Alien Mine Ch. 19

"We have plenty," Rhys said sardonically to Sandy, "I am happy to get you a glass."

"No thanks," Sandy said with a slight smile, "it tastes better when I drink yours. Anyway," Sandy continued, "based upon what we have seen, we guess that China is completely under Om control, but we will be ready anyway. It could offer them an excuse to launch an attack, but we can take out their missiles if we have to. A conventional attack is more problematic; that's why we will have a group of pilots arriving next week."

"Ok, I am going to stand down the men for a few days before we begin training again; when can we expect replacements?" Jack asked.

"Don't stand everyone down, Jack; pick out ten men; I want them in Israel to provide security for Mika," Rhys said. "It will have to be low-key; Michael can help out. Mika has briefed him on what we found, and he agrees she needs the extra support. I'm sorry, but I want five men on duty all the time, twelve on and twelve off. We can rotate men out there, but we are short-handed. Mika is sending us fifty in one week, so you will be busy training; we can expand the training facilities as needed, especially as our own reinforcements arrive."

"How about I send twelve men, and we rotate them in teams of four. That way, they are in eight-hour shifts," Jack answered.

"That's going to leave us short-handed for training, but it's ok with me," Rhys said thoughtfully. "Nevertheless, soon, we are going to need similar protection for Anita. Sandy and I are going with her to Washington, DC, in a few days, and we will look for any Om penetration when we are there. But Anita's national profile is growing, and as soon as we move her into the Vice President slot, she will become a prime target." Rhys had only recently filled Jack in on their plans, but he hadn't told Carl yet. That was still a concern, and Rhys was worried about how Carl would react. It was something he needed to do, but not yet. He wanted Anita's symbiote to become sentient first, and he needed to maneuver her into the proper position so that she was the natural choice for the job.

Rhys abruptly got up and began to pace. He felt impatient, angry even but for no particular reason. Rhys could sense something inside himself, faint, but it was there. Concentrating, he felt it at the back of his brain, a presence he recognized, something filled with fury, eager to be set free and take control. Damnit, Rhys swore. "Bob, I need help controlling it." The pressure on his brain lessened but did not go away; it was still there, a menacing presence that had been with him since the battle. Rhys still had no idea how it happened, transforming into a man-shaped dragon spewing energy into the Om. It had saved his life, but Rhys recognized he had no control over it once it manifested.

"I know, Jack; get everyone rested as best you can," Rhys said, picking up the conversation. The med units help, but even they cannot wholly overcome the trauma of losing friends and teammates. After a few days of rest, we need to get everyone back to training. First, you and Kiania do the de-briefs with each squad and then with all the squad leaders. We need replacements; promote from within, though."

"Amanda will be hard to replace," Jack said.

Rhys knew her loss had affected Jack deeply, and not just him. All the men felt that way, as did he. "Your right; I'm sorry about her loss; it was such a cluster fuck we are all lucky to be alive. That's the worst firefight I have been in, worse than Afghanistan, but the men did good, you did good, Jack, and you and Kiania got them out. We learned much, but the cost was high. So put together a lessons learned by the end of the week, then we start training for the next battle.

Sandy had let a few strands of hair brush up against Rhys, not following the conversation but concerned at what she saw. "You see it too," Kiania said, looking at Sandy

"Yes, he is different somehow; see how he walks, his movements. It's more like he is stalking prey; every movement is concise, controlled, like an apex predator moving around his feeding ground," Sandy agreed with a thoughtful look on her face.

"I know, sex was extremely intense; he was much more dominant, but almost dangerous, like having sex with something that just might decide to eat you."

" You mean like a dragon? Though I noticed you didn't complain when he was doing just that with you. Judging by your screams, you were hoping he would continue to eat you," Sandy said, enjoying teasing Kiania.

Kiania blushed, but she was right, Sandy thought. Rhys had taken them one after another, each climax stronger than the last, the energy surge getting better and better. He had been more domineering than usual and had taken the Binary last. Afterward, Mika had actually begged Rhys for a break; he was transmitting so hard that Mika had stopped work and locked her office as orgasm after orgasm racked her body. Yes, something was different, but she didn't know what, but later she would try and get her hair into him like Thea did with the Binary.

"Let's talk about what happened on the shuttle and your hair," Rhys said, surprising Sandy. She had been lost in her thoughts about Rhys and hadn't even noticed Jack leaving the room. "Tell me again what happened."

Sandy thought for a few seconds, going over the events in her mind. "The Om, they came on with the wounded; I didn't sense them until they were already on the shuttle, which was strange. Usually, we detect them further away. You have seen the video; they were horrible, worse than the Trangrods because they still looked half-human, and it made me pause, not long, but enough that others came onboard before I reacted. They were quick," she went on, her voice almost monotone as she remembered the fight, "not as heavily armored as the Trangrods we have been fighting, but they were still hard to kill. There at the end, I thought I was going to die, and without thinking, I threw my hair at it. I was as shocked as that half-human monster was when I penetrated its brain," Sandy said, surprised she was so calm thinking about it now. It had been a desperate effort, not one she had expected to succeed.

"My hair burst through the base of its skull like it was nothing, and suddenly, I was inside its brain, hearing alien thoughts. But Rhys, there was something else in there, it knew when I made the connection, and it wanted me, the symbiont. I don't know what it was, but it was powerful, and to be honest, it terrified me," Sandy added, suddenly feeling vulnerable, something she wasn't used to anymore. That feeling of vulnerability came through to the others, even the ones listening but not there. Mika shivered at Sandy's words as she remembered her experience with the Trangords.

"I could feel it reaching for me, so I yanked my hair back, breaking the connection. When I did that, I deliberately ripped out most of the brain of that creature. It died instantly, and the connection was broken."

"You could read its thoughts?" Kiania asked.

"Yes, well, sort of. I'm sure I destroyed part of the brain; I wasn't gentle when I shoved the hair in, but yes, I made a connection of sorts. I got a brief glimpse of the Om mind, completely alien, and the thoughts did not make sense. But even worse was that I could tell that part of the brain was still human," she said with horror. I could feel it for a brief second. I doubt it was aware, but it was there."

Sandy felt a calmness settle over her despite reliving that moment. She smiled gratefully at Rhys. "Thanks, I didn't have time to think about it before, and it's something I'd rather not dwell on, but God Rhys, they are transforming humans, using them to make Trangrods. Every time we kill one, we are killing people. There were hundreds of Trangrods in that base, or nest, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. What about the larger ones we see? There might be thousands, and what about China!" she added, wondering how many humans had been given over to the Om.

"I know, this makes it even worse. The larger bases we have detected will have to be dealt with soon. Hopefully, Thea has a solution because we do not have enough men to attack one of those. We are lucky we hit a smaller base, or we would have been quickly overrun. This will change our strategy; we are too few to fight this alone. We will have to move up our timetable as much as possible with Anita and you, Nelya."

"How will you do that? " Nelya asked, "I have no influence with the President?"

"To quote an old movie, we will make him an offer he can't refuse," Rhys said grimly. "It's even more important now that he is aware that aliens exist and were fighting in Moscow; he can't be trusted. I am sure he will consider making an accommodation with the Om in exchange for technology as he learns more. You must watch him carefully, Nelya, and we must be especially vigilant with your security."

Anita is likewise even more important now because most intelligence services worldwide know something strange is happening. I am not ready to go public yet, but we can't keep hiding this much longer, the Om has become too bold, and that worries me," Rhys said while at the same time he felt something predatory at the back of his mind. Flashes of the fight with the Om appeared in his mind, along with a deep satisfaction at hunting and killing the Trangords. Not just satisfaction but an eagerness to indulge himself in the excitement of hunting and killing the Om..

Rhys stopped his pacing and looked back at Sandy and Kiania, seeing them through the eyes of the predator inside him. He could smell their reaction to him, the increased breathing and subtle movements indicating their readiness to mate. "Mine," a voice whispered with a carnal craving so intense that Rhys struggled to control the urge to ravish the two women. The beast inside responded with a surge of anger that it was being denied, and Rhys felt himself begin to shift. "No!" he shouted out loud, fighting the rising fury, the need to change into the beast-like form of a dragon. Rhys fought to remain in control, but the hunger inside him boiled, and the battle within his mind was every bit as intense as the fight with the Om. Two parts of him clashed, each struggling for domination. Rhys stood still, his muscles locked as the war within his mind was fought, as before the outcome teetering on the edge of a precipice, chaos, and rage on one side, rational thought on the other, and neither opponent able to make the final push for dominance.

The entity observed the struggle by the 'One' to maintain its original nature and not be subsumed by the uncontrolled fury that resided in an unbound symbiont. This is what it had feared when it first realized what the Drans had done; the humans' former masters must have known what they were creating. Only desperation would have driven them to this extreme. It had been tried before with disaster for the Drans and may now spell the end for this species.

Millennia of captivity left the entity with only two desires; freedom from the cage the Drans had locked it in and the destruction of the Om. Without the human/symbiont warriors the Drans had created, the entity calculated its chances of surviving were effectively zero. Therefore It must now intervene to preserve this unstable and perilous Drans creation despite how abhorrent and dangerous it was. The nanobytes would ensure that any survivors of the battle with the Om would be destroyed, but for now, they must survive. The entity reached for the thread of reality connecting it to the strange human/symbiont binary it had helped create. Through that connection, the entity fed power to the nanobytes and into Rhys' symbiont, the part the human still controlled.

The binary was examining the field strength equations designed to absorb energy from the Om laser weapon, intent on discovering how their calculations had been wrong. The power generated by the fields should have been able to safely absorb and deflect the energy produced by the centipede Trangrods. Instead, they had failed, and men had died, and their failure had put the others at deadly risk. A rapidly changing hologram revolved in front of them as the Bao/Mei mind argued with itself about possible solutions. The Binary mind was not as monolithic as the others presumed; at times like this, the brain was able to partially separate. A sort of unfolding of the combined mind that allowed contrasting and diverging viewpoints. It was an effective method for attacking a problem, but right now, the two parts of the brain could not agree.

The binary spared a moment to examine this phenomenon; it was not sure it had ever happened before; how could one mind hold divergent views and argue with itself? However, amid this self-examination, it felt a familiar trickle of power, just enough to register, but the Binary knew it immediately. "Rhys," it informed Thea through the tendrils of hair connecting the three of them and the AI.

Thea sprang to her feet, racing after the two naked bodies as the Binary sped through empty corridors towards the house and came to a stop at the sight of Sandy and Kiania as a wall of arousal swept over her. Thea fell to her knees with a moan as a torrent of lust hit her mind making coherent thought almost impossible. She tore at her clothes, her finger reaching for her sex, entirely overcome by the pheromones and violently intense emotions forced on her by Rhys.

The binary had also felt the wall of emotions, but it had less effect because of the whisper of power flowing through them. Then, running directly to Rhys, the Binary saw their nanobytes reach out to Rhys, merging with his, and the three of them were enclosed in a glowing silvery cloud.

Rhys struggled to maintain the delicate balance, that slightest bit of control that kept the beast from taking control. He could hear the siren call of power, a bottomless pit of fury that threatened to suck him down and let the beast come to the surface. However, Rhys felt rather than saw his nanobytes reach out for the Binary's, and as they touched him, the three different clouds coalesced into one. At that instant, the familiar energy surge flowed through the three of them, much weaker than usual, but it was enough to break the delicate balance, and Rhys shoved the beast down, retaking control. The dragon roared with frustration and anger as it was ruthlessly locked away in Rhys's mind, mentally chained and locked into the cage.

***

Sandy giggled as she half fell through the door to the penthouse, her arm around the man she was with, pulling him inside. With her. Hurry, she said drunkenly, pulling at his clothes. Roy Thompson had gotten lucky tonight, finding this beautiful redhead staying in the hotel. He came for business but ended up staying for pleasure. Laughing, he pulled the woman in close for a kiss and to feel that gorgeous body pressed against his. My God was he hard; Roy hadn't felt this aroused for years. The woman had succeeded in getting his clothes off, and he stood awkwardly for a moment as she stepped away, still fully clothed. He gasped when she stepped out of her short dress and realized she wore nothing under it except a ring through the hood of her clit. She was the most beautiful woman Roy had ever seen, with large perfect breasts, narrow waist flaring out to smoothly rounded hips, and long legs still in stockings and heels.

"Come on," she said seductively, walking over to the bed. Roy followed her like a new puppy followed its master, his erection leading the way. He reached for her, but she moved away, giggling, and then pushed him onto the bed.

"Roll over on your stomach, first a little back rub to get you in the mood." She said,

Roy did as she asked, but there was no need for it; he was well past being in the mood, mainly because he just wanted to get his cock in her. His cock was so hard it was uncomfortable laying on his stomach, but the feel of nylon-covered legs straddling him and hard nipples rubbing over his back kept him content for the moment. Then he felt her hands and long fingernails scratching up his spine and to the base of his head, and that just added to the eroticism of the moment. Then, finally, the hands paused and massaged him right at the bottom of his skull. He gasped at a slight pain there, and then he was still, his body frozen in position, unable to move.

Sandy was equally excited, but for a different reason. Stands of her hair had entered unnoticed into Roy's spine and through the base of his brain. She had complete control of his body, which she kept frozen in place; he couldn't move a muscle. The brain was another problem, though. She had complete control of his autonomous system; she could stop his heart or breathing anytime she wanted. However, it was the higher level thinking she wanted, the decision-making parts of his brain. Sandy had to be careful; even a single strand of hair could damage the brain, cause a stroke, or interrupt critical functions. She had sent her symbiont after all the recent neurological research, the Brain Machine Interface, and the experiments involving memory formation. However, the part of the brain she was looking for was the more primitive part, the area controlling desires, behavior, and greed.

Roy was not a violent man; he was greedy and morally ambivalent. As a successful banker, he laundered money for the less desirable parts of the economy, drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Roy didn't really care. He was very good at his job; give him a million dollars, and forty-eight hours later, you got back nine hundred thousand clean. His customers considered ten percent an excellent deal, and Roy had made a lot of money. The problem for Sandy was that Roy was one of Anita's significant campaign contributors, which would hurt her if his activities ever came to light. So Roy was an ideal candidate to test her abilities on. If Sandy killed him or left him a vegetable, it was no loss, but Roy was an experiment in behavior modification.

"There," she said to herself as a tendril poked into the part of the brain associated with primitive fears, essential fight or flight functions, and the deep emotional processes, guilt, love sex. It was guilt and fear she was looking for, and she found them. Nineteen minutes later, Sandy rolled off Mr. Thompson, stepped into her dress, and pulled it up into place without ever removing her hair from his body. Now Roy would feel a potent combination of guilt and fear whenever he thought of money laundering or any criminal activity. She wondered if the fear would be so intense that Roy would pee himself; she hoped so. Sandy felt a little guilty for doing this, not for the changes she had hopefully made to Roy there, but because she had not told Rhys what she was going to do. This would solve a problem with Roy, but she wanted to practice on someone before she used her newfound skills on Anita.

Anita's stubbornness was proving to be a problem. Her connection to her husband was more vital than they had anticipated and something they would have to account for in the future. Confessing her new relationship would spark a divorce, and they couldn't afford the bad publicity at this critical point; besides, refusing to wear the clothes Sandy had picked out was a rebellion that she couldn't tolerate. Anita had no fashion sense, but that was just an excuse, and Sandy knew it. She wanted Anita to be submissive and obedient, as Rhys had promised her, and she intended to have it.

Sighing, she looked at Roy. He had proven an excellent experimental subject and a successful one, she hoped. It would be bad for Roy if it didn't work; she would have to kill him. She thought of one more experiment, and Sandy rolled him over onto his back, Roy's erection still poking up into the air. Carefully she inserted strands of hair into his penis, testicles, and around his prostate. Sandy let Roy moan, testing each one, sorting out those that were pleasurable and those that caused pain, and filing the information for future use. Then when she had complete control, she gave Roy the climax of his life, his cock spurting cum into the air and onto his stomach and chest. Impressive, Sandy thought as cum continued to flow. I bet he never came that much in his life and never will again.