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Dark Lord Substitute

Chapter 23

By Draconicon

"Water...would be a good idea, right now."

Mark nodded, and the hyena slid out of bed, making his way to the rising table and the cup of water upon it. The Indomitable continued to reveal one surprise after another, the ship's tech responding to what those onboard needed. Bertram had known that it would do a number of things, but bringing refreshment to a room was something new. Not terribly new, but enough to make him raise an eyebrow.

The moment passed as he closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead as the tiredness of the last few days settled on him again. The afterglow from the most recent round of sex didn't help, either.

"Shall I drip it down your throat?" the hyena teased.

"Not now. Just...bring me the cup."

"Yes, Master."

He held out his hand blindly for it, and Mark pressed it against his fingers. No sooner did he grasp it than he chugged it, almost choking on the second gulp but powering through regardless.

As engaging as the sexual distraction had been, the war pushed in around him. It had been fifteen days since they'd taken Coralky, and while they had pushed deep into the Starry Sea's territory, they were still several systems out from Bareef. The fighting retreat that their enemy had committed to meant that every planet they took gave them territory, but little more. If they had the time to stay, to indoctrinate those on the planet and use them to build up their fleet again, then it would have been fine.

But they didn't have that time. They had to push on, barely leaving anything behind to pacify the planet and ensure that they didn't launch any sort of pincer movement to take him and his people from behind. They had no Indoctrination satellites to leave behind, nothing to do the job that they'd started in the Deep Den.

Which meant that every battle had to be done quickly, and at times, sloppily. They were losing men, and they were no closer to finding out how the Deep Den forces were keeping their Indoctrination at bay than they'd been at the start of the war.

Bertram groaned as Mark leaned down, kissing the head of his cock before looking up again.

"Shall I resume, Master?" Mark asked with a slight twinkle in his eye. "You look like you could use it."

"Tempting."

"Then I shall, until you tell me to stop."

The hyena's nostrils flared, taking in his scent once more. Bertram's cock twitched despite himself, and he closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling of his slave's mouth around his tip. For all that he needed to focus himself on the war, time with his slaves - particularly Mark, who was becoming something more - was just as needed. It helped him stay sane when the answer continued to elude him.

The war against the Deep Den had been simple in comparison. Move in, take a planet, put satellites around it, and move on. This war...this war demanded different strategies, and the fact that the Starry Sea kept pulling a fighting retreat, never allowing him the chance to take a ship and see how it worked, never allowing any captive scientists to be taken, told him that they knew what they were doing.

He wasn't trained in military strategy. He didn't know how this was supposed to work. All he could do was try the basics and hope that it -

"Mmmph..."

He curled his toes as the hyena's lips pressed all the way down to his base, and he opened one eye. Mark had closed his, and seemed to be coasting on the pleasure of service. The hyena's cheeks pulled in, pursing around his cock as the little slut sucked on him, swallowing, teasing the underside of his shaft with an eager, flicking tongue. It felt...good. Very good.

Not enough to push him over the edge, but good.

He closed his eyes again, gently pushing on his slave's forehead. The bobbing resumed.

They remained like that, not quite cuddling, not quite fucking, for nearly a half hour. Mark was just starting to take it further when -

"A report from the hangar."

Data's voice stopped them both, and he opened one eye. Mark froze with his lips around the head of the ram's cock, waiting for instructions.

"What kind of report?"

"Zelda was caught in mid-escape attempt."

"...Was she, now?"

"She is being escorted here."

"Mmmph..."

Mark blushed as he looked up, visually begging for permission to pull his head back from the ram's cock. As soon as he got the ram's nod, he pulled back, gasping.

"Mmmph...I should go."

"You may stay," Bertram said.

"She's made a mistake. I don't think that seeing me naked here is going to make her feel better."

"She has seen you naked before. And you have seen her that way many times."

"Not in this kind of situation...not so sexual as this."

"...Hmm."

"Master, please -"

"You may dress."

As the hyena rolled off the bed, pulling his clothes from the pile he'd left them in, the ram sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. He didn't bother getting dressed. If things went the way that he expected, then he was going to be busy putting Zelda in her place again. She was slowly changing, breaking, becoming something that was more useful, but the hyper-aggression that she operated under was a recurring problem. More than once, she'd tried to run off with whatever soldiers might still follow her, but the Indoctrination continued to bring her back for punishment before she could leave.

He was starting to wonder if she could be better, or if she would always be like this.

The doors to the bedroom opened, and the naked hyena female stepped through. She gritted her teeth as soon as she saw him, her eyes anywhere but on him. She saw her brother getting dressed, and then refused to look at him.

"Again, Zelda?" Bertram asked.

"I can take a squad ahead. Hit them. Make a diversion while we wait for Tardak to get back."

"You could, but the time for splitting our forces in any way is long past."

"If we hit them straight on again, we'll lose what we have left."

"And if we split our forces, the same thing will happen."

"You -"

"Zelda." Bertram stood up. "You still haven't learned."

"..."

"I don't know how I can make it any clearer. You aren't a general. You were very nearly a traitor during the last campaign. You have pushed again and again, showing that you haven't learned a thing from your mistakes. So why, pray tell, do you think that I should allow you that kind of command?"

The female hyena shook her head, opening and closing her mouth. Mark made a swift exit, keeping his head down, blushing. Bertram shook his head.

For all that you crave submission, you don't want to be there when I have to get physical.

It would have been an experiment, at the very least. Something to show her that she was that far down that even her brother could see what she'd become, to show her how she'd lost all respect from the hateful actions that she'd committed.

But that was for later. For now, it was just him and her.

The hyena still refused to look at him. Bertram shook his head.

"You will make eye contact, slave."

Her head turned, though clearly unwillingly. Her neck cracked twice as it turned her head to face him, and her eyelids flickered as she clearly strained to close her eyes. It didn't work, of course, but she still tried.

He moved until he was standing in front of her, his spit-slick cock nudging against her thigh. She didn't step back; he didn't think that she could. Reaching up, he cupped her chin, adding to the force that kept her looking at him.

"You are not a general any longer."

"I was."

"And you decided that you knew better than me."

"I did...at the time."

At the time. That was the first time he'd heard her admit that she didn't know everything. He cocked his head to the side.

"At the time?"

"You..."

She sighed. He didn't let her look away, and eventually, she talked to fill the silence.

"I hated you. You weren't being the Dark Lord I wanted to serve. You weren't making things better for us."

"I was."

"No, you were making it better for everyone. That's not the same. It wasn't for us, it was for everyone. There wasn't -"

"You hated me because I didn't give you what you wanted?"

"No, because I couldn't...because I couldn't do what I wanted."

"And what was that?"

"...I don't know..." She wanted to look away, but his commands wouldn't let her. He could feel the tension beneath his fingers as she growled and her eyes watered by turns. "I wanted to hurt them. To be in charge. To show them...to...to do whatever I wanted to them."

To hold her high place, he imagined, and to be their mistress. To show them that she was better than them the way that they had told her that they were better than she was. He could imagine that being quite the driving force, but also a serious obstacle. That sort of anger, that sort of vengeance, would fit the stereotype of the Dark Lord, but it would do little else. He shook his head, releasing her, and she immediately looked down and away. His gesture must have given her permission to ignore the earlier verbal command, he supposed.

However, she didn't leave, nor did she step back. All she did was curl her toes, dragging her claws against the floor. She closed her eyes, her hands clenched into fists.

"I hate them. I want to hurt them."

"For putting you down?"

"For everything. Do you know how hard we had to work to become officers?"

"Your brother has implied that it was hard."

"It was impossible. It took bribes, the best grades, everything to get as high as being captains of different ships. We never would have risen any higher than that, ever. No matter how hard we pushed ourselves, we never would have been any better...because we were what we were.

"And now...now you want to equalize it..."

"It's the only way forward."

"So they shouldn't suffer? They shouldn't see what it's like?!" she shouted.

"To swing the pendulum the other way does not correct the problems. It merely creates a new one. This is not a situation where one side is better than the other; this is not a situation where good is better than evil, or evil is better than good. Forget the binary. It doesn't apply in this case."

She glared at him, clearly disbelieving him. She hadn't let go of the anger, but she had at least said why she hated him, why it mattered so much to do it her way rather than the slower, more equal way.

And he understood. To be beaten down and then see the guilty ones 'punished' by no more than being made equal to the people they oppressed was not enough for most people. They wanted more than justice. They wanted vengeance. In many cases, they were right. Not everyone learned that they were wrong without paying some sort of price for their actions.

Then again, not everyone learned a lesson by paying a price, either. He was starting to think that Zelda might be one of them.

"So what will it be this time?" she asked.

"Hmm?"

"How are you going to 'punish' me this time? My ass? My pussy? Sliming my feet and leaving me a dirty little bitch again?" she growled.

"...None."

"...What?"

"I want you to learn. Not to suffer." He shook his head, a thought gathering his armor. It formed in little scales around him, gathering from the floor and rising up his legs. "And you have finally told me part of the problem. That is a step, and it will not be punished."

"I don't -"

"But you are forbidden to enter the hangar without express permission from me from now on."

"Rrrrrr..."

He left Zelda in his chamber for later, planning to talk with her more and perhaps indulge himself slightly. For all that he cared for Mark, he was starting to grow closer than he entirely wanted, and the other slaves that formed his chosen harem could become jealous if he spent too much time with the hyena.

Moreover, he didn't want to take it further than what it already was. Not yet. Not when there was still a war on.

The armored Dark Lord of the Void reached the bridge of the Indomitable, looking down at the various crew at their consoles. One of them turned to face him from the Comm section.

"Sir. Admiral Tardak just sent a message."

" He has been successful?"

"Yes, sir."

" Display."

The badger appeared in hologram form, nursing an injured arm and looking more than slightly the worse for wear. Bertram cocked his head to the side, wishing that the HUD in his armor was able to pierce through the layers of distance and give him a full readout. As it stood, he could only feel a hint of concern that he couldn't afford to show. Let them see the Dark Lord as someone confident, for the moment.

" You've found one?"

"Yes, sir. A damaged ship, admittedly, but still functional enough for study."

" Good...good."

They'd been trying to seize one of the enemy ships in every battle, but every craft that was large enough to shrug off the Indoctrination effects had either fled at the end of the fight or self-destructed to keep itself out of their hands. That advantage was making it all but impossible for the Dark Lord's fleet to make enough of a dent in the enemy forces to actually replenish their own, and their fleet was moving forward with damaged hulls, injured crew, and with vastly depleted morale.

That was the other reason he couldn't allow Zelda to just run off. Tardak had taken several squads of men on the retrieval mission, and taking any more would leave them vulnerable if any fleet of substantial size found them. They had to wait, and hope.

And now, that hope had paid off.

" Bring it back. We will examine it thoroughly."

"We are already in transit, sir. Hopefully, the engineers can figure out what they've been doing sooner than later."

" Indeed...we only have twenty days..."

And it might not be enough, even then. Twenty days to figure out how the Indoctrination worked, twenty days in which to conquer Bareef, and twenty days to find a way to force a settlement between his forces and those of the Allied Systems. If they couldn't by then, then their current problems with numbers would be a pale imitation of what was to come.

Twenty days...

" When the admiral returns, set a course for the next system. Mareen, yes?"

"Setting course for Mareen, sir," the crewman said.

" We will fight as we study, and study as we fight."

After all, they couldn't afford to lose any more time.

The End

Summary: Days pass, and the forces of the Dark Lord dwindle.

Tags: M/M, Hyena, Ram, Nudity, Oral, Blowjob, Slavery, Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, Series, Embarrassment, Erection, Worldbuilding, Science,