else on here, and that alone is a good reason to read it, but it also is laying out a good mystery: just who is Sara? One thing for sure: Lucas is in way over his head. ?

Thank you! It's not my first attempt at blending AB/DL themes and space opera intrigue, but I think so far it's my most successful run at it.  

[Sarah Penguin]

Sara is obviously a penguin

[PeculiarChangeling]

On 7/13/2020 at 10:29 AM, Sarah Penguin said:

Sara is obviously a penguin

You've made that joke before! 

[PeculiarChangeling]

Chapter 3

 

The Main Station was a criss-crossing maze of shuttles, passengers, and automated industry. 

Even in the late night hours, there was still a constant stream of foot traffic. It wasn’t packed full with a throng of colonists like it’d be in the hour before factory labor started, but people still had places to be, and new tram cars were arriving and departing by the dozen. Some only had one or two people aboard, but that was no issue. Solar power was cheap and it kept people from loitering. 

Lucas got off the tram, shuffling behind Sara. The station was easy to navigate, with smooth, polished plasticine flooring and clearly marked signposts, but it was still hard to walk fast enough to keep up with her without doing a little half-jog. “You can’t take on a whole army of-” 

“Shh,” she shot over her shoulder. “I need to concentrate. This isn’t easy.” 

“What isn’t eas-”

“Shh!” Sara repeated. 

They navigated through the station, following signs towards the exit. Lucas was distracted by the expressions of the other colonists, watching with extreme paranoia for wrinkled noses or other reactions to the wet stain on his pants or the muck that was clinging to his thighs.

It did get him a few strange looks, but to his relief, people didn’t stop to laugh. It was a small mercy. 

That’s when he noticed what was going on with Sara. Beneath her skin, her arms were rippling, tensing and relaxing like she was flexing them in a rhythm. She was taking short, deep breaths, huffing like she was in the middle of a workout. 

Lucas almost asked her what she was doing, then caught himself. Right. Shh. 

His eyes wandered back to the other passengers. A couple people were staring. One even pointed, though who he was gesturing to, Lucas couldn’t be sure. 

And he was touching his earpiece, and whispering something. 

Lucas got the feeling that whatever the stranger was pointing at, it wasn’t the wet stain around his crotch. 

“Sara,” he said, quietly. 

“Quiet!” she snapped back. 

“No, Sara, really-” he started. The stranger was already reaching into his jacket, pulling out a handheld stun gun. 

There was no room to explain. Bending his legs, Lucas jumped at Sara, intent on tackling her to the ground to get out of the way of the stun gun shot. 

It was like ramming into a statue. She rocked, slightly, and Lucas bounced off her, stumbling back and landing on his ass. 

The stun gun hit her, little needles sticking into the skin of her arm. Sara froze. 

No, Lucas thought. He could still get the needles out, but if he didn’t act fast- 

Sara looked down at the needles, frowned, and pulled them out herself. Looking up at the man who’d shot her, she asked, “Really?” 

He gaped, staring for just long enough for her to crouch, lunge, and send him to the ground with a single punch. 

“I guess they’re going to hit us before we leave, too,” Lucas commented, looking around for other assailants. 

“Shut it. Still concentrating,” Sara shot back, walking over and seizing his arm. She started to pull him forward, grip iron around his arm, and Lucas watched in alarm as the nails on her fingers grew, sharpening to points. 

When they got out of this and she stopped shushing him, Lucas was going to have a lot of questions. For now, he kept his mouth shut, stumbling to keep up as they pushed their way to the exit. 

They got to the exit. A pair of sleek, sliding doors pulled to the side, transitioning them from the relatively bustling station to an open, abandoned Main Street. 

It would have been suspiciously empty, if Lucas didn’t know exactly why everyone was gone. 

Sara released his arms, glancing back at Lucas. Her eyes had gone completely red, from pupil to sclera. “When you hear my shout, be ready to run.” 

He couldn’t help asking one question. “What are you?” 

That got her to smile just a little, tugging at the corner of her lips just a little. “I’m Sara.” 

She stepped out into the street, hands held by her side, projecting her voice. “Hey there, everyone.” 

Who is she talking to? 

Slowly turning, she looked all around the open street. The space around her was wide, and empty. Pavement for forty feet in any direction, then buildings. Presumably there were gunners in place on the roofs of the surrounding buildings, but Lucas couldn’t spot anyone. 

Sara giggled. “You know I can see you, right?” With her sharpened nails, she pointed, with deliberate precision. “I can see you, and you, and- ah, fuck.” 

Lucas saw the red glow, but now where it came from, followed by a blast of raw energy that flashed in his vision for a fraction of a second, but left streaks in his vision for much longer. 

Sara was in the air before the blast could touch her, vaulting more than ten feet up, arcing towards the direction the blast had come. She landed on something, and there was a moment of shimmering strangeness before the camouflage cloak covering the mounted turret was disabled and Lucas could see the energy cannon beneath. 

It was a mining tool, designed to send out pulses of power that would destroy ten feet of stone in a straight tube. If any part of that beam touched you, your body stopped being biology and turned into physics. Jury rigging it to function as a weapon… 

Or, a former weapon, because Sara was currently ripping the power source out of its chassis with one hand and slashing a clawed finger at the gunner. He barely seemed to get nicked, but from the point of contact, his flesh became red and inflamed and he dropped to the ground, groaning and rolling beneath a metal panel. 

With their lanes of fire relatively clear, the other forces had no more compunctions about opening fire. Guns roared. Nothing nonlethal this time, no stun guns, they were firing steel-tipped rounds that struck the turret and left deep dents in the metal. 

Sara was already moving. She lunged towards another empty space, ripped away the camo cloak, and slashed her fingers across the belly of an assailant. His armor was ripped, claws going all the way through, and then he dropped to the ground. 

Blood sprayed from a wound on her arm, and Sara cried out, but she was on the move again. Leaping up, she seized a light pole, used it as a jumping board, and soared so high into the air that she could clear rooftops. 

Over the sound of bullets, Lucas heard a shout, and then saw two figures fly off the roof of a building across the street. One was in a controlled descent, landing gracefully on pavement and continuing to run. The other fell both stories in a heap, landing on their back, a sniper rifle hitting the ground next to them and shattering into component parts from the force of the impact. 

Sara didn’t look like she was fighting. As she weaved around the aim of the security forces, lunging and striking, it didn’t resemble a soldier. It resembled a predator. Lucas was reminded of footage he’d seen of a nature documentary. There was a creature on the planet, a ‘Styllic’, that filled the same evolutionary niche as big cats on earth. 

In the video, he’d watched it take on a dozen smaller apelike creatures, each as big as the styllic itself. They’d found some sort of food, a body that was still fresh or something, and they wanted to defend it. 

The styllic had ripped them apart. It was one of the most terrifying things Lucas had ever seen. Though the ape creatures had an enormous advantage in numbers and strength, they seemed to almost dissolve before the predator’s claws and instincts. It knew just how much force was necessary to get a kill, how to pick targets, how to engage and then run before it could be overwhelmed. 

What scared Lucas the most, though, was the end of the video. With its quarry stolen, and its prey killed, the styllic hadn’t simply started to eat. Instead, it turned, stared right into the camera that was recording it, and waited. 

According to the documentary, it had kept this up until the video drone had been called back an hour later, due to battery life concerns. When they got a new camera out to see what had happened, the Styllic was gone. 

It hadn’t touched the food. 

And now, Lucas was watching another predator operate with the same ruthless, perfect instincts, only instead of apes, she was taking down armed security forces with armor, camouflage, and an arsenal. 

He felt weak in the knees. He wasn’t just in over his head. He was dealing with a person - a thing - who was so far beyond his comprehension of what a human was capable of that it boggled his mind. 

“Lucas!” 

That was his signal, but he wasn’t ready to run. It took a moment to get his body into motion, stumbling out onto the street. “What?” 

She had the power source from the energy cannon in hand. He wasn’t sure when she’d retrieved it. “Time to run! Get to the end of the street, and don’t look back!” 

No time for questions. He ran, as fast as his terrified legs could take him. Sara was doing something behind him, and whatever it was, he expected lethal results. 

Behind him, there was a flash of light, so brilliant that the reflection on the pavement left him dazzled, and it was followed by almost perfect darkness. The moons were dim, and without the city lights, it was completely black. 

Something grabbed him. Arms. “Sara?” 

“Hold on,” she said, groaning slightly. 

She was holding him from behind. “To what?” 

Her tone was annoyed. “I’m not talking to you.” 

He looked over his shoulder. Sara was mostly a silhouette, but he could make out her general shape behind him, outlined against red flares that the few standing security personnel had lit. It cast her in a hellish light, red and black, the details of her humanity all but invisible. 

She whimpered in discomfort, and then there was a ripping sound. Black, leathery wings sprouted from her back, spread wide enough to occlude his view of the street, and then she leapt one last time into the air. 

The batlike wings had to flap hard to give them enough thrust to stay aloft. Sara was panting for breath. They climbed, getting higher over the city, until they were at enough of an altitude that even the highest building in the colony wouldn’t touch them. 

Her wings spread, locked, and their flight turned into a slow, gliding fall. 

“Holy shit!” Lucas screamed. “You can fly?” 

She concentrated on steering them, directing their descent towards a far edge of the colony. Or… not the edge. Past it. Towards the forest. 

“Don’t scream,” she said, loud enough that he could hear her over the wind. “Please.” 

He knew that asking ‘Why’ wouldn’t accomplish much. Shutting his mouth, Lucas waited, wondering what she thought would make him react that way. 

Then, she leaned forward, sending them into a sudden, sharp dive. 

The ground came up, closing on them, fungal trees threatening to crash into them. Lucas bit down on his tongue, struggling to do as he’d been told. She won’t just kill us, she’s got a plan, she’s going to- 

Sara pulled them level, their momentum turned into tremendous horizontal speed. Zooming over the mushroom-capped trees, they weaved, turning from side to side, getting lower, until- 

She closed her wings, pulling them tight, and they dropped beneath the fungal treetops. As quick as they’d closed, she opened them again, pulling in a tight spin to keep from slamming into a heavy trunk. She flapped her wings once, twice, slowing their momentum, bringing them to a gentler cruising speed. 

They went another five hundred meters, slowly dropping, before she landed. She dropped him onto a soft patch of earth, pulled her wings back, and stumbled a few feet away. 

“I…” Lucas started. “That was…” 

“Amazing, I know,” Sara said, a hand on her belly. “Fuck me, I haven’t pushed that hard in a while. Fuck I’m tired. I just… my safe house is just a little ways up. North. It’s covered in a floral bloom, so nobody should be able to spot it from a visual… inspection.” 

Lucas frowned. “Are you alright?” 

“No, I’m not. I got shot twice,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes had returned to normal, though the white seemed more bloodshot than it had been. “And you’re heavy, and… fuck. Ow, ow, ow.” 

With a brittle, cracking sound, her wings just… fell off, like dry, dead branches falling from a tree. Sara clutched her belly, doubled over, and whimpered. 

Though it was muffled by layers of fabric, Lucas could still make out a low, rumbling, blorchy sound. Sara let out a few soft grunts, and he couldn’t help but stare as the seat of her pants began to swell like a balloon. 

Her face was red, flush with embarrassment, but she still had the energy to look up and glare. “Do you have to watch?” 

“I… um…” Lucas said, looking up at the treetops, his own face pink. “Sorry…” 

A moment later, he heard a thump and looked back down. 

Sara had fallen prone on the ground. She wasn’t moving. 

 

I hope you enjoyed! As always, if you want to support my writing, consider checking out my Patreon. Support from fans is what makes it possible for me to keep writing, and I'm incredibly grateful! 
I've also got a short story for sale on Gumroad! "Delta Lambda's Little Stinker". It's very kinky. If you like public teasing, hypermessing, and a little magic with your AB/DL fiction, consider checking it out!  

[Sarah Penguin]

hmm

[Bonsai]

I like your colony, your weapons (the non-lethal even more than the lethal ones since I find them more clever), the club, the high death rate and the stealth & ruthless public security.

I’m in love with fast, smart & graceful predators and Sara perfectly fits the category. Her hunger for sex is yet another plus

Action, so far, was great. It’s a bit like a chess bullet game where the opening has to be more stunning than sound and you wish to immediately go for the jugular of your opponent rather than take a more positional approach.

So, after the amazing fireworks, the question is: when will you introduce a plot?

[PeculiarChangeling]

11 hours ago, Bonsai said:

I like your colony, your weapons (the non-lethal even more than the lethal ones since I find them more clever), the club, the high death rate and the stealth & ruthless public security.

I’m in love with fast, smart & graceful predators and Sara perfectly fits the category. Her hunger for sex is yet another plus

Action, so far, was great. It’s a bit like a chess bullet game where the opening has to be more stunning than sound and you wish to immediately go for the jugular of your opponent rather than take a more positional approach.

So, after the amazing fireworks, the question is: when will you introduce a plot?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'plot' here or what'd qualify as introducing it for you, but I'm glad you're enjoying the characters, the action, and the setting! 

[PeculiarChangeling]

Chapter 4

 

Lucas stared down at Sara’s body, wide-eyed. 

He’d never been out in the wilderness before. It was dangerous. Half the flora caused wild and sundry allergic reactions that could permanently kill you, and most of the fauna was said to treat you either as prey or an adversary. Xenologists went in teams, with large packs of gear and a lifeline to call in for help should something go wrong. 

It was, in a word, dangerous. 

And here he was, alone. No food, no water, just a suggestion of a shelter… somewhere. Covered by floral bloom to make it impossible to see. 

And he still hadn’t gotten to clean up after pooping his pants. 

Pacing, running his hands through his hair, Lucas tried to keep his breathing calm. “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re-” 

He wasn’t buying it. No amount of repetition could convince him that he wasn’t going to meet his end out here in the woods, one way or another. 

That’s when he noticed the eyes. A set of six glistening, cold eyes were watching him through the woods, nestled amongst the low polyps and bushes, blinking occasionally. Staring. Calculating. 

I need a weapon. Looking around, Lucas tried to see something he could pick up to fend it off. A branch, or a rock, but something that wouldn’t have a toxic reaction with human skin. Nothing obvious was around, unless the creature was scared of moss and deep purple flowers. 

It shifted, raising up, showing more of its chitinous body. It lumbered towards Lucas, powerful limbs leaving remarkably little impact on the ground as it walked. It was in no particular rush, but even its relaxed lope was quicker than Lucas could run, not that it mattered. 

He was paralyzed by fear as the creature got closer, staring at him, then staring past him, at Sara’s limp, motionless body. 

The alien lifeform tilted its head, then stepped forward, prodding the lumpy mass in the seat of her torn pants with a delicate limb. It chittered in what Lucas could have sworn was a sigh, then scooped her up, tossing Sara’s body over a shoulder. 

It started to walk away with its prize, then stopped, looking back at Lucas. 

“Wh-what?” He stammered. “Do you… Do you want me to follow you?” 

All six of its eyes rolled, and it kept shuffling away. 

Without an idea of what else to do, Lucas followed. 

It didn’t make any sense. They were supposed to be on a Class C planet - housing developed life, but no species with intelligence above that of base animals. And yet, the creature had looked at him with recognition.  

What is it, anyways? He recognized it, though he couldn’t place it beyond a general ‘Big chitinous mass’. If he had a chance to stop and look it up on his communicator he could probably figure it out, but now didn’t seem like the time. 

They shuffled through the forest, making a strange procession, going about a hundred feet until they came to an embankment covered in blooming flowers. The creature set Sara down, loped to the side, and dug into the dirt a bit with its appendages, lifting up a concealed doorway. Picking up Sara one more time, it set her down inside the doorway, looked back at Lucas one last time, and them lumbered away. 

“What…” Lucas mumbled, in confusion. “I don’t… um…” 

He looked back at Sara. Right. Injured woman. Help her now, figure it out later. 

The doorway led to an enclosed living space, something that seemed more like a starship’s interior than one of the prefabricated apartments of the colony. Stepping through the doorway, Lucas got his arms under Sara’s, dragging her inside. She was surprisingly light, maybe a hundred twenty pounds at most, not counting the weight dragging down the seat of her diaper. 

First, leaving Sara for a moment, he took stock of the space. The entrance looked like some sort of airlock that had been rigged to stay permanently open. Past it, a hallway, with a half dozen side rooms and finally a cockpit at the end. 

The captain’s chair was tossed to the side, and the control panels were missing. In their place, a hammock was strung up, with a chair and a digital display off to the side. 

He checked the side rooms, peering through the windows on the doors to see what was inside. One was storage, another was a compact bathroom. The rest were former seating areas, but one had been converted to house a fridge and an electric stovetop, one had a high, reinforced, padded table next to a waste reclaimer and a package of diapers, and the last two were simply stripped clean to serve as storage. 

Lucas put it together. They were in one of the escape pods from the OSC Griffin. Most of its pods had never been recovered, and if the air filtration and computers were still working, it’d make a nice little hideout. 

Returning to the airlock entrance, he got his arms under Sara again, pulling her towards the bathroom. He didn’t know field medicine, but he could at least get her clean, even if it was going to be a particularly awkward process. 

Blushing, he began the task of pulling away her clothes. 

The top wasn’t too difficult. She was limp, and it was just a matter of tugging at it until her limbs came free. Two dark, mottled scars were visible on her back where the wings had grown, and two more purple wounds were plain to see around her midsection. Bullet wounds, but already sealed up more than seemed possible. 

Pressing on, he unclipped her bra, pulled off her boots, and finally started tugging down her pants. 

It came as no surprise, but her diaper was in awful condition. Even with all the most modern absorbent and elastic materials, it was straining to contain the sheer bulk of her various accidents. 

Pulling her body into the shower stall, Lucas pinched his nose, pulled at the tabs, and let the diaper flop away from her body, displaying the muck inside. Quickly, before the smell could infect the whole escape pod, he bundled the whole thing up and tossed it into the bathroom’s waste reclaimer, leaving only the muck still clinging to Sara’s thighs and butt. 

Gently, not wanting to get water in her mouth, Lucas turned on the hand sprayer and started cleaning her off. 

It wasn’t hard. Ship hygiene was efficient and compact, so as not to waste any resources or filtration time, and the water had microscopic detergents that broke down the waste easily. Lucas only had to spray her off, then switch to pure water to rinse away the detergents, and then she was clean. 

He didn’t know what to do from there. He couldn’t exactly perform surgery on her injury, if she even needed it. He’d have to wait until she woke up, which might take hours, and might see her having more accidents. 

Blushing, her pulled her body to the first of the reworked crew seating rooms, the one with the padded table and the diapers. Panting to lift her body, he heaved up and got her onto the table, catching his breath before he went for the pack of diapers. 

Gingerly, he folded it in place around her waist, stuck down the tapes, and then stepped back. She was as cared for as he could make her, in the short term. Now it was his turn. 

Stripping clean, he showered, washing away the muck on his own body. 

For his clothes, things were a bit more difficult. There wasn’t any obvious laundry space he could find, and putting back on the old, smelly clothes would have defeated the point of the shower. 

He went to check one of the storage rooms, but the door was sealed with a credentials scanner. 

Standing around naked wasn’t really an option. He didn’t want to seem like a creep when Sara woke up, but since the only other clothes he knew of were Sara’s own, equally dirty ones, that left him only one real option as far as garments went. 

Blushing, he walked back to the changing room, covering himself with a hand in case Sara woke up. HE took another diaper from the pack, hurried out, and turned it over in his hand to orient it the correct way. 

It wasn’t as bad as he expected. The diaper was bulky, sure, but it didn’t impede his motion much. He was able to walk freely, the modern materials conforming to his movement to provide accident protection without getting in the way. 

Settling in on the hammock, he resolved to wait for Sara. He still had too much adrenaline and anxious energy to sleep, so he pulled out his communicator and tabbed to the encyclopedia.

It took ten minutes to find the creature he’d encountered in the woods. A Thulut. Isolated except during mating season, it was, reportedly, little more than an enormous crab. No intelligence beyond base instincts. 

He double checked the pictures. It was the same creature, unless there was a second, identical species. 

To be certain, he pulled up a video, but it showed what the encyclopedia described. No apparent intelligence, just a lumbering creature, nibbling on the local growths and bushes and the occasional small, slow animal. 

Frowning at the display, he leaned back. He still wasn’t tired, but… 

Zzzzz 

I hope you enjoyed! As always, if you want to support my writing, consider checking out my Patreon. Support from fans is what makes it possible for me to keep writing, and I'm incredibly grateful! 
I've also got a short story for sale on Gumroad! "Delta Lambda's Little Stinker". It's very kinky. If you like public teasing, hypermessing, and a little magic with your AB/DL fiction, consider checking it out!  

[Sarah Penguin]