What Lies Beneath

"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" Marcie said, barely above a whisper.

"I really hope not," Corrine said, punching buttons. "Dialing up Main Mission now."

The screen changed again. The female technicians were huddled together against the computers on one wall, surrounded by a perimeter of men with their guns drawn. Although there was no audio, they were clearly shouting. As Marcie and Corrine stared, the weapons began firing in all directions. A flurry of colored pulses lit the screen as the women clutched each other behind what was clearly a failing line of defense. Sparks flew from strikes against the walls, the computer hardware, the consoles in the center of the room. One by one, a seemingly impervious series of men reached the defenders and began fighting hand to hand. One woman with long brown trusses panicked and fled, only to be grabbed instantly by someone and dragged away.

Corrine panned around the moonbase command center, away from the melee, only to find more of the same. Men fighting men, and losing. Women being forced over their consoles, legs spread wide, screaming and fighting in vain. Women forced against walls, on the ground, on their backs, on their hands and knees. Main Mission was quickly degenerating before their eyes into a violent, horrific orgy.

Marcie began noticing something else. Not all the women were fighting... and not all the men were aggressors. She pointed.

"Look."

Corrine zoomed in on one coupling, a woman straddling a man on his back. She seemed to be the one in control, the same dark look in her eyes. He was looking frightened at her, but apparently not too frightened to fight her off.

"So it's not just the men," Corrine realized. "Women are doing it too. What the hell is happening?"

Without warning, the door to the lab was thrown open. A man in his late forties was silhouetted in the haze of smoke filling the corridor behind him. Corrine and Marcie gasped, staring. He shambled forward, his eyes dark and hungry.

"Dr. Higgs," Corrine said with a tremulous voice. "Dr. Higgs, it's me, Corrine," she slowly rose to her feet, Marcie backing away.

The man continued forward, his gait more like that of an animal than an astrophysics PhD. His attention seemed to be torn between the two frightened girls, as though trying to decide which to attack.

Corrine's voice grew softer as she realized he was not stopping. "Dr. Higgs, please don't hurt us..."

With a low growl, he suddenly sprang forward, lunging at Corrine. She screamed and struggled, being pushed roughly to the floor. Marcie rushed over to the lockers, praying there might be a weapon there. She flung the door open as Corrine screamed, thrashing beneath the much more powerful man pinning her to the lab floor. Marcie saw a small mount inside the locker holding a row of stun guns, and grabbed two of them. She'd been trained with the weapon, but that was years ago in astronaut safety. She hadn't held one of these devices since she was twenty. It was a bit different then she remembered it; perhaps it was a more modern variation. She checked the intensity sliders on both, set them to full, flipped off the safeties and aimed both weapons at Higgs. She'd seen them mostly useless against attackers on the video feed; she hoped that two of them might be enough.

"Get off of her!" she screamed. "I said, let her go!"

The determined man ignored her warnings, reaching between Corrine's legs and twisting her panties off, throwing the rent fabric aside.

Marcie took careful aim and fired her weapons. The air singed as the guns unleashed on their most powerful setting, twin beams blasting Higgs with deadly force in the upper chest. Higgs grunted, lifting up Corrine to glare at Marcie.

Impossibly, he was still alive. Marcie had seen these weapons scorch metal and instantly incapacitate large animals, such as horses, on the stun setting. They should have knocked him dead immediately. But after an angry grunt he started positioning himself between Corrine's legs again.

Marcie fired a second time. This time Higgs gave a furious snarl, and without warning lurched forward toward her. She fired again but he smacked her hands aside, sending the blasts slicing wildly across the room, one leaving a streak of black across the window. Marcie cried out in panic as she felt her panties being wrenched off, snapping like they were made of gauze. She beat his face with her fists, but nothing she did was enough to fight him off.

She felt the tip of his cock pressing against her naked sex, and she screamed. Then he convulsed, spraying her face with something warm from his mouth. She gasped and yelped, staring at him in shock as the life drained from his eyes, a rivulet of blood escaping from his mouth. In his last few moments, she thought she could discern a moment of regret in his expression. She let him collapse to the floor beside her and looked up as Lauren Galloway wrenched the bloody fire axe out of his back.

She was somber. "He was my friend," she said softly. Then the vigor returned in her voice as she turned to Corrine. "Close that door and lock it," she ordered her. Corrine quickly went to the lab door and closed it, entering the code to lock it to everyone but the three of them.

Marcie panted, gathering her wits again, and looked around. Dr. Galloway had removed her helmet and was holding the fire axe with one hand, its blade dripping crimson. Mirial was standing in the airlock, weakly, leaning against the bulkhead. Both airlock doors were open. Marcie looked over at the EQ console, wiping the blood from her face. Its display read: EQ CYCLE: 100%

"What are we going to do?" she asked, her heart still racing.

"We're getting off the base," Dr. Galloway said, beginning to peel off her CBRN suit. "The four of us."

"How?" Corrine said in disbelief. "We can't get to a launch pad without going through either the Observatory or technical experiments..."

"We're not going that way," the doctor said, stepping out of her orange suit, leaving it in a pile on the floor. "We're going underground."

Marcie's mouth fell open. "We're going in there?" She pointed through the window at the red steel door.

"Yup. If we hurry, we should be able to reach the drilling equipment, and material evacuation system," the doctor was saying, finding her shoes again and slipping them on her feet. "From there we can take a service tube to the processing center, and there we'll find EVA suits for all of us."

"I don't understand," Marcie said. "How will finding EVA suits help?"

"Because then we can take a buggy on the surface to the launch center," Corrine said, catching on. "We can access one of the flight-ready Eagles without having to go back inside the base."

"Assuming there's one still there," Dr. Galloway cautioned. "That's why we need to hurry. If there isn't one, we'll have to prepare one for launch, and that means going inside the hangar."

"Don't we need environment suits to enter the tunnels?" Marcie asked, looking at the discarded orange suit on the ground.

"Not with EQ at one hundred. The atmosphere is fully equalized and safe. Besides, there's not enough CBRNs for all of us. I'm going to check the video feed at the processing center to make sure there's nothing there. You two, help Mirial."

Corinne went to the lockers, opened them and found another uniform top. Grabbing it, she and Marcie hurried inside the excavation chamber. Corrine started helping Mirial take her shredded uniform off so she could put on the fresh one. Marcie waited near the inner airlock door for Dr. Galloway.

"Are you okay honey?" she asked.

Mirial looked pained, weakened. "I... I don't... know," she said softly, her hand on her stomach.

Lauren's fingers raced over the keys, dialing up the video feed she was after. She looked up at the screen only to see static.

"Damn," she murmured. She went punching more buttons again, searching for another camera feed.

A sudden burst of sparks flew from the locked door, and it shifted to the side a few inches. The sound of ravenous voices could be heard from the other side as their fingers reached through and began pulling the door further open.

"Oh my god! Lauren, come on!" Corrine pleaded.

Dr. Galloway looked at the door, her eyes narrowing. Then she looked at Marcie standing in the airlock reaching for her, and began frantically entering commands into the computer again.

"Go! Get off the base!" she shouted to them as she mashed her hand down on a large, flat, red button on the console. A bright red light began twirling over Marcie's head as both airlock doors began dropping. She ducked inside the excavation chamber before the inner door could trap her.

"NO!! LAUREN!" Corrine screamed, running up and pounding on the window glass, but Dr. Galloway was rapidly entering commands on the keyboard in front of her. Checking to make sure all three girls were safe inside, she entered one last entry in the computer and evacuated the air from the airlock, making it impenetrable from the control room. The three of them were safe.

She turned and lunged for the bloody fire axe, but she was too late. They were already in the room and upon her. She screamed, fighting with all her strength, but the five crazed, possessed men overpowered her easily, holding her arms and legs as they tore apart her skimpy Alpha uniform. Corrine, Marcie and Mirial watched helplessly through the window, their eyes spilling tears as their friend and superior officer fell prey to the ravenous appetites of her male colleagues. Corrine pressed her hand to her mouth as Dr. Galloway's legs were forced wide; she sobbed softly as Lauren's body was roughly impaled by cock after cock. Her legs wagged in the air at the knees, feet still clad in her beige heels: all that remained of her uniform. The men seemed willing to give each other only a few minutes with her before shoving each other aside for another to mount and fuck her. No amount of her fighting, pleas or screams seemed to slow them down.

As the girls stared, her screams of panic melted into cries of passion, her struggles ceasing, her body's movements almost welcoming the mob of deranged men each plunging their cocks into her one after another. Marcie watched in horror as Dr. Galloway's responses turned from resistance to impassioned ecstasy, even as the men brutally and violently fucked her, one after another.

Marcie watched the men's expressions. They seemed to be indulging in something they'd all been fantasizing about for years, the only thing holding them back from it being their own humanity. They grinned lascivious, lustful smiles as they took turns slamming their cocks into their helpless colleague's trim, perfect body as she moaned and writhed beneath them, her uniform in shreds, barely clinging to her.

Then something happened that Marcie could not believe she was seeing.

One of the men pulled Dr. Galloway's body over him, to straddle him on the floor of the control room, exposing her backside to the others. Another of the attackers, this one wearing the black stripe of Command Section, moved behind her and began pushing his thick, slickened muscle into her taut anus. She threw her head back and gave a pained cry, but didn't resist. The others standing around her pawed at her body, her thighs, her breasts and her arms as the two men began thrusting into her together, filling her completely. The one fucking her from behind grabbed a fistful of her hair and began slamming into her mercilessly, the other clutched at her thighs and pumped her from below.

"My god," Corrine said in horror, turning away from the glass, tears tumbling from her eyes. "Lauren..."

"We can't save her," Marcie said softly. "We have to get to the processing center." She backed away from the glass as several of the men started eyeing them, and looking at the sealed airlock door. "Let's go."

Mirial stared silently at the gang rape through the window with sorrowful, disturbed eyes. Corrine nodded and took one look back at her mentor and close friend. Dr. Galloway's head was turned toward her, and their eyes met briefly. Corrine could see her mentor's pleading expression, silently begging her to get to safety, to leave her to her dark fate.

She pressed her hand to the glass for a moment, for Lauren to see. Then she turned and took Mirial's hand. "Come on, we're getting out of here."

"Do you know where we're going?" Marcie said as the three of them hurried toward the opening to the tunnels.

"Yes, I know the way," Corrine said, wiping her eye with the back of her hand. "Let's go before they figure out how to open that airlock again."

Marcie took one last look through the window. The men had pulled Dr. Galloway up off the floor, one of them still buried in her ass, holding her upright. Another took one of her thighs in his hand, lifting it along his body and forced his cock into her womanhood, fucking in rapid strokes. She cried out in pain—or was it a deep moan of pleasure—her head falling back, overwhelmed by the sensations coursing through her. Hands grabbed and groped her naked body as the man pumped and pumped until giving a final, powerful thrust, shuddering, clearly emptying himself within her as she moaned, feeling his seed fountaining inside her. Marcie's eyes flooded with tears, hating that that would be the last thing she would ever see of Dr. Lauren Galloway. Then she saw three of the men glaring at her through the glass, their malevolent desire burning in their eyes. She gave a soft whimper of fear as she turned and stepped through the red door, pulling it shut behind her and turning the wheel as many times as she could. Then she ran down the tunnel to catch up with Corrine and Mirial.

The tunnels were lit with small clutches of LED lights, strung along the rough stone walls every thirty feet. Thick cable trunking snaked along the floor at the base of the walls. The floor was level, but hardly flat. Their three-inch uniform pumps were fine for traversing the smooth, modern corridors of the moonbase, but were lousy for this terrain, and even worse for running on it. But the girls sped as fast as they could manage down the long tunnel, putting as much distance between themselves and the horrific gang rape their friend had sacrificed herself to spare them from.

Mirial seemed to have the hardest time, stumbling constantly. Corrine never let go of her hand, helping her up each time. "Come on sweetheart," she'd say as Mirial struggled to her feet again. Marcie noticed Mirial's expression with some concern; she seemed to be in some measure of discomfort, as though aching inside. But she had an unsettling sense that, like Dr. Galloway, it was somewhere between pain and pleasure, perhaps both.

The tunnel suddenly sloped downward, curving to the right, becoming a long spiral deep into the bowels of the moon beneath the base. Marcie had no idea how long they had run, descending deeper and deeper below ground. There were other tunnels branching off from the main spiral, having strange names like "Arroyo" and "Lefebvre" and "Easterling", but Corrine ran past them all. Occasionally they would pass a large boxy device that resembled an industrial-size air conditioner, whirring. She figured these were what was providing breathable air at these depths.

Finally the downward slope leveled off, and the tunnel branched off in three directions. Fortunately there was a sign on the wall, indicating that one branch headed to Nuclear Disposal (which made Marcie vaguely nervous), one headed somewhere called "Osgood" and the third pointed to Processing & Evacuation.

"This way," Corrine said, starting in that direction. But suddenly Mirial yanked her hand free of hers and began running down the second branch. "No!" she cried out, agitated by something. "Nooo!"

"MIRIAL! Come back!!" Corrine shouted, but Mirial wasn't slowing down. "We have to get her back!" she said to Marcie, and started running after her. Marcie looked worriedly down the Processing branch, but hurried after Corrine, not wanting to be separated from the only one who knew her way through these tunnels.

Mirial was running now, her long legs carrying her quickly down the long tunnel, Corrine and Marcie struggling to keep up with her. "Wait!" Corrine was calling. "Where are you going? We have to get out of here!"

Corrine's pleas grew more desperate as Mirial ran past the last LED lights into the darkness beyond. Marcie saw Mirial disappear into the black ahead, followed by Corrine. She slowed to a stop at the last light, terrified of losing her way in these subterranean catacombs.

"CORRINE!!" she called desperately, but got no response.

She glanced behind her, down the long tunnel leading back toward the branching, then turned forward again, taking tentative steps into the darkness that lay ahead, her shoes crunching the clumps of lunar gravel blanketing the cavern floor.

"Corrine?" she said again, her voice wavering. "Mirial?"

Her eyes steadily began acclimating to the darkness as the artificial lighting behind her grew fainter and fainter. She stretched her arms out, making sure she didn't walk into a wall.

"Corrine?"

Suddenly, from about two hundred feet up ahead she heard Corrine's voice give a terrified scream, then another muffled cry.

"CORRINE!?" Marcie called nervously.

No response.

She continued forward; she realized she had no choice. Even if she made it to Processing, she didn't know how to put on an EVA suit, to say nothing of driving a lunar buggy or commandeering an Eagle. Trembling, she felt for her commlock on her belt, grabbed it and fumbled with it until she found the activation switch for the tiny screen. It blazed with light, the screen showing only static. She winced and pointed it ahead of her, using it as a flashlight, waiting a few moments to regain her vision before continuing hesitantly down the tunnel, panning the tiny device back and forth to see.

She started to notice a strange purple glow coming from ahead.

"Corrine?" she said softly, listening. Instead of a response she heard a low, muffled voice. Then she realized she could hear more than one voice in the darkness ahead.

She would have walked smack into the drilling equipment had she not been using her commlock to light her path. The massive treaded rig dominated the tunnel, but the drills on the front were aligned such that the tunnel was wide enough to walk around it. The purple glow was coming from the other side of the rig. She shone her light down the side of it, and caught sight of something moving along the ground just on the other end of the huge vehicle.

"Mirial?" she called. "Corrine?"

Only the low groaning of voices could be heard.

Trembling in fear, she forced herself to take one step after another toward the sound and the light, finally stepping around the front of the drilling rig. What she saw took her breath away.

The drill had punctured into a previously sealed, cavernous room, that appeared hundreds of feet wide, at least four stories tall. The bottom of the room was fifty feet below her, and a pulsating purple ring was glowing at the very bottom of the cavern. The ring was upright, not on the floor, like some kind of energy gateway. Within the ring she could make out a different place entirely, somewhere illuminated with sunlight, but with an unearthly red sky, like Mars. She gasped as she realized what she was seeing. It was clearly a portal to an alien world.

But then she saw Corrine and Mirial. And the others.

Mirial was crawling along the floor of the cavern, which was writhing with dark shapes. She seemed to be moving among them, unafraid, fully compliant as ribbons of black seemed to pass over her legs. She paid them no attention as she moved up the curved cavern basin, where Corrine was held upright, her legs and arms spread wide, entwined with something dark and thick draped over her. She was fully pinned to the curving wall, although as Marcie stared she could see that the wall itself was blanketed with eel-like creatures, the writhing and slithering mass covering the entire surface all the way up.