The Darkness You Bring

Yet, even as her sinews mounted the effort, her mind knew very well it was hopeless. We all knew it. Her genes may have been engineered for combat, but this simply wasn't the sort of fight her body had been built to win--a fight where the battlefield lay in the space between her own legs. Gradually, the pressure of the man's assault wore down her stubborn opposition. Bit by bit, he cracked her open... sank himself deeper... prized her apart...

It seemed as if it took an eternity; but at length, grunting and breathing heavily, he reached inside her to his full depth--pressing his groin against her asshole, and bumping his testicles on her clit. He let loose with a growl of satisfaction, then, at the feel of his shaft fully sheathed in the tightness of her canal, and his glans knocking up against her womb.

She whimpered, and her shoulders slumped, and you could see the self-respect leaking out of her, drop by drop. Sucking his dick nearly all the way from her tract, he slammed home again, sharper and quicker this time. Her head jerked and her ass swayed.... Then again he pounded her... And again...

This fourth time, his lunge tore an involuntary moan from her lips. It was no simple cry of pleasure, I thought, but something more complex, and multi-layered. There were lilting notes of pleasure in it, without a doubt. As Reyalis's body had slowly yielded to the man, it was obvious that she'd begun to enjoy the sensations his thrusts produced. One only need look at how engorged her clit had become, and at the wetness that was starting to glisten and seep from her opening, to confirm it.

But that moan held other things as well. Things like bewilderment, and humiliation, and submission to a greater force. To have her own fighters--her inferiors in every sense of the word--not only flout her, but also strip her, and fuck her, without her either desiring or consenting to it? It upended everything she thought she knew. Cast her adrift from the place she'd always thought she occupied in the universal order.

She couldn't remain unmoored like that, though; not if she wished to hold her shattered mind together. In order to go on from here at all, she would need to begin reconciling herself to the loss of what she had been. She would need to come to grips with the altered conditions she found herself in, and make a sort of peace with what she had become.

In short, she must accept that what Balaan said was true: that she really was below these soldiers now, in every way that mattered, and fit for nothing except to service their desires.

Balaan caught the change in her manner, and a grim smile of satisfaction crossed his lips. Fast and hard and rough he plowed her, sucking all the enjoyment he could from this woman who had for so long tormented them. With her resistance broken at last, her body served him willingly. Gratified murmurs bubbled in her throat; and she chafed her nipples eagerly against the soggy bracken below; and her ass rammed backward to receive the man's thrusts.

And when, at length, her rapist began to ejaculate inside her, she welcomed it, even exulted in it. If she no longer existed to command, then it must be true that she existed to serve. And there was no doubt that she had served Balaan well. Basking in that rush of sublime abnegation, she began to climax along with him--a gentle, quaking, rhapsodic orgasm of stimulated flesh and ceded control.

With Jeffer and the other men, it went easier. Reyalis was broken-in now, relaxed, sloppy. She thrilled and moaned to feel each one in turn insert their cock into her hole. She squirmed and pleaded for them to use her hard--to plumb her insides with their shafts; to tease and provoke her clit with their fingers; to squeeze and slap her ass with their strong, hard hands. And then, every time they flooded her cunt with their semen, she felt that same delicious surge of fulfilment and self-renunciation, and her mind coursed once more through wondrous oceans of erotic bliss.

If I had been offered a turn, would I have accepted? I strongly suspect I would.

But they didn't offer; and I didn't dare discover what would happen if I barged in on their proceedings uninvited...

Afterwards, the men suited up again. Reyalis, however, remained where she was: dazed, overwhelmed, exhausted. I kept expecting her to make some gesture toward modesty, but she didn't. Just went right on presenting herself like a bitch in heat--thighs spread wide, pussy plump and red, vagina freely oozing the cum of five men. I believe she'd simply had all the dignity trampled out of her.

To see so proud a woman brought so low was deeply affecting. But I struggled with what to make of it. Was the scene I'd just witnessed rough justice? Or simply abuse...?

Long before Reyalis had recovered her equilibrium, the soldiers were ready to move again. Most of the day remained ahead of us, and our provisions were nearly spent. To survive, we had to get to E'ban.

Shiyava fashioned a sort of leash from the broken length of rope used during the river crossing. Securing it around Reyalis's neck, she dragged the prisoner to her feet. Then we resumed our trek down the Heartline. The jumbled pieces of the infinalloy suit were soon lost to view behind us.

The slog seemed endless. We met no more barricades or boobytraps from Kirz. Our enemy had become Barnards itself, and it was winning. The heat was scorching, the footing uneven. Billows of infinitesimal mites rained down on us from the trees, squeezing easily past the armor-gaskets of the troopers and my own starchy collar, to sting and irritate our sweaty skin. We were out of potable water, and had hardly any food left.

Bereft of a leader, the unit's order and discipline began to disintegrate. Soon, the track behind us was littered with autoguns, rocket packs, kevvron greaves and vambraces. It was the sad detritus of a defeated army.

Even in the depths of my own desperation, I was disturbed by such short-sightedness. It was starting to appear that if we ever did make it to E'ban, we'd be reduced to throwing ourselves on Kirz's mercy. The nukes were gone, useless without the command codes in the mechsuit. Most of our ammo was spent or abandoned. Likewise the majority of the weapons and armor.

However, there seemed very little I could do about it. Just supposing I could have mustered the guts to confront them, I still don't believe the shockers would have listened to me.

We dropped where we stood that evening to try and catch some sleep, a bedraggled, pathetic mob. No one set a watch. And when we awoke, at the dawn of that ninth day out of Captown, we discovered that three of the troopers had skulked off in the night. I couldn't begin to guess where they'd gone, or what they expected to gain by leaving. They simply melted away, without a trace.

Onward we trudged, those of us who were left, feet raw and shoulders sagging. We had been cast adrift in a land of extravagant wetness; and yet our tongues clung thick and dry to the tops of our mouths. I tried to cackle at the absurdity of it all, but managed little more than a strangled croak.

We were getting close to E'ban now--encountering more and more signs of habitation. A few times we stopped to search a fabmodule or farmstead, hoping to find a watertank with some dregs in it, or an overlooked mealpack. But every place we passed was empty and torched and ruined, and it only wasted our strength to look.

As the morning wore on, the remaining soldiers gradually dropped along the wayside, one by one by one. Jeffer walked off into the brush, and we heard a clatter of autogun fire. Balaan was simply gone--I don't know when it happened. Shiyava drank from a fetid puddle over my protests, and curled up holding her stomach a few minutes later, refusing to go any further...

By noon only Amaya, Reyalis, and I remained. We'd perched ourselves on a fallen log at the edge of the track, clinging limply to a small patch of shade. I believed we were finished.

Suddenly, without warning Amaya seemed to reach a decision. She stood and handed me the leash, her posture erect and a fresh spark of resolution in her eyes. "I'm going back for Zefon." As I watched, her diminutive form receded, and then vanished altogether... merging off into those hundreds of kilometers of trail that we'd labored so desperately to cover. She must have known it was hopeless, but I admired her for it. She faced the end doing what she wanted--reaching out to the person she loved.

As for me, I didn't intend to move again. It was over. We'd lost. What was the point in putting myself through even one more kilometer of this damnable road? I dropped the leash. Reyalis could do what she wanted.

I'm not sure how long I sat there, waiting to die, half-delirious from thirst and privation and stress. But when, eventually, I caught sight of a bare-skinned, tawny hued goddess gliding down the Heartline toward us, I still retained enough of my faculties to understand that my mind was shot. For that reason, I didn't trust my senses in the least.

It was only as she drew close, and I squinted carefully through the hazy rays of sunlight, that I recognized that lovely vision as Jayell--the colleague who'd traveled this road before me. In truth, I'd always been curious what she looked like beneath her bureaucratic attire of high-necked linen blouses and ankle-length flannel skirts. The irony, of course, is that when I finally had the chance to find out, I was too far gone to fully savor it.

Well, I still have my memories. And looking back, I'd say Jayell was every bit as mouthwatering as I imagined she'd be, with her pert, beckoning teats, chocolate nipples, trim waist, and neatly groomed patch of pubic hair. However, in the heat of that moment, I was unable to process much beyond the sheer surprise of seeing her there. "Jayell," I rasped, "you... you're not dead?"

She gave a musical laugh--like the waterfall in the director's zen garden, cascading lightly over the pebbles below. "Still haven't lost your knack for stating the obvious, huh?"

I took in her nakedness again, this time with a glimmer of comprehension. "You went over to him?"

"Come back to E'ban with me. He wants to meet you. Just give him a chance--the man is a genius."

In my shock at seeing her, I hadn't even noticed the large gourd, or hollow-tuber, that she held slung over her shoulder by a strap. She uncorked it now and handed it to me. "It's safe." I drank deep and long--a draught of cool, crystal water that I enjoyed better than any glass of chablis at a prefect's gala. Feeling restored, I passed it to Reyalis.

Then Jayell led us the rest of the way, perhaps five kilometers or so. Neither of us particularly invited Reyalis, but she tagged along all the same. Not that she showed any interest in our fragments of conversation--she seemed content just to follow at my heels, like some obedient pet.

Our pace was easy and unhurried. As we neared the end of that journey, the rank vegetation of the Heartline petered out at last, and I found myself inordinately glad for the hard edge of pavement beneath my feet again.

E'ban was a ghost-town. I feared we'd discover it had been razed, like the habitations along the way had been--but here the buildings and installations remained intact. That was a blessed relief. At the very least, it meant there was a chance we could find food, shelter, and clean water.

As we approached the admincenter, the door to the main entrance opened. A naked man emerged--an older man, with shaved head and barrel chest. Not a prime specimen, one would think, and yet, there was something about him. He was tall and animated and vigorous, and his overall effect was far more imposing than it had any right to be.

After securing the door, he dropped his keycard on the stoop with an air of finality. The thin clattering sound it made reverberated through the empty plaza. Then, descending the wide, shallow steps, he walked over and shook my hand. "Delighted to meet you! I'm Kirz."

Out in the middle of the square, not far from the decaying skeleton of a downed hopper, stood a simple armchair. It was a lightweight thing, crafted with rustic flair from the local vegetation. Kirz strode over to it now and took a seat. There were no other chairs or benches, but Jayell simply plunked down cross-legged facing him. After a moment's indecision, I did the same (though it struck me as painfully undignified).

Reyalis remained on her feet, hovering off to the side, uncertain. Alone and forlorn like that, she cut a deeply pathetic figure--naked and unkempt, thorn-scratched and defeated, with cum streaks crusting her legs and the irocore leash still dangling down between her bare, demoralized teats.

Kirz raised a beckoning hand in her direction, injecting kindly overtones into his rich baritone. "Come my child." As she drew near, he looked deep into her eyes. "Every one of us needs to know where we fit in the cosmic clockwork. Every one of us needs to have a purpose. And to serve a worthy superior? It can be the most noble purpose there is. Indeed, we all serve someone--the key is simply in choosing who it will be."

He paused a moment, reflective. When he continued, a soft note of chiding entered his voice. "But my dear, you know those soldiers were not worthy of your service. And nor was that stinking dung-beetle who calls himself emperor. He was perhaps the least worthy of all! Look at the things he made you do--and the depths to which it has led you."

Tears welled up in her pale-blue eyes, threatening to melt her icy reserve for good. Fuck, that man did have a way about him. His manner was persuasive and hypnotic. His pronouncements were pure and simple and positive. He reached out to people who had never before felt seen, or had lost everything, or were simply too beaten-down to continue. And then he peered into their hearts and found an emptiness there that he could promise to fill.

His eyes crinkled in a smile. "Yes, my child, it is time for you to find someone new to serve. And if you wish, that person could be me. My women are well cared for, and I labor to be worthy of their obedience. They share the privilege of bearing my children--and have the lasting joy of knowing that by aiding me, they have accomplished more than they ever could on their own. Would you like to be one of these women, Reyalis?"

Maybe, if I'd gotten her back to Captown, she could eventually have found herself again. But in her current state, she was too weak, too broken, to resist the man's sorcery. After only a moment's hesitation, she nodded shyly to his proposition. Then, she lowered herself to the ground and curled up next to his chair, so that her cheek rested gently against the bare skin of his thigh.

And with that, Kirz sealed the transformation that all the sufferings of our journey had set into motion. She was a different woman now--his woman--and so unlike the shock-troop commander I'd met just twelve days earlier that I didn't even recognize her.

In fact... sitting there on the ground, snuggling up against the man's leg and feeling that she belonged, Reyalis appeared downright happy. That was something I'd never seen before.

"And how about you," Kirz said, turning and fixing his penetrating gaze on me. "What is your purpose? Who do you serve?"

I swallowed, trying to muster what courage I could. It wasn't lost on me that I was now more isolated than ever. "I've been appointed acting-agent for transshipment in E'ban. You've been summoned back to Captown."

He chuckled benevolently. "Have I now? I'll take that under advisement. But we're talking about you. Is being imperial agent in E'ban enough purpose for you? Can't you imagine anything greater?"

"It... it will just have to be enough." I felt ire and defensiveness stirring in my chest, and they broke free before I could properly restrain them. "I mean, you certainly don't seem to have anything greater on offer! The Heartline abandoned? Levees burst? Ruined combines? Poor peasants turning into suicidal killers? What you're creating here is a hellscape."

He spread his hands. "I am sorry for what you and your comrades suffered. Truly. And for my people who suffered too, of course. But progress cannot come without some pain. These are necessary steps on the path to something better."

"You're insane! There's no progress here. You and your people are running around in the jungle like savages."

He was pensive for a moment, eyelids heavy. "I have a theory that the closer one gets to the imperial throne, the more steeped one becomes in savagery. You should be grateful that you've risen no higher in your career. But my people renounce the empire completely. We renounce all its castes, all its technologies, all its social conventions. And so, I put it to you that we are the farthest thing in this galaxy from savages."

I found myself almost pleading with him. "Those are nice words, old man. But try to understand--you're leading these people to their doom. Look around you. This is no way to live."

A gleam came into his eye at this, and he pounded the arm of his chair. "Ha! This is the only way to live! From today, we are done with E'ban. It was necessary to us during the time of transition, but we have evolved beyond it now. We return these empty buildings to the empire, and consider ourselves richer for it."

With a grand gesture, he took in the line of vegetation that circled the outskirts of town, and bounded our horizon. "That is our home now! While the sheep of empire continue cowering in their fenced enclaves, my people claim this entire planet as our birthright."

I felt weary. "How can you expect to survive without civilization?"

"The early settlers bequeathed us too much civilization, and not enough wisdom. They only knew how to extract, and how to terramod. They misunderstood this planet, squandered it, fought against it. And that is why they struggled to survive--failed to thrive! But my people see this world for what it is. Everything we need is freely on offer, all around us. We will live at one with Barnards, and it will care for us. ... Indulge me with your honesty, eh? When you see me, you see a naked beggar. And privately, discreetly, you ridicule me for it. Is that not so?"

I'd scrupulously avoided saying anything, but... "I know you're not a beggar, Kirz. Your salary rank is several levels above mine, at least for the moment. The absence of attire, however... well, yes, that sort of thing is, ah... disruptive. To civil order."

He laughed heartily. "Disruptive to your imperial hierarchies, perhaps, but perfectly suited to our environment, and to the kind of society we are creating. I don't know if you've studied ancient anthro-history, but our species evolved in a climate not unlike this. It suits us much better to live as nature intended, than to bind ourselves up in starched collars and synfabr jackets, all in the name of civil order."

"Let's suppose everything you say is true. It still doesn't matter. You can't fight the empire, they're too powerful. You bested a squad of shockers, and that was impressive. But what'll happen when they send a company?"

His eyes mocked me now. "Have the past days taught you nothing? What you experienced was only a small taste of what we can do. Or, I might say, of what this planet can do for us! Once we've left E'ban, and call all of Barnards our home, do you truly believe we will have anything to fear from soldiers such as these?"

The soundness of this crazy man's logic was infuriating. "Ok, fair enough. But then they will just rain asteroids down on you."

He became more serious. "Yes, the only way they can defeat us is to make the planet uninhabitable. And they do have the power to do that, I grant you. But I don't for a moment believe they will." The corner of his mouth gave a wry turn. "Bad for business, eh? ... However, for the sake of argument, let us suppose they did wipe out all life on Barnards. Even that would not be enough to save this rotting corpse of an empire. The end is already written, and it's not far away. I am not alone in this universe--there are others out there who see things clearly, as I do. The arrow of history bends toward us."