Queen of Jarilo

Instead, there was only the Queen's immovable bulk, encased in armor that was as hard as plastic. There was a little give to it, and it was pleasantly smooth to the touch, but it was no substitute for the tender body of an eager woman.

She hooked her thumbs beneath his jacket, opening it up and sliding it off him to expose his torso, her eyes staring intently as she ran her hands across his body. She was so tactile, her four hands were roaming everywhere, Walker twisting and gasping as they glided across his skin. If she could sense the electrical currents in his nervous system, what else could she sense? She could smell his every emotion as his pheromones leaked from his pores, she could watch his nerves light up with pleasure like she was flipping switches, perhaps she could see his body heat or sense his blood as it rushed through his veins as well. He was completely naked, not in the sense that she was removing his clothing, but in the fact that he couldn't hide anything from her. Every twitch, every rush of excitement and arousal that coursed through him, she could read him like an open book.

Her hard fingers crawled down his spine, her hand cupping his ass, and she drew him closer. There was a brief moment of resistance, and then his member slid inside her, the first rib of her alien passage rolling over his exposed glans and sending a jolt of ecstasy coursing through his body. She felt him shudder, cradling him in her many arms, watching him carefully with her deep blue eyes in order to gauge his reaction.

She was so wet, her viscous fluids coating his member in a layer of slippery lubricant, making their coupling smooth and slick. The maddening bumps that lined her fleshy passage were barriers that must be breached, however, Walker gritting his teeth as she pulled him deeper. Each ridge of silken flesh was just firm enough that it dug into his tender head, pleasure of such intensity that it bordered on pain making him ache and throb inside her.

One, two, three and four. The ridges just kept coming, grazing his most sensitive anatomy, until finally the felt a dull thud as she took him as deep as he could go. He was pressed flush against her torso, his red cheek resting against the hard, cool plates of her thorax. He realized that he was clinging to her as if for dear life, his arms wrapped around her waist as far as they would go, his fingers failing to meet on the other side such was her girth. It was like hugging an oil drum.

Three of her massive hands rested on his bare back, tickling his skin as they caressed him, the fourth combing his hair with its hard fingers. Walker's heart skipped a beat, his member jumping as her muscular tunnel contracted, kneading him like a fist gloved in damp velvet.

It was...nice. Really nice. Maybe it was her pheromones playing tricks on his mind, or maybe it was her doting demeanor, but he was enjoying his encounter with her a lot more than he had expected to. He wasn't even paying attention to the Drones and Workers in the chamber, it was as if everything besides the Queen had melted away. She was beautiful in a way, regal, her eyes burning like a pair of sapphires when he dared to glance up at her. Her iridescent carapace shifted hues with every subtle movement of her towering body, refracting light as if she was coated in a layer of finely cut gemstones, from sky blue to navy and purple. She was mesmerizing.

Her pheromones were overpowering, so much more potent than those of the lower castes. It was almost like she had jacked directly into his brain. Her scent...it was the most wonderful smell that had ever graced the Universe. It was sexual and suggestive, reminding him of long nights spent in the passionate embrace of past lovers, the unmistakable musk of two bodies roiling together beneath sodden bed sheets. Yet it was also perfumed and clean, like rosewater, or the fresh aroma of a scented body wash. It was all the flowers of the world rolled into one breath, the taste of every fruit condensed into a mouthful, an ambrosial nectar that teased his senses with its unearthly perfection.

He knew what was happening, of course. Her body was putting out pheromones that were to be interpreted as good or desirable, and so his brain scrambled to collect smells and tastes that fit the criteria and jumbled them all into a rough approximation of her intent. The result was a wonderful synesthesia, it was like dropping acid.

He realized that he hadn't been moving, he had just been clinging to her, his member flexing and pulsing as it soaked inside her warm passage. Her immense size made her feel somehow untouchable, immovable, and yet her massive body responded to his every twitch. He could feel her loins contract and squeeze, her torso rippling as she began to succumb to pleasures of her own.

He wanted to thrust, his burning body demanding that he seek out more pleasure, but he was almost afraid of those cruel ribs. He had to pull back some time, he couldn't stay buried to the hilt forever.

The Queen made his decision for him, wrapping one hand around his waist and pulling him back slowly, each rib catching on his glans as he slid out of her. He shivered and pushed his face into her thorax, stifling an unbecoming whine, trembling as her tight loins dragged up his shaft.

<ARE YOU IN DISTRESS? YOU ARE SHAKING.>

"N-No, I'm fine. I'm just...it feels good."

<I AM PLEASED. I WILL TRY TO BE GENTLE.>

She drew him towards her again, her hand resting on his rump, pressing him deep into her welcoming passage. Her slick muscles greeted him with cruel contractions that sent sparks flying through his brain, Walker biting his lip as her ribbed insides slid down his member. His hands roamed across her hard body, searching for something to grip onto, eventually coming to rest about her wide hips as he loosed a long sigh and sank into her embrace. He leaned against her, feeling the bumps of her exoskeleton as his red face rested against her torso. There was soft meat and firm muscle beneath her exoskeleton, he could feel it flexing and shifting tantalizingly beneath the surface, but he could not reach it.

She rested her hand on the back of his head, hugging him against her body as his hips began to roll of their own accord, the Queen responding to his slow thrusts with a gentle rocking motion of her own. True to her word, she was being remarkably gentle with him. It would not do to damage her only path to peace, after all.

The tempo of their coupling began to rise, their pace increasing as they ground their hips together, her loins pulling him in as if they had a mind of their own. She cradled him in her arms, like a child holding her favorite doll, her hands large enough to encompass almost all of his exposed skin.

Their position felt a little precarious, sitting on the giant egg sack that was suspended from the ceiling by naught but a single cable, though he doubted that the extra weight that he had added would cause it to fall. It swayed slowly with her motions, swinging gently as she thrust forward to meet him.

Walker gripped her more tightly, almost desperately, her pheromones dizzying him as they began to make love in earnest. She was driving him wild. She looked and felt like what she was, a giant insect that was twice as tall as a man, yet her alluring scent was that of Venus herself. Before his...augmentation, he had scarcely been aware of this aspect of his senses, pheromones had not even registered to him. Now it was all that he could think about, a sense that overpowered both sight and touch in its intensity.

He was already getting close, the incessant spasming of her loins as they engulfed his member to the hilt sending waves of pleasure crashing over him. He was acutely aware of every ridge and imperfection that detailed the inside of her silken tunnel, her damp walls closing around him with an almost prehensile skill and dexterity as they massaged his length. The three appendages that ringed her opening gripped the base of his shaft like soft fingers, guiding him in and out of her as their vigorous coupling dragged on.

The Queen seemed to be enjoying herself too. She wasn't quite as taken as he was, but her eyelids were drooping, and her mandibles were twitching erratically. Her long body was gyrating, arching towards him as he clawed at her armored hips and ran his hands along the inner surface of her glass-smooth thighs.

<SO ENERGETIC. THE MALES OF MY HIVE VIEW PROCREATION AS A DUTY, AND NOTHING MORE. THOUGH I DO NOT DOUBT THAT THEY ENJOY IT, YOUR THIRST FOR ME IS...ENDEARING.>

"Your females don't seem to share that sentiment," Walker panted, his voice wavering as he kept up the pace. For a moment he wondered why she wasn't breathing heavily and why her voice was not cracking under the strain of their lovemaking, but then he remembered that she wasn't talking with her mouth. He had almost forgotten. This form of pheromone communication was becoming second nature to him now, so much so that he could scarcely tell the difference anymore.

<IT WAS A RARE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEM. I WOULD HAVE FORBADE IT, HAD YOU BEEN GENETICALLY COMPATIBLE WITH MY BROOD. BUT YOUR ALIEN DNA IS TOO DIFFERENT FROM OUR OWN. IN TIMES OF GREAT NEED THE CASTES CAN REPRODUCE UNDER THEIR OWN POWER, RAISE THEIR OWN OFFSPRING. DESPITE HOW RARELY THAT BECOMES NECESSARY, IT WOULD BE IMPRUDENT TO EDIT THAT INSTINCT OUT OF THEIR GENOME.>

Did the Queen really have such fine control over the genetics of her children? Were these procedures performed in some kind of laboratory, or within her very body?

Screw it, he couldn't hope to concentrate on such matters in this situation. His brain was fogged with seething arousal, and his mind was in a shambles. His head was flooded with flashes of memories and half-remembered sensations, while his body was under the thumb of the Queen, her every subtle movement searing his nerves with raw pleasure.

Their pace became frantic, Walker digging his fingers into her hard shell as they slammed their hips together, the Queen pushing forward to meet his thrusts. He could feel her insides clenching and rippling around his member, her already tight tunnel narrowing even further as his erection rubbed against her deepest reaches. She was remarkably sensitive, her muscular walls flowing up his shaft in wracking waves, grinding those harsh ribs along his length as if trying to milk him of his emission.

She was close to succeeding, tremors running through his body as his excitement mounted, the rising pleasure becoming too much to bear. His royal partner seemed to sense the pressure that was rising within him, his pheromones no doubt betraying him to her. She wrapped her hands around him, holding him tightly against her body, taking him as deep as he could go.

He teetered on the precipice for a moment, enclosed in a prison of long fingers, before her rhythmic contractions drove him over the edge. The moment the first wad of his emission hit her silken passage, he felt something new, his eyes widening as he was gripped by a powerful suction of such intensity that it dwarfed anything that he had experienced before. Her insides sealed around him as if his cock was being vacuum-packed, her muscles squeezing with such intensity that he feared she might crush him. They kneaded his erection from the base to the tip like a farmhand milking a cow, those cruel rings of muscles digging into his skin as they dragged out his orgasm.

The pleasure was raw and harsh, a deep ache penetrating him to the core, tingling sensations invading his extremities like he had slept on them wrong. He tried to arch his spine, tried to writhe, but she held him tightly against her. She had him pinned, keeping him as deep inside her as his length would allow, his nerves lighting up like a switchboard.

He buried his face in the twin rows of hard plates that lined her torso, loosing a bestial grunt, his conscious mind receding and the corners of his vision darkening as he endured. His muscles tensed and spasmed, his body struggling to meet the Queen's demand as her loins wrung him dry.

It wasn't stopping. Walker wouldn't have thought it possible that he could even store this much of it inside him, every wrenching compression of her slippery insides forcing him to give her another load. He was flooding her, ropes of his warm ejaculate flowing from him as her ribbed loins tortured him.

He should have anticipated something like this, she had been tailored by evolution and likely by genetic tweaking for a singular purpose, to breed. She wanted as much as he could give her and she wasn't going to spill a drop of it. It was brutally efficient.

Just when he thought that he might no longer be able to stand the ecstasy that was burning through his body like a wildfire, she relented, provoking one final shudder from Walker as he gave her the last of his essence. He panted hard, the Queen supporting him with her large hands. He felt like she had just sucked his soul out of him through his cock. All he wanted to do now was to lie down and bask in the afterglow that was settling over him like a warm blanket, to sleep. He had more pressing concerns, however.

"I-Is it done?" Walker stammered, breathing heavily as he lay against her torso. She stroked his back with her large hands, almost apologetic, her claw-like fingers tracing his spine.

<IT IS DONE. OUR HIVES ARE JOINED, AND MY BROOD WILL NOW VIEW YOU AS THEY WOULD A QUEEN. YOU HAVE GIVEN ME YOUR SEED, AND I WILL MAKE USE OF IT TO CREATE A NEW GENERATION THAT WILL CARRY BOTH OUR GENES. WE WILL BE AS ONE.>

His stomach lurched as she lifted him off her egg sack, depositing him on the floor with her long arms, and he stooped to pick up his discarded jacket. He pulled it on, his legs still a little shaky, almost falling over as he struggled to get his bearings. The euphoria lingered, making him slow and giddy. As much as he wanted to enjoy the sensation, he had to push through it.

That was it then, he was now king of the Bugs. Time to get to work.

"If there are any attacks happening right now, call them off. Bring every soldier that's out in the field back to the hive. I assume you have a way to contact them?"

<UNDERSTOOD, I WILL HALT ALL HOSTILITIES AGAINST YOUR HIVE.>

"I need to get back to my people and let them know what's happened," he said, trying to wipe away some of the sweat from his brow on his sleeve. "Give me a Drone escort and have them lead me to the nearest UNN base. The nearest...hive."

<I WILL DO AS YOU ASK, IF YOU BELIEVE IT TO BE THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION.>

"I have no doubt that my superiors will accept my decision, and your peace terms, but it may take some time to explain what has happened. I have to make them understand. During that time I don't want to see any Bugs on the surface, keep everyone inside the hive until I return. Any hostilities might be seen as a breach of the surrender terms."

She released a puff of affirmative pheromones, the insect equivalent of a nod. Two of the winged males from her entourage sidled up beside him, their plasma pistols holstered in shaped recesses in their armored thighs. They were behaving differently now, no longer curious and wary of him. He sensed the same respect from them that they gave the Queen, a kind of deference. He couldn't communicate with them very well, at least not yet, but they would do as the Queen told them without fault.

"Tell my guards not to draw their weapons under any circumstances, and not to respond to hostility in kind. This has to be resolved through communication, not violence."

She relayed his instructions to the Drones and then they began to walk away, waiting for Walker by the large door to the Queen's chamber.

<THERE IS A HIVE NOT FAR FROM HERE, OR A BASE, AS YOU REFER TO IT. MY DRONES WILL TAKE YOU THERE.>

"I'll be back soon, hopefully," he said as he turned to leave. Was he going to come back? What would his life be like now? He could have the medics ferry him back to the Pinwheel, have the UNN surgeons try to remove his grafted organ, but would they be able to do that? Somehow he doubted that human doctors could hold a candle to the Bugs. Besides, did he want to have his smaste organ removed? Did he want to leave the hive? He felt an odd affinity with the creatures now, he was bound to them by blood. Or at least he would be as soon as the Queen started to birth a new brood that carried his DNA.

He would be a literal father to the hive, the originator of their genome in part. He couldn't abandon his children, forsake his promise to the Queen. Maybe it was just the insidious pheromones talking, clouding his better judgment, but weren't all emotions just chemical impulses in the brain? What did it matter what the origin of that emotion was, as long as it was genuine? He had come to care about them and their welfare, and it was only through his intervention that the two sides of this conflict could come to an understanding.

The Bugs would need an advocate, after all. A translator, an ambassador to speak on their behalf. There was nobody else, only Walker could ensure their survival, and lasting peace on Jarilo.

CHAPTER 17: ARMISTICE

"Keep them back!" Korza shouted over the din of battle, "don't let them reach cover by those prefabs!"

The defenders focused their fire on a squad of Drones that had been sneaking around the perimeter of the compound, hiding in the shadow of the wall. Before long their blood and viscera was staining the metal like splotches of green and orange paint, the Borealans switching targets as another group breached the entrance to the base and fanned out in an attempt to make themselves harder to hit.

"They just keep throwing themselves at us," Gorza muttered. "It's like they don't care about their own lives. It goes beyond valor, it's madness."

"This is how they overcame Delta's defenses," Colonel Lopez added as he swapped out the spent battery on his pistol for a fresh one. Not only did their weapons drain ammo, but the batteries had been be replaced too after their electrical charge was depleted. "Wave after wave of Bugs came crashing against our defenses like a tide against the rocks. It took them a while, and it cost them more than any UNN general would have been willing to pay, but they broke through and overran us."

"They'll do the same to us if that damned extraction ship doesn't arrive in time," Korza hissed.

"They'll be here," Kaz said as she tried to reassure her exhausted comrades. "My scouts will have made it back to Charlie by now. The morning has already come."

"I know the morning has come," the gruff Elysian replied bitterly, "the sunlight is in my damned eyes. They're using it as cover."

"Then put your helmet on and tint the visor."

"I can't see properly with the helmet on," he complained.

One of the scouts shouted over their argument, pausing between shots.

"Phalanx incoming!"

Korza snarled and braced himself, tugging the stock of the anti-material rifle tight against his shoulder. He angled it down towards the line of Drones that was advancing through the breach, their shields raised in defense as they stepped over their dead comrades. There was an electrical whir as the rifle's capacitors charged from the portable battery pack.

"Why do they keep coming?" the shock trooper to Kaz's left asked. "They keep trying to breach, and we keep stopping them. They've seen every phalanx that came before them be destroyed, yet they stay the course. Are they insane? Are they unthinking creatures with no ability to reason?"

"It's simple," Kaz replied, her tone dour. "They know that they have more men than we have bullets. They're counting on us killing them, and they'll keep throwing Drones at us until we've expended all of our ammunition and they can just walk right up to the tower."