Imnir Ark Vol. 01 Ch. 01

Unlike his recent explosive orgasm, hers was quiet, long, and sensual, extended over a long period by her body's languid state. Her fingers gripped the arm he was using to tease her, and she leaned her weight into him, enjoying for a moment the warmth of another body as she went past the point of no return and came. He felt her tense against him over and over as pleasure pulsed out of her clit and into her whole body, a small 'ahhh' sound escaping her with each wave.

Isaac felt like he'd seen something he shouldn't have. He waited for her body to recover, patiently, for an indeterminately long period of time. It could have been five minutes or an hour, the only way to mark the passage of time being their slow shared breaths. After a while he could feel her shift, and she leaned back; he could see her conscious mind had reasserted itself.

"What just happened?" He felt dumb even asking, but Isaac felt obligated to start his questions at the beginning, and make no assumptions.

Gathering her thoughts, the woman took her weight off of him and leaned back again. Whatever force had weakened her so much seemed to have mostly departed; she looked depleted yet energized, like someone who'd just rested after running a few miles.

She looked him right in the eyes and started talking – her English now flawless. "I picked you, Isaac. There were a few others before you, but they all failed. Only you had perfect DNA." She looked at him with an almost evil smile. Her English was next to flawless now, like she'd been born and raised in the US with him. He even noticed she drew out her 'a' sound a tiny bit – *just like I do...* "I liked those little touches you added. Nibbling my ear, playing with my tits, my clit. You really tried to make me come, didn't you? All of the other men couldn't think of anything but their own cocks when I forced a massive hormone release. You're a lover. That's a nice bonus. You'll make a good partner."

*'Forced a massive hormone release?'* Isaac pondered the implications. *So, she's saying she forced me to fuck her, basically, then we 'bonded' somehow.* He had no idea how she'd allegedly controlled him. Drugs? He peered down at her. *What does having 'perfect DNA' even mean?* "What was all this for? You flew all the way to Earth just for... what, to get some dick?"

"In a manner of speaking. Go get one of the tubes from out of the wall vaults, and I'll explain." With no other option but to obey, he picked a door at random, opening it and extracting one of a set of four tube-like devices inside. Each was metallic and as worn-looking as the rest of the ship. On the tapered, closed end was a red enamel-like paint, and the other end – which seemed to be the open end of the tube – had a yellow and black crisscross pattern painted around it, which gave a vague impression of hazard striping. There was what appeared to be a plate with instructions embossed on one side, but they were written in the same alien language he'd seen on the displays in the room he awoke within.

As he returned, she was gathering up the eggs around her, holding them lovingly. She took the tube from him, and he noticed the aperture on one end was just slightly bigger than an egg. Sure enough, she began to load the eggs inside the tube. Once all five were within, she took each end in one hand and suddenly twisted. The yellow end seemed to rotate independently of the tube itself, and there was a *whoop* sound as air rushed into the tube. The woman then tossed the tube away like a piece of garbage; it clattered against the far wall and bounced weakly on the soft floor before coming to rest.

She held out a hand, gesturing for him to lift her again. Isaac helped her up, though she was still a little wobbly on her feet; she nodded towards the console at the far end of the room, and he helped her, on wobbly feet, over to it. He set her down in front of it and sat down behind her. The woman stared at the console surface for a few extended moments, looking like she was working on a difficult crossword puzzle, then selected a button.

"To answer your question earlier... I'm from another galaxy." A chart, flickering and dim in places, appeared on the screen on the wall. "There." A line appeared, pointing at a galaxy in the center. The focus shifted, moving the 'center' through empty space and over to another cluster of galaxies, finding its way to the medium-sized element of a trio of large galaxies surrounded by a host of smaller ones. "I was sent here to choose a male to bond with and set about the task of repopulating the imnir race." She said it matter-of-factly, though none made sense to him.

"Isn't it an awful goddamn coincidence?"

"What was?"

"You! Us! I mean, what are the chances two alien species meet for the first time and oh, hey, we look exactly the goddamn same except you're red. We're so similar that I can actually get you pregnant. I'm not really a biologist or anything, but seriously, that's... it has to be basically impossible."

"Oh. You couldn't normally, of course. There's a lot of differences inside. It also isn't that simple. I was changed a lot before I got here. I didn't look human at all back home. The Ark made me look and feel human."

"Okay..." Isaac didn't understand that at all, but let the subject drop. "There wasn't a *single* man back home you could have done this with?" Much as Isaac would like to believe he was a one-of-a-kind man that aliens would fly across galaxies to meet and/or have crazy sex with, he knew he wasn't really anything special.

Her eyes rolled upwards for a moment. "For reasons I don't feel like explaining right now, that wasn't an option. I'm something of a prototype in a new technology, quarkware. We reverse-engineered it from some artifacts we found on other planets in our home system... but it didn't work out so well. This ship was supposed to be full of people like me. Making that many turned out to be a little pie-in-the-sky." She paused. "I got all these expressions from your mind, and I know their use – but I don't know what the words reference. What is a pie?" She turned back and pressed another button, which only turned the map on the screen another color and revealed cloud-like structures surrounding the galaxies on the map. She looked frustrated.

"Um." Isaac was more at a loss than he felt he should be, then he suddenly smiled. "You can abduct a grown man out of his own home, but you can't abduct a pie?"

"I wouldn't know what to look for." She seemed serious. "I'm assuming a pie wouldn't normally be in the sky? " She peered at him.

"Listen, I can email you some choice pie recipes later. And no, they aren't typically in the sky. Forget about that. I don't think I'm the right guy for this thing."

"You are. I'm certain of it. I bonded you, so it's too late now regardless. Anyway – I was the only one they could finish in time." *In time*? He filed it away, wondering what that meant, while simultaneously grumbling to himself about Nall's unilateral decision.

She went on. "All the quarkware vessels that were found and studied were inanimate objects, useless without someone to bond to and command them. We couldn't copy those, but the team was pretty sure they could turn living imnir into less powerful vessels where the bond worked the other way. I still need to bond to someone like a vessel would, but I command *them*." She grinned at him. "We already bonded, Isaac." His blood froze. He realized what the strange sensation of closeness he suddenly felt when they made love was, and knew she was telling the truth. His mind raced. *Does – does she mean I'm her slave?*

"I mean I can read your mind." He couldn't hide his shock. "Though there's no sense hiding that I'm not very good at it yet. Humans and imnir aren't completely neurologically compatible. I can also make some changes to your mind, like you already felt in the medical ward." He recalled how he had inexplicably become instantly and incredibly aroused after she touched the tip of his dick. "After I finished bonding with you while you came inside me," she gave her hips a sexy little shake, "we were linked enough that I was able to overwrite my language center with the contents of yours."

She smiled again, and stretched in the chair, arching her back and flexing her taut body. Despite himself, his cock stirred for a moment. "I didn't know a word of English until then. Anyway, you're already in the process of becoming my bonded male and patriarch of the imnir rebirth. That happened in the moment you came, and it's inevitable now. I can only bond to one man, so don't worry. I'll keep you safe, and protect you."

"Protect me from *what*?" Even as he said it, he disappointed himself. *Way to act macho at the wrong time, champ.*

"Anything." She leaned back, arms behind her, resting on her palms. The console display remained frozen in place, no longer being used. "I told you, I'm a quarkware vessel. You're familiar, I assume."

"Can't say as I am." It slipped out, though he was curious why she would believe something so completely wrong about his own memories if she claimed to be able to read his mind.

She gave him a quizzical look. "But the probes monitored nineteen quarkware vessels already operating on Earth. I couldn't get much detail out of anything but the hydrocarbon scan array. The computer assumed a technology level comparable or superior to the imnir at the end. How do you not know about quarkware?"

Isaac shrugged, feeling a little impatient now. "Guess I slept through class that day. What's quarkware?"

Her expression darkened, if that were even possible. She spun backwards in the chair, facing the console.

"Quarkware is, in short, a technology a step beyond nanobots. You *have* to be familiar with those." She said it in a condescending tone, and he gave a half-committal nod and shrug.

Isaac had only heard of nanotechnology in bad movies and the occasional Scientific American article, but he had the general idea. Usually it was bullshit magic 'science' used by lazy writers to explain away some hand-wavey plot device, the reality probably being decades or centuries from anyone even knowing whether or not it was possible.

Nall went on showing him how superior she was. "I'm not going to bore you with the details. Just believe me when I say that I made your cock grow to triple its mass with my power." His mind suddenly shifted back to the increased weight at his groin; she was right, it hadn't been a hallucination or just some temporary drug-induced change, and her 'quarkware' power was very real. His cock was definitely huge now, which went a little ways towards mitigating whatever alarm and misgivings he felt about his current insane situation. *What kind of simple creature am I?* He chided himself.

"What was your name, anyway?" He poked her on the shoulder, trying not to let his total alarm and powerlessness show.

"Ävhip-ñall Sloclaá." The bizarre syllables rolled quickly off her tongue, and he immediately knew that no matter how hard he tried he would mangle them beyond recognition. While he was reaching this conclusion, he caught another wistful look from her, out to her side. Talking to herself, she said quietly, "Good, I can still say my name, at least." She looked back at him before he could ask what she meant. "A couple of the phonetics don't exist in English, or either of the other two languages you know... that you and I both know. Just call me Nall."

"Okay, Nall. How long do I have to do this?" A sly grin he didn't feel crossed his face.

Nall stood back up, turning to him. The chair returned to its place beneath the floor. She was quite a bit shorter than him, but he wasn't fooled; the woman had all the power here. "Until I'm satisfied." She smiled, far too broadly. "I was sent here on a one-way trip, with a mission to fulfill. Send back as many eggs as possible. You and I are now the mission."

Sputtering, Isaac didn't even know where to begin. He was outraged. * Just like that?* "What the *fuck*! So I just sit around your space... trailer-home, and stare at my big dick all day when you're not laying eggs?"

Nall seemed confused, then her expression cleared. "Oh, no. We won't live on the ship, but I will keep it handy." she said, gesturing around her. "This old hull is just a re-commissioned military freighter with a mostly intact electronic stealth shroud. They only put me in it because warp bridge technology isn't accurate enough to land me right on Earth's surface at this distance, and because my quarkware network can't hold all of the eggs' DNA data and biomass at once. The overwhelming majority of the project's technology isn't tied up in the ship, it's in me. *Is* me."

She pointed at herself, then continued. "I just stayed in orbit and set up a reverse bridge in order to start finding a good male to bond with. You showed up just in time, too; the warp disc's baryon grids shorted out, you were the last one I could get up here that way. We'll have to go down in a lander. Now that I've found you, we'll move down to your primary habitation unit and begin in earnest."

"Am I missing something here? Is your planet too polluted to lay eggs on or something?" He said it snidely, picking a possible reason out of a hat; it sounded like something suitable to a movie plot.

"Oh, no. You saw me just then, I only laid five eggs. That's about as many as will ever come of you and I mating. The mission isn't for you to fuck *me*." She sauntered over to him, wrapping her arms over his tense shoulders and sliding her body up against him, her warm skin rubbing against his body pleasingly. "The mission is for you to fuck *human* girls that I've played with a little first, and they lay the eggs. You're even more virile than I had hoped for; girls should lay *hundreds* of eggs at a time for you!" Nall smiled widely again, and planted a kiss on the bottom of his chin, then licked down the length of his throat.

Isaac stared into space, his mind awash in horror, fascination, and arousal; his cock surged, his heart beating rapidly with the fight-or-flight response. If Nall wasn't lying to him, the change had already been made; if he came inside any woman at all, she would lay imnir eggs. For all he knew, it would be for the rest of his life. *But wait*, he thought. *She said something about girls she 'played with a little first'; maybe if I get away from her, I won't have to worry about this anymore?*

"You *can't* get away from me." Isaac's concentration broke, realizing she'd been able to read his mind again. "We're bonded, Isaac. You'd never get far, and I will always know exactly where you are." She undulated against him, her bright red skin snaking against his body.

"I- I can't do this." He let far more fear into the statement than he'd intended, but there weren't any other emotions he had to spare. "You can't do this to me..."

A sharp laugh broke out of the woman. "Too late now. You shouldn't have done such a damn good job fucking me. Don't worry, you're my prize possession. If your mind starts to go, I'll be sure and whip it back into shape." She kissed him again on the throat, his most vulnerable point and apparently her favorite.

She returned to the console, letting herself fall down onto her knees. She paused, looking at the controls, and frowned. Taking her time, she deliberately poked a few buttons in sequence, concentrating hard; suddenly, Earth appeared above, first as a globe, then the surface lifted off and flattened itself into a more conventional Mercator-like map. The view zoomed in on North America, in daylight; he could just barely make out the evidence of human civilization – New York, LA, Chicago, and that blotch there was probably that big oil spill...

"Now, Isaac. My ship's sensors didn't take well to the stasis field, so I don't have much detail when I scan your planet. I need you to point me out the nearest spaceport to your habitation unit."

Dumbfounded, Isaac pondered for a time as to what on Earth would qualify as a spaceport. Finally, he shrugged and pointed at a spot on Florida's Atlantic coastline. "It's at least a ten-hour drive, though."

She frowned. "But there's obviously many large population centers near where I bridged you out from. Do they not have spaceports?" She pursed her lips for a time, thinking. "Perhaps they're occupied by hostile forces?"

*What the hell is she on?* He could only give her a confused look, but he did give a slight chuckle at the idea of Georgia being occupied by hostile forces. *Maybe during the college football season...* He shrugged. "That's Cape Canaveral, where they launch the Space Shuttle."

"What do you mean? 'The' space shuttle? There's – there's just the *one* spacecraft? For the *whole planet*?" She stared at him for a couple moments, then seemed to search herself. A look of concern crossed her face, which slowly turned into what might be fear. "I can't find any words in English for modern technology, Isaac. Oh no, oh no no no...." Isaac waited a few moments while she seemed to think to herself furiously. She turned back in a flash, her stare burning intensely. "Isaac, what's the most common energy source on your world?"

"Um – I guess for most common – coal? Oil? Nuclear is probably the most advanced, but it's not as common." The answer seemed to genuinely scare her. Isaac felt some of his earlier mental fortitude renewed. *Maybe this space witch isn't completely in charge.*

"Okay – maybe that's a bad metric. What's the life expectancy of a normal human, and most common causes of death?"

"Depends on the part of the world you're talking about, and on the availability of health care..." Isaac felt a shot of pride at being able to recall the alien's pop-quiz answers off the top of his head. "I think usually between sixty-five and seventy-five? Anywhere well-developed, anyway. And the most common reasons people die, I guess heart disease and cancer?" The last part he wasn't as sure about, but it felt like a safe bet. Nall looked no more reassured – if anything, she was crestfallen. While he wasn't thrilled to see such a beautiful woman unhappy, he was still angry at being so blatantly made into her tool, apparently for life; it further bolstered him. He added, "You couldn't have taken five minutes to look any of this stuff up?"

"Looked it up how? I haven't been down to the surface yet. Is the information grid not secured?" She was perplexed.

"I don't know, you could just use wireless internet, or maybe just listen to the radio for a couple hours."

Nall wracked her brain again, then looked aghast. "Radio like radio waves?"

"Yes."

"Is that... the most common way you transmit data?" He could hear the tremor in her voice, and a surge of pride went through him. He had the alien woman scared. What she was actually scared of, he wasn't clear on, but he knew he'd gotten the upper hand... somehow.

"No, most of the time it goes through cabling. Copper wires, mostly, I'm told."

"Copper... wires...." She trailed off, looking downtrodden. Nall stared at the worn, flickering keys to the console for a while, her mouth hanging a little open. Her hands came up to cover the lower half of her face, and she sat frozen in place.

"Nall?" Suddenly, she smacked herself on the thigh, the shock bringing her back into focus.

"It doesn't matter. I'll just live with it." She said it like she was steeling herself for a harrowing experience, he noted. "How the hell did the probes get it so wrong, though..."

"Hell, it isn't *that* bad."

"This changes everything. The initial plan had been to just show up as a quarkware vessel bearer and work openly after negotiating with the other bearers. Obviously, there aren't any other bearers, and the Ark isn't really strong enough to protect us from an large, organized force. Working in the open is impossible now." She let out a disappointed breath between her teeth. "We'll have to default to one of the lower-technology plans. Everything will have to be secret. Everything."