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Dark Lord Substitute

Chapter 8

By Draconicon

Outpost Zonga was quiet. The planet itself was minimally inhabited, mostly consisting of the various mines and research facilities that had been set up by the government that controlled it. The Deep Den, Bertram had only just been informed, had been the specific government among the Federation that ran this planet. It was their society that he had taken to studying while waiting for the enemy reinforcements to arrive. Data had what information the records had on the Deep Den in front of him, and he shook his head.

"Not a great contributor to the Federation military, thankfully," he muttered. "But surprisingly close to the core HQ for that..."

"According to recent histories, the cycle of the Dark Lord has seldom penetrated further than half the Deep Den, and less than a third of the Starry Sea."

Which were the two major powers of the Federation bordering his particular set of the galaxy. He flicked back to the map, cocking his head to the side slowly.

His swathe of control extended along the southeast border of the galaxy (if one was viewing it as a 2D map, as he was), running along the known rim of space. The lanes of travel, such as they were, had a fairly linear connection between the home system of the Dread Star and all its black holes and the rest of the inhabited planets under his control. There were precisely two lanes of attack that the Starry Sea, which seemed content to stay out of the immediate conflict for the moment. Neither one could reach the Dread Star quickly, or without running into defenses on the way.

The Deep Den, however, on his western front, posed a different problem. Their attack on Outpost Zonga had been a gamble. If they'd lost the fight, or worse, misjudged their trajectory, then they would have been lost in the empty parts of uncharted space. Technically, there was no space lane between Mistrum - the planet that he'd been summoned to - and Outpost Zonga, but he'd forged one by pure luck. He couldn't expect to do that again.

However, that meant that the planet that there was a space lane for between Mistrum and Outpost Zonga had a straight route to him. Reinforcements could come from his 'east', or his 'west', depending on what the commands of the Deep Den's limited military wanted to do.

"Compare our fleet to the Deep Den's. Display."

The galaxy map disappeared. In its place were two large panels of different colors. His, of course, were black, and the Den's was orange. Bertram dismissed half their forces immediately, knowing that they were locked down on the other side of his territory as defenses against anything from the Starry Sea. As a result, he had...

"...Risky."

He had a similar-sized force. If the Deep Den sent everything that they had at him, then he had best hope that they sent it to Outpost Zonga. They had managed to convert half of the defense stations around the planet to their purposes, and that would give him a small advantage. The quick thinking of the Indoctrinated technicians had set up relays to spread the Indomitable's Indoctrination signal nearly out to the jump points, but only nearly, and that was going to be chancy if they were discovered before the signal could set in.

Much as he hated to halt his forward advance, he had every reason to stay in-system for now. It would only get worse if he jumped before he saw where they were coming from.

And that's if they come from the 'west,' he thought. If they come from the 'east'...

"Map."

Data brought the map back, and he went back to tracing lines on the space lanes. Going back along the established space lane, he rested his finger on the crossroad planet of Sur's Den. The map focused inwards, showing the four lanes that led out from it, one going 'south' to a planet that was otherwise unconnected, 'east' and 'west' going to territory that he owned, and 'north' to a densely-inhabited cluster of planets that could pose a problem. A full third of the Den's space-faring navy was stationed there, whereas the remaining two-thirds were spread out over the rest of Den space.

If they attack from their end of space, then I have time to put together a defense, but I'll have to fight a much bigger force. If they come from Sur's Den, then I'll face a smaller force, but I'll have far less time to get ready for it. But if I win, then... Bertram shook his head. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But if he won, he would have his flanks solidly secured, as well as access to the five planets of the Sapphire Cluster. That boost to his population, combined with all the wealth that the records said that little cluster of planets had, would be nothing but good for the economy of the Dark Lord's forces.

But that was if he won. If he lost, then he would be isolated from the rest of his territory, unlikely to escape and, shortly after, delivered to the execution platform. He honestly didn't know which he would prefer to happen.

But we can win, in either case. As long as we aren't idiotic about it...

"Any further questions, sir?"

"No, Data. Shut down the map."

"Yes, sir."

He stood up from his bed, walking to the transparent wall that looked out over the planet below. Near the primary research outpost, the local Dark Citadel was being unearthed. A Dark Lord four or five times removed from him had managed to get this far, and if they could get that online, then it would only add to their defenses. Admittedly, it would only work if the enemy managed to pierce their orbital defenses and get down to the planet, but it would still be something.

Bertram took a deep breath, leaning his head forward until it rested against the smooth wall. This was getting ever more complicated.

I was a librarian, not a general. Books on military theory do not prepare you for this.

Particularly when you were dealing with being put on a script. Bertram groaned as he thought of that.

I should put some of the researchers on that, too.

But which? He had four different projects going already, ranging from synthesizing the material that the Dark Citadel was made of to working on the Indoctrination effects that differed in subjects between the standard and custom orders. He wasn't even sure that there were more scientists to spare, or if there were any that had any experience in working with the sort of theoretical universe destiny stuff that was happening with him and the Federation right now.

If there had just been some books in the planetary library -

But there hadn't been, and he needed to get over that. The more he complained, the less that he would be able to get done.

"Data."

"Yes, sir."

"If the Den sent reinforcements, how long would we have before they arrived?"

"Any significant forces from the center of the Den would take two weeks to arrive, a month for the full assortment. Forces from Sur's Den may arrive two days from now."

"Alright...then there's time to sleep."

"Yes, sir."

"Then wake me in six hours."

"Yes, sir. Do you wish company while you sleep?"

"No, I'll...I'll be fine."

The ram hated the shakiness in his own voice, but he blamed it on lack of sleep. And the continuous shocks to his system. And the fact that he was dealing with a universe not his own. And the fact that he had already outlived his predecessor by a day and who knew how much time he had left, really? He sighed, rubbing his forehead. He needed sleep more than he thought if he was pushing himself to that point.

Wobbling slightly on his feet, he went to bed. His clothes, folded and formed of the material in the room, dissipated, leaving him naked as he fell into bed. The pillow bunched up under his neck, and he curled up into a ball as he drifted off.

#

"You might want to wake up, sir."

It was the first time that he had heard Data put a conditional on something, and he groaned as he rubbed his face against the pillow. He rolled onto his back.

"How long?"

"Four hours, sir."

"Mmmph...and why are you waking me up before six?"

"Because a slave is about to burst into your room, sir."

That got him to sit up in a hurry. He reached out an arm, the material of his chambers responding as the Dark Citadel would have, covering him in black shards that formed together into armor. It had almost managed to reach his neck when the door slid open with a snikt.

Note to self. Secure the door the way that I secured the Citadel.

He opened his mouth, about to tell off the slave that had decided to interrupt his rest, when a familiar face poked around the doorframe. The ram's eyes went wide as the snake female started to smile, her grin growing broader and broader.

"Master. I found you again."

"Ilia." The helmet finally snapped into place. " You were left on the planet." And there was the voice. The stupid, stupid voice. " How did you get up here?"

"I was motivated, Master. I didn't want you to think that I was stupid, or useless, or anything like that. I wanted you to know I would always come for you. Always find you. Always serve you."

The snake woman was the epitome of devotion, to the point that she had become something akin to a stalker. The fact that she had managed to evade security to that point and sneak not just off-planet, but onto his flagship, was damn impressive. The fact that she was grinning like a maniac and slowly making her way towards him? A little less so.

" Stop."

To his immense relief, Ilia still had to obey him. She stopped in his doorway, her ass pointing out, her pussy...her pussy actively drooling with intent and attention. His eyes dropped to it for a moment before he looked back up at her face, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. Clearly, this woman had completely lost her mind in her devotion to him. A good thing that he was testing this out on her first, but the fact that she had been this focused on getting to him, this desperate to avoid being replaced, told him that the commands he'd left needed a great deal of fine-tuning.

That said, it was worth noting that she had lost none of her capability. The Indoctrination normally seemed to take a little bit for what it left behind. This time, whatever it had taken had come from something other than her capability for the job. She wanted him. She needed him. And that motivated her to get the job done, no matter the cost.

He looked her up and down, shaking his head. The armored ram pointed to the corner of the room.

" Lay down there and sleep. Stay asleep, and remain where you are placed. I will come for you, eventually."

The snake woman nodded, moving to where he'd beckoned. She laid down, rested her head on her arms, and her eyes closed as she drifted into sleep. He shook his head, sitting down on the edge of his bed once more.

" Data. Call security and have her put into a holding cell. Drug her if you have to. We're going to need to experiment with her Indoctrination commands tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

" Are there ways to edit Indoctrination commands post application?"

"Theoretically, yes, sir. But it is not in the records as having been attempted."

" We will attempt it...in a few hours."

Despite the jolt of adrenaline that had woken him up, he was still more than slightly drained. He needed more rest than he had gotten, and no matter how much that disturbed him to see someone that devoted, he would sleep. The armor disappeared, and he ignored his fear boner as he rolled back to sleep.

Two hours later, Data woke him with another beep. Bertram sighed, rolling out of bed as the armor of the Dark Lord formed around him. He gritted his teeth as his dick was pulled out of the way, morning wood deciding to be a factor.

" Are Generals Twist and Twist available?" he muttered.

"Yes, sir."

" Have them meet me at the Indoctrination lab. We need to discuss this together."

"Message sent, sir."

" Thank you, Data."

"...You're welcome, sir."

A pause after a moment of thanks. That was rather telling, and worrying. He'd have to make sure that he didn't go too far with that. A good robotic assistant was helpful. One that started getting too much intelligence could become a problem, particularly as it was probably immune to Indoctrination, itself.

Making a note to have someone look at Data's programming and make sure that it wasn't going where it shouldn't, he left his personal chambers. The Indoctrination space was down at the bottom of the station, and he was currently at the center. He doubted it would take that long to get there, and it didn't.

Stepping out on the protected catwalk, he glanced at those that were left below. It was rather difficult to take it seriously as a reprogramming center, if one was completely honest. Other than ankle restraints that were more magnetized than chained, the various prisoners were able to move around as they wished. They all wore a headband that was tightened against their skull and attached to a collar at the neck to read their brainwaves, but other than that, it was merely a naked congregation.

At least, to the naked eye. To them, it was likely an entirely different matter.

The armored ram looked down at the consoles that were just out of sight for the various subjects in the room. Holographic info-panels followed the different prisoners below, hovering just in reach in the case of most of them. All he had to do was touch them, and he'd be able to access the brainwaves and current conditioning progress that the subjects had. They were all different, unique, and so the room filled with various Indoctrination waves keyed to the different subjects.

Ilia was in the far corner of the room, and he tapped her image. Her file came up, including all the different sexual and standard commands that she had been given. He scrolled down until he found the ones that had left her so devoted to him.

Subject will find the Dark Lord irresistible. Subject will crave the Dark Lord's attentions. Subject will do whatever it takes to maintain the Dark Lord's attentions.

" ...Well, this is what I get for letting my dick write the script."

Still, it was better than he had expected. There were ways around this. Quite a few, as a matter of fact. He looked down at the snake woman, who seemed to be able to look right up at the windows. He didn't know for sure if they were transparent, but he hoped they were; if they weren't, then she was looking right at him without having any way to tell that he was there.

Shaking his head, Bertram got to the deprogramming. There was no button to simply remove programing once given, but he could start adding in different commands that were directly counter to the ones that were already existing. It was blunt and probably not the best way of dealing with the various commands, but as he reached the fifth command that needed countering, he watched them start disappearing. One by one, they vanished from the list, the two opposed commands cancelling each other out and leaving space for more.

Good.

He went down the list, the counter-commands apparently filtering through her skull faster than the initial ones. That, or she was becoming easier to control the more times that she went through this. Either way, it made his job easier.

The more her commands disappeared, the more embarrassed she looked. The snake turned her head to the side, rubbing her face, and an obvious blush bloomed in her cheeks. She realized what she had done, then, and more to the point, what she had begged to do. Ilia reached down between her legs, rubbing her asshole for him to see, and then flinched back, obviously confused.

She doesn't understand. Well...that isn't a horrible thing.

Her mind was free to alter. If he could do this properly, then there was an option of putting the badger officer down there and altering him, as well. If he did that, then they could perhaps interrogate him without setting off the compulsion to be so stupid. He started tapping on the virtual keyboard, half-completing commands before erasing them, then starting again. Eventually, he was able to think of a few core tenets.

_Subject will consider her time in captivity as being in service.

Subject realizes that they have been rescued from their side by the Dark Lord.

Subject feels indebted to the Dark Lord and wishes to pay off this debt.

Subject will never pay off their debt until the Dark Lord officially releases them from it._

" A little unorthodox, but it will do."

And it avoided the problem of telling her to enjoy being enslaved, something that he doubted would ever fit in the way that the original programming was intended to establish. For that matter, he believed that the Indoctrination 'standard' programming had been written by the same people that had established their compulsory behavior, and the only reason that he and the rest of his officers could speak freely in front of each other was because the pro-Federation creators of this situation hadn't believed that 'forces of order and evil' could ever speak to each other in anything other than an unproductive, unhelpful way.

But if they were going to allow him this loophole, then he was going to take it. He tapped the option to save, and closed the light panel.

As the Indoctrination chamber filled with a new pulse that would only affect the snake slave, the door behind him opened. Bertram turned, nodding at his generals as they entered the room.

" Thank you for meeting me here."

"Yes, yes," Zelda said, rubbing her eyes. "What the hell did you need us for this early? I haven't slept since scrambling the fighters."

" There's been a...startling development."

"Better be pretty fucking -"

"Sorry about my sister," Mark said, shaking his head. The two hyenas narrowed their eyes at each other. "She's not herself when she hasn't slept."

" Few are. But regardless. I believe you remember that there was a...change, regarding the snake slave."

"Besides the fact that she was clingy as all hell?" Zelda asked.

" Yes. She displayed another development." He nodded over his shoulder. " She managed to escape the planet and find me on this ship."

"What? Impossible." Zelda rushed to the window, looking down with her mouth hanging open. "...Son of a bitch...how?"

" I will be asking her that after revising her Indoctrination. For the moment, it is clear that she has far greater motivation and capability than expected."

"So, what did you need us for?" Mark asked. "Seems like you figured out that part on your own."

" I want you to enter the chamber, as well."

The hyena twins stiffened up almost immediately, looking at him as if he were insane. They stepped closer together, moving further from him. Bertram shook his head.

" I do not plan to humiliate you or condition you further." At least, not at the moment. They were more useful like this. " But I do need to see what Indoctrination the pair of you have received. I need a baseline for those that are free-thinking enough to not technically qualify as slaves."

"..."

" I will order this, if I have to. This is important."

"...Hell, I'll do it," Mark muttered. "If nothing else, it'll tell me whether I'm a slave or not, I guess."

" Excellent. Enter the chamber. Stay further back from the others, however; we don't need a casualty."

Mark nodded, stepping out of the room, and Zelda turned to glare at him. Bertram refused to ask her what her problem was. He could already guess: she didn't like that they were considered slaves in his eyes.

The problem was, she was. So was Mark. So was everyone. The entire system that they were working with had enslaved each and every one of them to varying degrees, and the only way out was to find a way to earn that freedom. He honestly wasn't sure if that was even possible. The system said that they could earn their freedom through military service, but as far as he had asked everyone involved, even going through the databanks with Data, there didn't seem to be an explanation of how it worked, just that it was possible. Something else he could blame on this cycle, he imagined.

He shook his head, turning back to the viewing panel. Mark stepped inside the chamber a few minutes later, and a data-bubble popped up. Bertram pressed it, and was only slightly surprised.

" As expected..."

"...You can't be...that's..."

" Yes. He is a slave. As are you, if you went down there."

"Get rid of it."

" In due time."

"I said, get rid of it." Zelda started to reach for her weapon, only for her arm to freeze in place. "I...I..."

" Can't move. You are likely under the same restrictions. See?" He tapped one of the command lines. " Subject will not bring harm to the Dark Lord."

"This...this isn't...we joined of our own free will!"

" But you did not become the Dark Lord. Thus, you were bound to be slaves of some sort or other to the Dark Lord. The moment you summoned me, you bound your free will to my whims."

"Change it...for fuck's sake, change it..."

" In due time," he repeated.

Much as he would have preferred willing servants over enforced slaves, he knew that only the slavery aspect of everything kept Zelda from putting a bullet through his brain right then and there. If he took it away, then there was no guarantee that she wouldn't walk into his room and put him out of his misery the instant she had a chance. Editing the Indoctrination was the furthest that he was willing to go, not removing it.

Copying the commands that Mark was under, he looked over his shoulder. Zelda was shaking from head to toe. Possibly cracking, possibly breaking. He shook his head.

" Go down and tell Mark he can leave. We will work on editing your commands later."

"This isn't fair."

" I know."

"Then why won't you change it?"

" I'm the Dark Lord. Isn't this what you expected?"

"I...don't know. I just know that the Federation...they aren't working...they're failing. I wanted..."

" You wanted order. Sometimes, order comes with sacrifices." Bertram shook his head. " Get your brother out of there. We will find a compromise with this."

The End

Summary: Bertram finds himself ambushed by Ilia in his quarters, and realizes that some of the commands he gave her are overpowering common sense, making her capable of things she shouldn't be. He puts an end to that, but decides that it is time to study this, too.

Tags: No sex, M/solo, Nudity, Morning Wood, Ram, Hyena, Snake, Indoctrination, Mind Control, Embarrassment, Realization, Sci-Fi, Isekai, Threat, High Tech, Mind Control,