Queen of Jarilo

The stimulation was pushing him close to the edge already, the Repletes sensing the pheromones that his traitorous body was pumping out, practically drooling as they watched his body writhe. He felt Cherry's tongue snake out of her mouth to wet his cheek, tasting his sweat. She glanced down at her sister, her mouthparts waving in the air excitedly.

<ARE YOU FEEDING?>

<NO. THE HONEY WILL NOT COME.>

Of course, she could talk with her mouth full. She had no vocal cords, and she used pheromones to communicate. Hell, if she wanted him to come so badly, he wasn't about to stand in her way. He shuffled around, putting Cherry directly behind him and leaning back against the soft pouch of her distended belly, her heavy breasts resting on his shoulders and cushioning his head. He put her sister in front of him, her mouth leaving his member with a wet pop when she felt him moving.

He grabbed the Replete's breasts in his hands, her eyelids fluttering as he manhandled them, struggling with their weight as he wrapped them around his erection. Her skin felt divine as it pressed around him, as smooth as silk and warm to the touch. He took her upper pair of hands as she watched with bewilderment, pressing them into the sides of her boobs so that the was squeezing them together, applying a wonderful pressure as his erection throbbed between them. Every twitch of his member sent a ripple through her bust, making the liquid inside wobble and shake like a plate of jello. They were so heavy that they were pressing him down into Cherry's stomach pouch, it was like sinking into a beanbag chair.

The Replete didn't understand what he was doing, but she was too inquisitive to refuse instruction, and she looked down to see the pink head of his cock protruding from between her boobs. He began to thrust slowly, pushing his hips up into her, watching as the ripples traveled across the surface of her bust with every impact. She understood what he wanted her to do, holding her breasts together as her eyes followed him.

Cherry watched from over his shoulder, her breasts brushing against his cheeks, more of the Repletes in the room craning their necks to peer at the bizarre scene. Cherry's hands roamed across his chest and belly, feeling his muscles shift beneath his skin. She seemed to enjoy the way that they flexed as he moved, tracing them with her fingers almost absent-mindedly as her eyes lingered on his member.

<THERE IS MORE.>

The Replete's tongue slid out of her mouth, lapping at his glans as it emerged from her cleavage, a shiver running up his spine as her wet muscle cleaned it of fluid. She seemed to be enjoying the sensation of his shaft brushing against her sensitive skin, too. She watched covetously, the silhouette of his manhood just barely visible through the amber liquid as it vanished between her breasts, then reached out with her long organ to lick it when it reappeared again.

Walker reached up a hand and delved into one of the boobs that was resting on his shoulder, they would have been heavy enough to be uncomfortable was it not for the seating arrangements. It was like sitting on a waterbed, he could feel the thick fluids inside shifting beneath him when he moved, displaced by his body weight.

The Replete's ample bust slapped against his hips as he thrust up into them, his pace growing more frantic as he felt his orgasm nearing. They were so warm and cushy, it was like fucking two living water balloons. Whenever his erection surfaced between them, it was licked by her prehensile tongue.

She seemed fixated on it, as if she liked the taste. Their purpose was to feed, after all, their entire physiology was geared towards it. Maybe she liked the protein content or the salt, it was hard to tell. She had used the same pheromone to describe his emissions as they did honey, which suggested that perhaps the Repletes sometimes fed on each other, maybe when food was scarce or when one Replete had an imbalance of the necessary nutrients required to produce the right kind of food.

That familiar pressure was rising inside him, demanding that he hasten his thrusting. The Repletes were so docile and cooperative, and he wondered what he could get away with. As dangerous as those mandibles looked, the allure of her tight throat was overriding, and so he took her stem-like horn in his hand and guided her head down towards his cock.

His glans brushed against her lips, wet with saliva, and he pushed into her mouth with some difficulty. Once again he felt her smooth flesh squeezing around his length as he buried his erection to the base, her slimy muscles immediately seizing around it as they began their relentless sucking. Walker grunted like a beast, it was like fucking a latex glove full of goo. Despite how slippery it was it, it only got tighter as his hips rolled reflexively. Her face was almost completely buried between her breasts now, Walker using her horn as a handle, leveraging it to plunge the quivering tube of muscle. He could feel her worm-like tongue gliding against his skin, inadvertently teasing him.

Like the Workers before her, she could not choke, she likely had no lungs and breathed through her abdomen as most arthropods did. There was so much contrasting hardness and softness with these Bugs, it confused his senses. The shell that made up her horn was as hard as fiberglass, and yet her breasts were far softer and more malleable than those of a woman. Her mandibles were sharp and pointy, while the inside of her mouth made him feel as if his member was being wrapped in some rare and luxurious silk. He couldn't hold out for long, his abdominal muscles clenching beneath Cherry's curious fingers as her counterpart's pitiless suction sent a climax rippling through his body.

Her muscles milked him in waves, rolling up his shaft and wringing him of his emission, his body as stiff as a board as he doubled over and gripped the stem of her horn with both hands. He gritted his teeth, the pleasure so intense as to be almost painful, his legs trembling and his toes curling as he pumped her mouth full of his ejaculate. She drank it down greedily, the sensation of her swallowing around his member making him bite down on his fist to suppress a cry, his spine curving as tingling pleasure washed over him. His whole lower body felt numb, the Replete easing more out of him as her tongue lashed at his tender skin, trapping him in a relentless massage that made his vision blur.

She sucked him completely dry, letting his member fall from her mouth as she withdrew her face from between her breasts.

<BAD HONEY.>

Apparently, the nutritional content was not to her liking. Oh well.

The crowd of Repletes seemed drawn to his scent, however, the air thick with his sexual pheromones. More were reciprocating now, pleasant smells of perfume and body wash rising to his nose, some muskier and more lurid than others.

Another Replete shouldered her sister out of the way, taking up her place, prodding Walker's diminishing erection with her hard finger. It looked like he was going to be in for another exhausting night.

CHAPTER 12: A TASTE OF FREEDOM

Walker slowly opened his eyes, disturbed by movement around him. He blinked as his vision adjusted to the light of the strange moss that clustered on the roof. The Repletes in his vicinity were stirring, their day was about to begin. He was reluctant to rise from the nest of soft, fluid-filled pouches that he had been sleeping on. It was the first time since he had left Charlie that he had gotten a decent night's rest. He had eaten well too, and despite his lingering drowsiness, he felt invigorated.

Cherry took him by the hand, lifting him to his feet and tugging him along as she began to lumber towards one of the many exits. Walker was getting into the rhythm of life in the hive, the cycle seemed to be roughly twelve hours on and twelve hours off during a given day, or at least however many hours the days lasted on Jarilo.

He had spent some time with the Repletes, and now he was going to be passed along to another caste, at least that was what he assumed. What was left? The Drones? Pilots? The other castes were all new to him, and they seemed innocent enough, but he had seen first hand what the combat castes could do to people. He could scarcely look at a Drone without wanting to put a .45 through its helmet.

As Cherry led him around a corner and broke away from the larger group, he noticed something on the wall that made him turn his head to stare at it as they passed. It looked like a blob of green slime, as if someone had hocked a giant lump of snot at the wall. There was a dark spot in the center of the gelatinous mass that seemed to be moving. It was about the size of a marble, and though the goo wasn't quite transparent, he could make out what looked like a bundle of wires or maybe blood vessels that vanished beneath the soil. It was tracking him. He narrowed his eyes, watching the dark spot follow him as he walked down the dirt passage until it was out of view.

Had that been a camera of some kind? All of their technology seemed to be organic in nature, perhaps it was hooked up to some kind of surveillance system. Now that he thought about, whatever it was, it was small and unobtrusive. He had only noticed it because its movement had caught his eye. For all he knew, there could be hundreds, even thousands of them strewn throughout the hive. Who might be watching? That was the real question that was on his mind as he followed behind the lumbering Replete.

They traversed the winding maze of identical dirt tunnels that he was becoming so accustomed to. Walker hardly even saw the featureless walls of packed soil anymore, he navigated with his nose, seeing where was going and where others had been in his mind's eye. It was a multicolor map of smells and tastes, and he was growing more proficient at reading it. He could tell which direction would take him to food, he could smell traces of foliage and meat from the Replete feeding chamber, he could even determine which castes had been where. At least the ones whose smells he was familiar with.

He didn't know where Cherry was leading him, however, only where she wasn't. They weren't going towards the feeding room, and they weren't following the other Repletes, where might she be headed?

After what must have been at least half a mile of walking, they emerged into a domed room, this one identical to all the others at first glance. Walker bristled, Cherry's head turning to look at him as she smelled his fear. The room was lined with recesses dug into the walls, most of them occupied by Warriors. They were hanging from fleshy webs and organic cables, holding them upright as they stood limply, their bodies split down the middle to reveal their glistening innards. Tall Pilots were striding around, some of them examining or working on their organic suits, and numerous Workers scurried about beneath them at waist height in comparison to their larger counterparts.

This was some kind of garage, had to be. Were these Workers surgeons, or mechanics? Was there much of a difference in Betelgeusian society? There was...stuff all over the walls. It almost looked like someone had strung up entrails like Christmas decorations, but upon closer inspection, Walker realized that it was some kind of organic cabling. They ran between the recesses in the walls where the suits were housed and disappeared into holes in the dirt at intervals. There were also the usual light fixtures made from luminescent moss and other gelatinous objects of indeterminable purpose that clung to the walls like ugly growths.

The Workers connected and disconnected fleshy cables to the Warrior's carapaces, leaning inside the open cavities of the large, lobster-like suits and working on them with unidentifiable tools. They removed damaged sections of shell from the limbs, pockmarked with railgun fire or plasma burns, carrying them off to be replaced or repaired. It looked like battle damage, and Walker got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Had there been fighting since he had been captured? Were his comrades dying on Jarilo's surface while he was stuck down here, unable to help? Should he be doing more to sabotage the operations of the hive?

If this had been a hangar in a UNN base, then there would have been status readouts on computer consoles beside the berths, fueling lines running to the ships, and other loading machinery. There was none of that here, at least nothing that he could immediately recognize. There were work surfaces spread about the circular floor of the room, and large, blocky devices that seemed to be made from both organic and mechanical components. They looked like filing cabinets coated with slime to him, he had no way of knowing what any of it was for.

Did the Bugs even use computers? How would a species that only communicated through pheromones and had no written language to speak of write code, or input data? It was impossible for him to imagine a world without the microprocessor, without touch screens and integrated smart computers in everything from wristwatches to toilets. They must have math, you couldn't achieve space travel without the complex calculations required for things like orbital burns and superlight jumps, but how did they apply it?

His instinctual fear at the sight of the Warriors subsided slowly, they were all deactivated, or maybe asleep? He wasn't sure yet to what extent they were organic.

One of the tall Pilots noticed them, making her way over as the smaller Workers scurried out of her path, coming to a stop in front of Cherry as the two communicated. Walker concentrated hard, intent on understanding the exchange. It might reveal some clues as to what his purpose was here.

<HONEY CARRIER HAS BROUGHT ALIEN?>

<I GIVE AS INSTRUCTED, CARE FOR IT.>

Cherry turned to leave, lumbering back the way that she had come in her four-legged gait as her heavy, fluid-laden pouches swayed beneath her body. Apparently, Walker was now in the charge of this Pilot. He looked her up and down, sizing her up.

She was about seven feet tall, lanky, with long and thin limbs. Her two sets of arms were comparably sized, ending in long, spindly digits. Her torso was elongated in proportion to the rest of her body, and Walker remembered the first time that he had seen them and how their spines almost seemed to be open to the air. Presumably in order to facilitate their connection with the Warriors and the other Bug vehicles. This individual had the usual ornate, distinct horn, and a carapace that was an iridescent yellow-orange in color. Tangerine would be a fitting name for her.

She seemed to be examining him too, her wide, blue eyes panning over him. He felt a little self-conscious, he must smell of honey and sex. The most thorough shower in the world wouldn't have fooled their sensitive noses, or whatever it was that they used to smell.

<YOU ARE TO FOLLOW AND LEARN.>

Her pheromone conveyed a commanding tone, which made sense, as the Drones and Pilots made up the military branch of the hive. Maybe he would get along with these guys better than he had thought.

Where Fig and Cherry had led Walker around by the hand like a lost child, Tangerine expected him to follow on his own, and so he did. He understood enough of their language now to take instruction, more or less. He wasn't sure whether she somehow knew that fact or if she was just indifferent. He noticed that while the Pilots were turning to stare in his direction, the Workers were not. They went about their business as if he wasn't even there, which Walker found unusual. In the factory room, they had been fascinated by him. Was it possible that these were the same Workers from two days prior, and if so, did that mean that the colony was in fact much smaller than he had initially believed? An alternative explanation was that the hive was separated into smaller sections, each with its own population of Workers, Repletes, and soldiers. That was essentially what the UNN did, perhaps he was currently inside the Betelgeusian equivalent of a city district or a military base.

Tangerine had said that he was supposed to learn, but about what? Were they going to put him inside a Warrior suit and see if he could drive it around? If Walker had an enemy combatant that he was holding captive, the last thing he would do would be to give them a guided tour of his hangar bays and teach them to use his weapons.

She walked up to one of the slimy filing cabinets, and Walker edged close enough to get a better look at it. It wasn't perfectly square, it almost looked like a termite mound. If you somehow contracted an ant colony to build you a four-foot tall tower, this is what it would have looked like. It was irregular and misshapen, made from some kind of hard resin.

In a lot of ways, humans had unnatural tastes when it came to design and decoration. They wanted everything to be smooth and clean, angular and with straight edges. They built all of their technology into precise shapes as if the entire species was afflicted with some mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Bugs shared no such concerns, valuing function over form.

Its vaguely rectangular surface was covered in pustules, not unlike the camera that he had seen watching him in the tunnel. The mucous-green, gelatinous blobs were affixed to the tower seemingly at random, some of them wobbling and shifting as if they were alive. As he watched, Tangerine began to interact with them, her hands hanging at her sides as she released a series of complex pheromones. Many of them were too subtle and too finely layered for Walker to parse, at least not yet, and some of the pustules writhed and wobbled in response. She was communicating with them through smell, and they were answering her. What the hell were they? Were they alive? Was this some new caste of Betelgeusian that was dramatically different from the rest, or was it just some form of Bug technology?

She turned her attention towards one of the tunnels and Walker bristled as he watched a Warrior lumber into the room. It was tall and wide enough to completely fill the passage with its armored shell, its crab-like claws hanging below its segmented belly as its compound eyes reflected the light from the ceiling, seeming to glisten as it moved. It came directly towards them, Walker standing his ground despite his fear.

There was no reason for them to harm him at this stage, he was expected to learn something from the Bugs, passing him between the different castes served some purpose that he wasn't aware of yet.

Had Tangerine called this Warrior to them using the pustules on the resin tower? Of course, those gelatinous blobs had responded to her pheromones, they must serve as keys or buttons. It was like a kind of voice-activated console, but rather than detecting the speech of the user via a microphone, it somehow sensed the smells that the user emitted and translated them into some kind of signal. Was that how their computers worked, and how they were able to store and access data without writing?

If that was true, it was remarkable. If they had managed to build and operate even rudimentary computers with no written language and no tactile interface, that would mean that they had skipped many of the steps that had led humans towards modern computing. It was like some kind of Smell-O-Vision.

It spoke to the psychology of the Bugs. He had noticed that they didn't make many gestures in the way that humans and other races did, they had very little body language to speak of. They also seemed to favor pheromone communication over more tactile interactions. There was no reason not to write, no reason not to develop a keyboard and buttons that could be pressed, unless the idea was simply foreign to them. It had probably never even crossed their minds, no more than smell-activated computers would have seemed obvious to humans.