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Shifting Diplomacy

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Evolution

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Disclaimer

The following story involves the sexual interaction between males, transformations from humans to anthropomorphic humanoids, the growth and expansion of muscles, worship of said muscles and the growth of male genitals along with some more extreme fetishes tentacles. If any of these themes do not appeal to you or if you are not of legal age in your country/state, continent, planet, universe and/or dimension, the author of this erotic story series advises you to close your browser, delete your browsing history and purge the very concept of this story from your mind. Blunt instruments tend to work. Or find some way you age yourself until you are of the appropriate maturity to view the story legally. Whichever way works.

If none of the above bothers you, please sign on the dotted line, say goodbye to your innocence and enjoy!

Fun Fact: This story is actually a modernised version of Canimorphs with more species than just wolves.

Prologue: Escape

Endspawn presence detected.

Sending emergency response signal.

Awaiting response…

******

“Go! Go! Go!”

Captain Dawson ‘Piston’ Warner shuffled backwards, his dual plasma pistols shooting out superheated energy bolts while his rapidly withering Galactic Terran Federation Marine Squadron began falling around him. What had once been a forty-man strong team was down to less than a dozen; all thanks to the sheer numbers of the invading Karn Imperium. Black bolts of biomechanical projectiles flew overhead, slamming into the rapidly closing hanger doors.

To his left, Sergeant Joseph ‘Confucius’ Li went down screaming as one of the bolts pierced his depleted personal shield and cut through his reinforced armour. The long, black and red, lance-like projectiles immediately erupted into a series of similarly black vines that slammed into any exposed flesh on Li’s body. The Sergeant writhed and screamed as the poisonous barbs shut down his motor capabilities and effectively paralysed him while injecting the special kind of indoctrination that the Karn were known for. Black sludge began erupting from Li’s orifices, coating him and wrapping him in a thick, black cocoon.

All this happened within two seconds of being shot.

There was an electrical buzz that warned Warner that his own shield had just received a hit from the bizarre weapons that the Karn used. Above him, these same lances were starting to take over the door mechanisms. Lieutenant Ayden ‘Snapshot’ Burke was rapidly working the console, pushing as much power as he could to closing the damn thing but the bulkhead was grinding shut so slowly that another Marine fell defending the doors.

“Hold the line!” Warner shouted, firing both his pistols into the approaching Karn soldiers. The black-clad men wrapped in armour that looked like rotted muscle were unrelenting in their approach. Their shields were nowhere near as strong as a Marine’s even fully charged but it was their sheer numbers and tenacity that even the most elite of humanity’s soldiers could not compete against. Forty Marines against two thousand soldiers was a losing battle and it was all Warner could do to slow them down until the scientists on this station could escape.

Behind him, the remaining scientist was pushing a container holding the ancient alien relic that they had recovered from this site onto the sole remaining transport; the GTFDS Nascent Dawn. The dropship could fit maybe ten people comfortably in its quarters but any more than that and they would be cramped. Worse, the ship hadn’t been outfitted with food, water and power to last more than a couple of days.

Another soldier went down screaming beside him, pleading for someone to cut his arm off as the Karn’s infectious weaponry cocooned him. It was a mercy that the poor guy’s cries were muffled within a few seconds. There were maybe six Marines left. Seven including himself.

Then the door came to a grinding halt.

“Fuck!” Burke shouted. “Come on you fucking piece of shit!”

Warner glanced at his wrist-mounted console. His shields were just a little under 50%. The console monitored the shields of his men as well. Burke had less than 10% shields left. The rest of his troops were about at his level. The Karn were purposefully targeting Burke to stop their escape.

Warner closed his eyes briefly.

Who was left?

Warrant Officer Marcus ‘Wildstorm’ Aurelius. Always the ‘dad’ of the squad and someone who could have easily been promoted had he wanted the extra responsibility. The huge, beast of a man was showering the approaching Karn with bullets from his minigun.

Sergeant Major Travis ‘Alloy’ Firman. A stoic guy whose steely expression never fell. Even now in the face of certain doom, the red-head’s steel-blue eyes were expressionless even if he was gritting his teeth and blasting the Karn with his assault rifle.

Specialist Barron ‘Sire’ Khan fired off shots from his shotgun, possibly doing the most damage out of the remaining Marines. His gun jammed and he began doing that thing where he talked to his machines as if they were his children, pleading and coaxing it as if were a baby.

Corporal Wade ‘Happy’ Mattleigh was little more than a kid. Freshly enlisted but someone who got top marks as part of his training. Still, nothing could prepare you for real battle. Tears were streaming down his face even though he doggedly stood his ground and desperately lobbed grenades into the approaching aliens.

Lastly, there was Private Damon ‘Stitch’ Warner. Failed at med school and turned to the Marines as a field doctor. Kept failing his officer training but was a damn good field medic. Too bad the best medicine of the Galactic Terran Federation could do nothing against the biomechanical weaponry of the Karn Imperium. All he could do was keep firing his rifle at the closing Karn.

“You were all a good squad,” Warner whispered to himself. Then he turned and grabbed Burke’ shoulders. “Get the men on the dropship. I’ll cover you.”

It took a second for his 27-year-old lieutenant to realise what he was saying. “Sir -”

“That’s an order, lieutenant!” he barked. “You’re in command now.” He shoved his second-in-command past the doors towards the transport. “Go! All of you! Go!”

His men charged past him, throwing apologetic and teary-eyed looks his way as he grabbed the edges of the huge, metal door and began pulling them together. As the Captain of a Marine squad, he was granted the use of power armour so that gave him the extra strength he needed to drag the huge metal doors towards one another. To their credit, his men kept firing over his shoulder.

His wrist console began beeping at him.

Less than 10% shields left.

He locked gazes with Burke.

Good old Snapshot. Always by the book and never one to disobey orders. The door inched closer to being closed. He could barely see them now.

“Get it to Avalon,” he breathed, sweat dripping off his brow. “And survive.”

With one last burst of strength…

WHAM!

He slammed the doors shut. There was no time to revel in his victory as he immediately reached for his hips, pulling out two grenades and immediately arming them.

Captain Dawson ‘Piston’ Warner immediately spun, his shields at less than 2% and let out a loud, primal roar.

“Come get me you, motherfuckers!”

And he charged…

The Seed

Response received.

Initiating Cradle Protocol.

Scanning environment and searching for compatible hosts

_ _

******

Lieutenant Ayden ‘Snapshot’ Burke woke with a start. Drenched in sweat, his heart racing and his brown-hair matted against his head. The echoes of his nightmare still haunted him and he still saw the ghost of the man he idolised being cocooned in a Karn biopod, accusing him of desertion. It was the same nightmare he had been having for the past few days since they had escaped the ruins with some sort of ancient alien artifact and a sole scientist, Doctor Ross Carmichael.

Naked with his blanket barely covering him, Burke peeled himself from the hard mattress in his private bunk that was barely big enough to fit his sturdy, built 5’11’ frame. He couldn’t imagine how a giant like Marcus ‘Wildstorm’ Aurelius - who stood at 6’9’’ - could fit in these small quarters. There was barely enough to fit the bed let alone the sole desk and upright storage locker. There was maybe two steps before he reached the door. What could one expect given that he was on the GTFDS Nascent Dawn, a small troop transport built to bring soldiers long distances in relative comfort. Maybe two centuries ago, these private bunks would have been filled with machinery and the soldiers would be sleeping in stasis pods that were no bigger than a single bed.

He couldn’t complain, though. The drawback to stasis pods was that the slumbering troops had to rely on automated systems to wake them up in the event of an emergency and they still had to deal with what was commonly known as ‘Stasis Syndrome’ which usually involved muscle weakness, numbness and disorientation. Ever since humanity developed the revolutionary warp technology, trips one from side of the galaxy to the other could take as little as a week in Terran solar cycles depending on the size and power of the drive. There was no need to slumber for months anymore so the stasis pods were decommissioned.

Many theorised it was the warp technology that actually attracted the Karn Imperium to the Galactic Terran Federation in the first place. Before then, the galaxy-spanning Imperium relied solely on FTL technology to get around. Even some of the more advanced species in the galaxy couldn’t match Terran mobility.

Burke closed his eyes and tried to push thoughts of the Karn out of his mind but it was impossible. When the war had begun, he had fought alongside Captain Warner for years curbing colonial rebellions and insurgencies. The man whose features stood grinning at him from his desk, holographic face flickering in and out had pushed him to pursue officer training and had been there for him since his first deployment. Burke tried to fight back tears but lost. Everyone dealt with grief in their own way and for Ayden Burke, he quietly wept for the man who had been his guiding light for most of his life.

It had been a ritual for him the past three days since they had left McAllister Research Station on the remote asteroid simply dubbed ‘Pandora’. There had been some relief amongst the 79th Marine Reserves when they had been pulled from all the fighting ordered to secure a research station far from the front and to get the scientists out of there. Colloquially known as the ‘Lone Wolves’ or ‘Wolves’ for short, the squad had landed on the asteroid on their transports just like the Nascent Dawn with their frigate, the GTFF Tremor of Sparta, in orbit. As the lieutenant and Warner’s second in command, he had been there when the scientists revealed that they had found some sort of alien data cache that could turn the tide of the war. He was barely listening to the lead scientists briefing though he remembered that the aliens called themselves the ‘Nexus Conglomerate’ or something and left the data cache as some sort of ‘contingency’ and there were talks of some ‘grand experiment’.

They were there barely a day when the Karn invaded.

Friends and comrades fell all around him, each of them entombed in those black biopods. The Karn never killed. They integrated. Each of those pods would slowly turn a screaming individual into another member of their warped race. It wasn’t clear how they did this but what the scientists and politicians claimed was that the Karn were controlled by some sort of hive mind that would decide what genes or traits were best for the Karn Imperium and adopt them to their species while the rest was just used as a materials for make another Karn. Of course, nothing was ever proven. The Karn didn’t talk. They just integrated.

It sickened him that Warner could be part of the Karn now.

Smack!

Burke slapped his own cheeks, throwing his tears off his cheeks and bringing himself back to reality.

“Now isn’t the time,” he told himself just like he had done every morning since they left McAllister. A glance at the clock told him that these bursts of tears were getting shorter. Good. He grabbed a standard military white shirt and the dark blue, camouflage pants that was part of his uniform. There was barely enough room to shove his feet into his thick, black, steel-capped boots but he managed it like he managed it every day.

Burke took his muscled frame out of his quarters, his shoulders just grazing the edges of the door. He immediately turned to the left and heading down the small, cramped hallway to the rear of the ship. There were many other quarters along the way but only seven of those were really occupied. Most of the team were already up and running. Loud grunts came from one of the doors to his right and he guessed that was the stoic Travis “Alloy” Firman doing his daily pull ups. Some music was coming out from his left; Wade “Happy” Mattleigh drowning himself in songs before getting to work. Barron “Sire” Khan was likely in the pilot’s seat right now. That only left Damon “Stitch” Killigan and he had a feeling he knew where the Private was.

With a hiss, the last door at the end of the hallway slid open and he took the short flight of stairs. The stairway split off into two other directions - one to his left and one to his right - that would have led to the engine room. He took the flight straight down leading him to the cargo bay. Amongst the boxes and crates that they managed to salvage from McAllister were two makeshift workstations. A large, black and blue obelisk-like device hovered between them, trapped by the faint blue aura of a stasis field. On the right most console was Doctor Ross Carmichael and on the other was Stitch.

“… made of a material that’s not quite stone, not quite metal and is almost… like solid liquid?” Stitch said, scratching his short, spiky brown hair. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Nothing about this thing makes sense,” replied Dr. Carmichael with a shake of his head, adjusting his square glasses. “It’s as hard as diamond but when you track the individual atoms, you can clearly see them moving. They have chemical bonds but are in constant motion despite no clear power source.”

“Just what is this shit?”

Burke approached the two, clearing his throat. “I was hoping you two could tell me just that. I’d like to know what the hell we’re all risking our lives for.”

Stitch was the second youngest of the remaining team, second only to Happy. Barely passing med school and without any major medical association willing to take him in, the 5’7’’ dark-haired man of Asian descent turned to the military to see his medical dreams come true. He never got beyond the rank of Private despite years in the military because he simply could not pass the tests - physical and technical - but he made a damn good field surgeon. Lean of build and with angular features, Stitch would appear somewhat subdued in most cases unless he found something that really interested it.

It seemed this artifact was one such thing.

“Wish I could tell you, Lieutenant,” answered their remaining medic with an animated voice. “But this thing is beyond me and the doc, here. It defies everything we know about the world!”

“Try your best to explain it,” Burke said curtly. “Hundred words or less.”

Stitch glanced over to the bespectacled Doctor Ross Carmichael. The spindly scientist with a hunched posture was still dressed in his charred white lab coat. The square glasses on his face had one irritating crack on the left lens. His reddish-brown hair was messy and draped over his ears like a soggy mop; not enough to fall down the back of his neck but enough to give him a frazzled, unkempt look. Bluish-green eyes were sharp and laser-like in their focus, however.

“Best we can tell,” said the scientist, “The artifact was left for us by an ancient civilization known as the Nexus Conglomerate as a form of contingency. What we were able to decipher from the ruins hinted that this device - the Genesiseed - was meant to avert some sort of disaster. Some of my colleagues argue that it’s a weapon while others said it was some sort of huge repository of alien technology. We never got much farther than the fact that the Conglomerate mentioned some sort of grand ‘experiment’ and that the Genesiseed is meant to be part of said experiment. We don’t know what it’s meant to do.”

“But what is it?” Burke asked.

Carmichael shook his head helplessly. “I can’t tell you. The equipment here isn’t enough to do much more than tell me contradicting facts about it.”

“Forget what you don’t know. What do you know?”

Stitch smiled briefly. Back when the squad was whole, Stitch would usually accompany Captain Warner and Burke when checking out the status of civilians. Warner had the same brusque line of questioning that Burke fired of at Carmichael.

“Over the last three days,” Ross said, staring at the device helplessly, “all I’ve been able to discern is that it seems to be all states of matter at the same time. It’s solid to the touch and gaseous at the same time with the particles making up its structure acting like a liquid. It emits energy and heat like plasma and seems to have some sort of non-Newtonian core. But that’s all. It seems inert for the most part but I don’t know how long that’ll last. We need to get it to Avalon Station as soon as possible.”

Avalon Station was relatively ‘nearby’ civilian space station. The original mission had been to evacuate the scientists to Avalon but considering how the Karn had interrupted them, that didn’t seem so viable anymore. The Nascent Dawn was not equipped with a warp drive. If they were still on the Tremor of Sparta, they would have made the trip in less than a day. Running just on FTL drives, however, meant that it would take them months to get there.

If they had the fuel and resources to make the trip, that is.

“We’ll try our best,” Burke said. “But we’ll need to see if we can get some supplies first or a bigger ship. The Dawn isn’t equipped for long-term space travel.”

“I trust you, Captain,” Carmichael said with a nod.

“Lieutenant,” Snapshot corrected. “Captain Warner…”

His voice trailed off and he immediately turned around to avoid the good doctor seeing him break out into tears again. It was still too soon since his last tearful breakdown. “I’ll leave you to keep trying to figure that thing out,” he said, fighting the urge for his voice to break. “We’ll let you know if anything changes on our front.”

Lieutenant Burke strode out of the cargo bay and headed back up to the crew quarters. He was just in time as one of the doors hissed open. The big, burly features of Trevor “Alloy” Firman emerged, dripping in sweat and completely shirtless. Firman wasn’t lean like Burke and had a bit of ‘dirty weight’ in the belly but he was a beast. A wrestler back in high school and carrying that all the way through military school, Trevor got his nickname for the fact that he was usually stoic, steely and silent. He was loyal though and adaptive so knowing how Burke was a stickler for rules, he immediately clicked his heels together and saluted.

Burke returned the salute. “If you want the showers, Firman, feel free. I’m heading up to the cockpit.”

The red-head merely grunted and allowed Burke to take the lead while he followed. They parted ways at the mess hall which was really only big enough to fit ten people on the Spartan, steel table at the centre of the small chamber. Food processors were mounted on the walls that could create nutrient bars from the stocks on the ship. They would have maybe three more days before they completely ran out of food. What they would do then was still a mystery.

Firman veered off to the right to head into the showers. Two minutes was all he was allowed. They needed to conserve water as well and their recycling systems couldn’t last forever either. For his part, Burke headed past the mess hall, passing the armoury which was placed right next to the airlocks. Past that was the cockpit.

The door hissed open for him and he sat down in the copilot’s seat right next to Barron “Sire” Khan. The copper-skinned man had started growing out his beard, the stubbly grown covering his cheeks, neck and chin. Burke had made it known his irritation at the gesture but Sire countered that he was conserving water and power by not shaving. To keep morale high, Happy had decided to challenge Khan to a beard growing contest. The guy with the thickest and best looking beard by the end of the week would win. Appropriate because the end of the week would be when their food would run out if they didn’t ration properly.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” Khan said, those brown eyes giving him a sidelong glance. The blinking lights of the cockpit and holographic displays remained still for the most part and Khan would press a few buttons here and there. “Sleep well?”

“About as well as everyone else, I suspect.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Except maybe Doctor Carmichael and Stitch. They’re obsessed with that damn thing.”

Khan retrieved the flask that was attached to his hip and took a drink from it. He let out a sigh of relief after a short sip. “We’ve all got to find some way to keep this shit off our minds.” Sire offered him the silver flask. “What a hit?”

Burke narrowed his gaze at Khan who shrugged.

“Come on, Lieutenant. It’s just apple juice.” He took a bigger gulp this time. “Or is it?”

“Just don’t crash us into an asteroid or something,” said Snapshot, turning his gaze out the window at the big, empty darkness before them. “Do you see anything out there?”

Khan’s features grew grim as he regarded his instruments. “There’s a few possible hits. The closest friendly place is about five days away, a Hooviri Colony. But we don’t have the fuel to make it that far. Next to that is a Prydaraen planet. They’re not that friendly with the GTF but they might be sympathetic to us. That’s three days away.”

“Risky,” mumbled Burke. “We’d be expending our fuel and would have nowhere to go if we go there. Anything closer.”

Sire grimaced. “There’s an Orkish Homeship just two days away that we might be able to barter with…”

That grimace was understandable. “The greenskins aren’t exactly the friendliest and from what I remember, they prefer to stay neutral and avoid conflict with the Karn. Still, it’s our best shot. Bring us over to them.”

“Aye, aye Captain.” Khan said with a salute.

Burke had to get out of the co-pilot’s seat quickly to keep the tears from pouring down his face again.

He left the cockpit and marched back towards the mess hall. It was time for something to eat. Corporal Wade “Happy” Mattleigh and Warrant Officer Marcus “Wildstorm” Aurelius were already there. They two could not be more different. Happy was young, basically fresh right out of boot camp and somehow managed to hold onto to his cheerful nature despite the grueling and often soul-crushing training regimen that the Marines demanded. He kept his blonde hair short and his bright blue eyes lined with some freckles cheerful. At 5’9’’, he was slightly smaller than Burke and had a leaner build. He was a good soldier. Obeyed orders and though he liked to joke around a lot, was competent and skilled.

On the other side of the spectrum was Wildstorm. By far the most experienced of all the Marines and the oldest of the remaining Squad even before they were cut down by the Karn, Wildstorm was tall at 6’9’’, had chocolate brown skin and a full head of grey hair. There was a running joke amongst the squad about how old he really was but he would never tell. Built like a tank, Wildstorm had been a sort of caring father figure to the squad while Captain Warner was the commanding officer. Whenever a member of the squad was feeling down or beaten, Wildstorm was there to help.

He was also the only openly gay guy in the squad.

“Morning sunshine,” greeted the behemoth of a man.

“What’s for breakfast, dad?” Burke asked, manging to pull off a smile as he sat down on the steel table.

“Same thing as every day,” Happy said, one arm draped over the back of his seat. “High protein gruel and God-awful coffee.”

“My favourite.”

Wildstorm set down a plate in front of him containing three blocks of grey mush. The gelatinous, sort-of-solid was a mystery of science. It had the texture of cardboard, tasted like cement and yet jiggled and undulated like grey Jello. That said, it was also highly nutritious and helped build the strong muscles of the GTF Marines Corps. Infused with testosterone-boosting chemicals, the mush known colloquially as ‘Bricks’ was made specifically for the male-only Marines. Women were naturally allowed in the army but they had their own division known as the Valkyries. They were equivalent in all but gender to the Marines only that some higher-up had decided that they needed to separate the men from the women to avoid fraternisation, accidental pregnancies and tension between the genders.

Burke grabbed one of the bars, not even bothering with any cutlery and bit off half the Brick. You didn’t chew the Brick. You just swallowed. Even after seven years in the Marines, Burke still couldn’t stand the taste and he had to drown it out with the offered coffee. Pity the coffee was just as bad.

“So what’s the plan, Lieutenant?” Happy asked with a bright grin.

“Drills,” Burke answered after swallowing what felt like gravel. “We’ve got an Orkish Homeship not too far away. Hopefully we can convince them to lend us a hand.”

Wildstorm sat down next to him, his plate stacked with three of the Bricks. Normally, the behemoth of a man would have more than but they were rationing their supplies right now. “The Orcs aren’t too fond of the Karn. Rumours say that the Karn rejected their offer of peace but instead of integrating them like humanity, they just ignored the Orcs because they weren’t considered a threat. Orcs are proud and honourable but they don’t exactly have the strongest fighting force out there.”

“Really?” Happy asked. “I though Orcs were huge, eight-feet tall beasts bigger than even you, Wildstorm.”

“That’s true but they’re also extremely short-lived and reproduce like rabbits. The oldest Orc can reach, maybe forty, fifty years of age? Not really that appealing to the Karn.”

“Orkish society is also extremely fractured,” Burke said, reciting what he learned in officer school. “Because of how quickly they reproduce, Orcs took to the stars in massive Homeships that are mostly self-sustaining. One Homeship is equivalent to a suburb back home. Can fit about five to six million Orcs. They drift separate from one another searching for more resources to build more Homeships because of how quickly they reproduce. In half a generation, they’d have to build a new Homeship or they’ll risk overcrowding.”

A puzzled look crossed Happy’s features. “Why don’t they just… You know…? Not have sex?”

For some reason, that statement made Burke chuckle. Happy just had that effect on people. “Because Orcs, despite what they look like, are actually more akin to our plants than humans. The ‘odour’ they emit are spores that when another Orc breathes in, is basically pollinating and fertilising them. An Orc that hangs around another Orc is basically constantly impregnating one another.”

“I heard there was a branch of Orcs that tried containing themselves in environmental suits to slow down overpopulation,” Wildstorm chimed in. “But the constant maintenance of the suits, having to clean out the filters and whatever else was apparently just as expensive as building a new Homeship.” The big Warrant Officer shrugged his boulder-like shoulders. “Probably one of the reasons the Karn passed over them.”

“You’d think that with all those numbers, they’d actually pose a threat to the Karn,” Happy said.

“Technologically speaking, the Orcs rushed their way into space because they were running out of resources on their home planet,” Wildstorm said. “Their ships are pretty crude compared to ours or the Karn. In terms of numbers, they’d maybe be on par with the Karn in a battlefield but considering how the Karn can convert anyone who falls by their weapons into more Karn and their technology is way more advanced than the Orcs, It’s a safe bet that in a one-on-one battle, an Orc fleet will fall to the Karn.”

Burke finished off the last Brick on his plate. “Let’s not forget that because of lack of resources, Orcs don’t have personal shields and rarely go out with body armour and that makes them easy targets for the Karn which can one-shot you with their bio-rifles. My bet is that the Karn are keeping the Orcs around as an emergency resource. They recognise the Orcs’ ability to rapidly reproduce and are waiting for a desperate need before turning on them and ‘harvesting’ them.”

Happy grimaced. “That’s pretty dark, Lieutenant.”

“Space is dark,” Burke replied mournfully. “And even if you find a star that’ll show you some light, you’re likely to have your face burnt off because of all the radiation.”

Pursing his lips, Happy grabbed the rest of his plate and rose form his seat. “Right. With that note, I’m going to finish the rest of my breakfast in my executive suite. I’ll join you guys for drills in hour like usual.”

Happy left though the ‘executive suite’ he mentioned was just another, small room like everyone else’s. Burke knew he had upset the youngest member of the squad because Happy had resorted to sarcasm.

“You should really brighten up, Burke,” said Officer Aurelius. “You know, for morale.”

Burke sighed and stared wistfully into the half-full mug of near-black coffee. “I know. It’s hard.”

The big officer wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close and hugging him tightly. Not exactly the most ‘macho-Marine’ thing to do but Wildstorm was the ‘dad’ of the squad even before they had been severely reduced in number and this was just the kind of thing he did. “Yeah. We all miss him and the others. You’ve got to stay strong, though. The Karn were clearly after that thing that the Doc is looking into. We’ve got to get it safety. Might just win this war for us.”

That was the only hope that Burke retained. There was no way the Karn could have known about the Genesiseed and McAllister was so deep within GTF territory that the Karn would have had to made a concerted effort to breach said defences and get to the station. Given that the Karn didn’t rely on warp technology, it would have been slow progress to get there and every day that passed meant that they constantly risked exposure. McAllister had no strategic value. They had to have gone after it for the Genesiseed.

“You’re right,” sighed Burke, pushing away from his senior. “I’ve got to keep it away from the Imperium and keep fighting. Thanks Wildstorm.”

The Warrant Officer smiled at him, flashing his perfect white teeth. “Anytime, Lieutenant.” As Burke stood up to leave, Wildstorm let out a soft cough. “Hey listen, Happy asked me to do a ‘physical’ on him. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like. It might be good for you.”

Burke smirked. Wildstorm had been with the Wolves well before Burke. By the time the lieutenant had joined and the-then-Sergeant’s ‘physicals’ were already notorious. Burke had avoided them even though those that had come out from it often sung the Warrant Officer’s praises in colourful euphemisms, of course. He had suspected that the only reason that Wildstorm hadn’t pushed the issue was because everyone thought that he and Captain Warner were an item. It wasn’t that kind of relationship, of course, but Burke had seen Warner with one of the other Marines every now and then. Couldn’t blame the guy. Often, it was just the forty or so of them drifting off in space alone. Anyone would get lonely.

Even Burke…

“I think I’ll pass,” he said, offering Wildstorm a smile. “Thanks for the offer though.”

“If you change your mind, six o’clock!”

“Just before dinner,” he answered with a nod. “Work up an appetite before chowing down, huh?”

“The Bricks go down easier when you’re hungry.”

Burke finished his coffee on his way to the dish receptacle. With their supplies low, they had to rely on the machines to clean their dishes to avoid wasting water. He set the dishes in the slot and then headed back to his room. In about an hour, he and the rest of the squad - excluding Doctor Ross - would be doing their drills which usually involved them running laps around the ship and using whatever they could as weights. They had to keep themselves fit, after all.

Until then, Burke shut himself in his bedroom and let himself cry.

Waking Howl

Hosts detected.

Analysis complete.

Commencing Cradle Protocol

_ _

******

Doctor Ross Carmichael hadn’t had made much progress with the Genesiseed and while they had drawn closer to the Orkish Homeship, there was little the squad could do apart from workout and try to keep their minds sharp. Burke and Sire played a round of chess after Firman took over as a pilot for a bit - Burke won. Wildstorm took over chatting it up with Doctor Ross in the cargo bay while Happy and Stitch did their routine checks on the ship, making sure there was nothing missing. Burke received their report shortly afterwards. There was nothing wrong with the Nascent Dawn except that their power supply was below fifty percent and they only had three days of supplies left.

Then there was the exercise of maintaining their equipment. Burke cleaned and repaired his MAW-F14. The Multi-Arsenal Weapon - Function 14 was a very large gun that often needed power armour to wield and Captain Warner had been training him to do so since only officers of Captain or above could wear power armour. Warner insisted that Burke get used to wielding the MAW first without the assistance of the power armour because should his armour every shut down, he would need to know how to use his weapon without being weighed down. That was what he liked about Warner; always thinking about his men.

The MAW was thus named because it was effectively fourteen weapons in one. The standard kinetic rifle made up the majority of it but its barrel could be shifted with a push of a button to switch to a shotgun-like fire, burst fire or even activate the high-powered magnetic barrel to fire railgun-like shots. Attached to the MAW was also a grappling hook, short-ranged plasma flame thrower that sourced its ammo from the plasma bayonet that could be detached at will or used to power a short-ranged plasma gun. With the press of a button, it could activate its mining laser which was a short-ranged, high-intensity laser used for cutting through obstructions which went well with its pulse scan functionality which was like sonar but for organic materials. In the heat of battle, it could activate its magnetic shield to keep kinetic projectiles away or a smokescreen to hide himself from enemy fire. As a last resort, he could set the majority of the gun to self-destruct while he pulled out two auxiliary pistols as a last line of defence.

All of that made the weapon look like Burke was carrying a huge brick that had a stock and trigger attached to it. Little wonder most people could only wield it with power armour for long durations. He usually carried it over his back and was glad when he didn’t have to use it too often mostly because maintaining the damn thing was always such a pain. Fourteen functions mean fourteen parts to fix.

After lunch, he checked up on Doctor Ross who was once again with Stitch. Happy was piloting the ship while Wildstorm was giving Firman his ‘physical’. Ross didn’t have much more information for him apart from the fact that the Genesiseed seemed to be completely indestructible at least to their current equipment.

Then there was some ‘downtime’ which Burke decided to spent back in his quarters going over what he knew about Orcs. An avid student of anthropology before he joined the military, he had been fascinated by all the different races out there in the galaxy. Most of the books - and yes, he preferred to read hardback, paper books not electronic onces - always started with the preface that at one point, humanity thought it was alone. That all changed when first contact was made with the Ophanion, the ‘Greys’ that often came up in fiction. A few short centuries later, mankind was spreading across the galaxy, colonising planets and making new alliances. There was war, no doubt, and not everyone could be considered a friend but eventually, mankind found it’s place in the cosmos.

Until the Karn made their presence known and began attacking.

The Ophanion were wiped out by the Karn and since humans and the Greys were allies for the longest time, it was only fitting that they rush to the rescue of their one-time allies. That was how Galactic Terran Federation was the dragged into the war against the Karn.

“Orcs are argued to either be hermaphroditic or a single sex species. Physically, they appear to be the same as a human male due to the presence of male genitals. However, they reproduce by emitting spores like a human would bodily odours mostly from the armpits and genital area. Generally, an Orc’s virility and sexual appeal is judged not by their physique or even the size of their genitals but by the abundance of body hair…”

It was theorised that Orc’s short-lived nature was an evolutionary trait that was meant to offset their rapid rate of reproduction. Though a ‘pregnant’ Orc could only produce one child per pregnancy, given that most Orcs constantly produced their spores from the age eighteen, an Orc would effectively be in a constant state of pregnancy. Due to the fact that an Orc’s gestation cycle was only one month in Earth solar time, this meant that an Orc could conceivably produce over a hundred children in their lifetime. Little wonder that Orcs dealt with an overpopulation problem when they became the dominant species of their planet.

“Huh… so their green skin is due to photosynthesis,” Burke mumbled, one arm behind his head while he had the book in his other hand. “Apparently after they moved into space, their skin colour actually changed over the course of generations due to the lack of solar radiation. They’re also vegetarian.”

He had to wonder how an Orc would react to their protein mush. It wasn’t exactly made from animals but it wasn’t completely organic either. Their diet mostly consisted of various kinds of fruits and vegetables that they had evolved to digest and devour. Their ancestors used their tusks to break the hard shells of different kinds of fruit for them to devour.

Their language was complicated especially after generations of the species drifting far from one another in their Homeships. The diversity of local dialects was complicated by the distance between Homeships and how those very same Homeships rarely kept track of one another. While there was a basic foundation of the language, there were intricacies and variations that could often be lost in translation between different Homeships and thus one had to be very careful when trying to speak to an Orc in their local dialect. Generally, addressing someone of a higher standard or showing respect to an Orc was shown by lifting one’s armpits to the Orc and allowing them to sniff you. It came from the tradition of on Orc gauging another’s compatibility as a mate by smelling their spores.

“I wonder if there’s some way for them to keep themselves from getting pregnant…” Burke mumbled.

While Burke continued to read up on Orc culture.

Doctor Ross Carmichael was once again in the cargo bay alongside Stitch. They were running through more tests on the Genesiseed, watching the soft bluish-glow that was emanating from the device as their instruments collected data about the object.

“It’s like it’s purposefully shifting itself constantly to keep us on our toes,” Doctor Ross said with a resigned sigh, removing his glasses and rubbing his left eye with the heel of his palm. “I don’t know what this thing is but it is frustrating.”Stitch was silent for a second as he regarded the object. Ross noticed and placed his glasses back on. “Something on your mind, Corporal?”

Stitch too one more second before replying. “Have you considered that thing isn’t a thing at all?”

“What do you mean?”

Stitch began walking around the Genesiseed, keeping a safe distance while he tried to examine fit from a safe distance. “What if it’s alive? What if it’s a living being?”

Carmichael frowned, rubbing his scruffy chin as he examined the alien device before him. “You know… I had not. It’s certainly an avenue worth pursuing, I suppose. What are you thinking? Something like the digitised consciousnesses of the Ur’Miru?”

“I dunno, doc. I barely passed medical school. Why don’t we take a break here?” Stitch offered. “Dinner will be up in an hour or so.”

Ross Carmichael leaned against the console, sighing softly while riping his brow which was strangely dripping with sweat. Working for so long had lifted his body temperature and he was feeling somewhat overheated. It didn’t help that the cargo bay had rather poor ventilation. He unbuttoned his lab coat and let it hang over his shoulders to let out some of the heat. “I suppose I could use a break. Though I admit that I’m not looking forward to eating more of that grey mush that you Marines are so fond of.”

“We’re not fond of the shit,” chuckled Stitch, seating himself next to Carmichael. “We just eat it because its cheap to produce and helps us grow!” Stitch lifted his lean arm. Though nowhere as big as say Firman or Burke and definitely nowhere near as big as Wildstorm, he still had some firm muscle on him. In that tight, white shirt that hugged his figure quite well, Carmichael found his body temperature rising for an entirely different reason.

“I can see the appeal in that,” said the scientist. “Got anyone waiting for you where you come from, Private? Where is it that you do come from?”

“Charon Station,” replied Stitch with a shrug. “Born and raised there. The sun is barely another star to us but I’ve been to Earth a couple of times. Went there for basic training. And no, never got attached to anyone. Being a failure doesn’t really make you that appealing.”

Carmichael gently nudged the Private’s shoulder. “You passed medical school. That’s more than most people can say. And you’re a Marine. That means you’ve got brains and brawn. Most people can’t claim that.”

Stitch let out a short snort. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hitting on me, doc.”

“Who’s to say I’m not?”

In the cockpit, Sire had taken the helm once more and was visited by Firman. The stoic, silent red head sat down in the co-pilot’s seat and stared out into the cold, black nothingness of space. The only thing that told them there were even really anywhere were the displays displayed all over the cockpit.

“You might as well get some rest, Firman,” Sire said, tapping away at the displays. “We won’t be near the Orkish Homeship for another thirty hours or so and that’s assuming they don’t shoot us down.”

“I heard that each fucking Orc Homeship is basically like two Dreadnaughts stuck the fuck together.”

Anyone else would have been surprised that Firman had said something let alone formed a coherent sentence but not Sire. The two of them had been close friends and fell into that in-between where they were experienced enough to be above the youngsters like Stitch or Happy but not old enough to be overly chummy with the more experiences soldiers like Wildstorm. They were about the same age as Burke but neither they weren’t high ranked enough to be eating at the captain’s table, so to speak. This formed a sort of camaraderie between them and that meant that Firman only spoke to him. Used to be there were about six of them that he would speak directly to outside of combat but with what happened at McAllister, only Sire had that privilege.

“You’d be right,” sighed Sire. “Each one of them needs to be refitted and retrofitted constantly to fit their constantly exploding population. They fuck like rabbits so they have to keep making their ships bigger. Naturally they arm them too. They’d have a powerful navy if their ships weren’t also their homes and they could get along with one another.”

“Each Homeship is like a fucking planet,” rumbled Firman. “Damn hard to destroy but also fucking risky to throw into battle. Orcs have it fucking rough.”

Another reason why Firman rarely spoke; the profanity.

“Every species has it rough in some way shape or form,” Sire said diplomatically. “Humans are pretty bland all things considered and we’ve got the Karn bearing down on us. Orcs are short-lived and keep getting pregnant. It balances out.”

“Except those shit-fuckers, the Karn. They’re ‘perfect’.”

That had been the opening volley of the Karn against the GTF. Claiming themselves to be perfect and the culmination of the Imperium sweeping across the galaxy, filtering out the imperfections of each species and adopting only the ‘good’ traits of each into the Imperium, the Karn had offered integration into the Imperium to mankind. Apparently, the Karn couldn’t exist completely in warpspace even wrapped in their bioships and they wanted to integrate mankind to develop a resistance to the subdimensional energies that allowed the GTF the mobility that had defined the Federation. No doubt more than a few million had already been integrated but the Karn were perfectionist. They wouldn’t stop until every last human was integrated into their Imperium.

The good news was that apparently the Karn tended to focus on a single species at any one time. Other species could attack them but they would remain on the defensive until such a time that they became the target. The Greys had mentioned the Karn had a long ‘hit list’ of species that had irked them and they were slowly going down said list over countless millennium. It was just unfortunate that mankind happened to be on that list for no other reason than their alliance with the Greys.

“There’s a lot of things the Karn can do better than us humans,” Sire acknowledged. “But there’s a lot of things we can do that they can’t.”

Firman’s lips turned upwards ever so slightly. “Yeah? Like what?”

Sire switched the dropship to autopilot and then leaned casually in his chair, arms crossed behind his head.

“Like fuck.”

Not too far away in the showers of the dropship, Happy and Wildstorm had dismissed all forms of subtly with their ‘physical’. Fully naked, the two men pressed themselves against the hard tiles of the showers, writhing on the floor. The water was off as they had to ration it but that didn’t stop their heated passion as Happy shoved his cock into Wildstorm’s firm ass. Both men kept the sounds of their lovemaking to a minimum with their lips locked, tongues dancing wildly with Wildstorm’s thick, muscled legs spread and in the air as the smaller Happy ploughed him over and over again.

All over the Nascent Dawn, the men became overwhelmed by a powerful sexual energy. Carmichael and Stitch had discarded their clothing and were passionately grinding their groins against one another against one of the consoles. They were so enraptured by their raging erections that neither of them noticed that the Genesiseed was shrinking, its black and blue form seemingly dissipating into the air as a thin cloud of dark particles. Those very same particles fluttered through the air, bypassing the stasis field the device was kept in and swarming into the ventilation system as if controlled by some greater intelligence. Two of the streams headed towards the two, sweaty men, flooding into their gasping mouths and drawn into their noses by their heavy breathing. Some of the particles merely had to touch their skin and they sank into the pink, human flesh.

In the cockpit, Sire had his pants down around his ankles while Firman had that cock sliding in and out of his throat, furiously masturbating in tandem with his bobbing motion. Both were taking heavy breaths, blissfully unaware of the cloud of black dust that entered the cockpit and immediately made its way towards them. The moment the particles of the Genesiseed entered their bodies, their passions multiplied ten fold. Firman’s blowjob became more and more powerful as if he was desperate to ingest all of Sire’s cum. The Specialist and pilot thrust his hips madly into Firman’s mouth, teeth gnashed together and inhaling more and more of that black cloud.

There wasn’t more that the Genesiseed needed to do to heighten the passions of Happy and Wildstorm but it entered their forms nonetheless. With their mouths caught in a passionate, long-lasting kiss, the dust had little avenue to enter their forms and merely shrouded them in its hazy embrace, sinking into their flesh and making every thrust, every burst of precum and every twitch of their muscled frames feel like a jolt of electricity that shot them with more energy, more enthusiasm and more ecstasy.

It was Lieutenant Burke that the Genesiseed had trouble with. Its influence could change a few things about Snapshot, particularly the chemicals in his brain that was thrilled and excited as he hungrily devoured all the information about the Orcs. Glands and organs began producing different chemicals, particularly the ones in charge of arousal. Burke’s mind began to wander, something he usually didn’t do when he had a good book in his hands. He briefly glanced at the clock, totally unaware the the gaseous form of the Genesiseed hid quietly in the ventilation shaft of his room. The clock said it was just a little after six o’clock. He recalled Wildstorm’s offer and chuckled to himself. The Warrant Officer and Happy were likely going at it in the bathrooms.

That made him think how long it’s been since he’d last gotten off…

… and his mind drifted to thoughts about what it’d be like to join those two…

… and what it’d be to be with a big, muscled Orc…

That was all the Genesiseed needed and Burke found himself instantly getting hard. Despite years of discipline and weeks, sometimes months of avoiding any sort of sexual relief, Burke couldn’t help reaching down towards his underwear and gripping his hard, six-inch cock. He couldn’t stop himself no matter how much he wanted to. His body temperature rose, maybe some vain attempt for his system to try and fight whatever was infecting him but it was a losing battle. Before he knew it, he was thrusting into his own pants and pulling off his shorts, leaving him only in the white, sweat-stained shirt that was standard for all military personnel.

Grunting with every tug, Burke dropped the book in his hands on the floor which was odd for him as he was a bibliophile and would have taken care to ensure the book was set aside delicately. But his sex drive was overwhelming, the need to ejaculate rising exponentially. The lieutenant squeezed his eyes shut, sweat dripping from his brow and blurring his vision. He rolled onto his stomach, the fingers on his spare hand digging into the sheets as he stroked his dick with increasing desperation, the pressure in his balls building and building like someone was inflating his sac with cum and he just needed to find an outlet.

The Genesiseed pounced.

The sprang from the vents and swept into Burke’s throat and nostrils, the lieutenant gasping and breathing in the cloud. With his vision blurred, he didn’t notice it at all. His body afire with desire, he shrugged off the tingling feeling of the cloud seeping into his skin as just another effect of his arousal.

With each host now fully connected, the Genesiseed went to work.

All seven men immediately orgasmed at that moment.

In the cargo bay, Carmichael and Stitch both went rigid, clutching one another tightly as they both let out a cry of ecstasy. Their cocks, pressed against one another, erupted with their seed. Both continued to grind their groins against one another, Carmichael bend over the console and their bodies rigid for an entire minute before they came down from their high. It was the doctor who slumped against the console that first noticed the missing artifact.

“Uh-oh…” he mumbled.

In the cockpit, Sire gripped the armrests of his pilot seat as he gave one last thrust into Firman’s mouth. Both men orgasmed at the same time with Firman’s cock shooting his seed against the base of the seat while Sire’s shot immediately down the officer’s throat. Neither of them made a sound save for Sire letting out a soft whimper as he slumped back into his seat. Grinning like a drunken idiot, he reached for Firman only to stop as a strange tingling sensation caught his hand. His fingers began to shake and thick veins crawled up from his wrists.

In the dim light of the cockpit, Sire’s eyes widened. “That’s not normal…”

Not too far away, Happy exploded into Wildstorm, both men pulling their lips apart from one another for the first time since their session began. Wildstorm howled in ecstasy while Happy let out a gagging gasp while he convulsed. His cum filled Wildstorm while the tall Warrant Officer’s own seed splattering against his ripped abdominals. Both men held one another, keeping maintaining their pace and thrusting even though their balls were spent. It would have been cute… if it didn’t go on for a whole minute.

“Happy…” Wildstorm panted. “Ease up… You’re fucking my ass raw.”

Happy, a look of panic on his face looked down desperately at Wildstorm. “I… I can’t!”

“What!?”

“I can’t stop!” Then Happy’s face contorted, dark veins crawling up from his neck and across his cheeks. A loud cracking sound joined the chorus of wet slaps that came from each thrust of the Corporal’s hips. Happy shut his eyes, squeezing them hard as a mixture of pleasure and pain erupted from his features originating from within his head like something was trying to push its way out of his face.

“Happy!” cried Wildstorm only for his chest to immediately tighten and that same sound erupting from his chest. He looked down at his huge, muscled pectorals, eyes boggling as those same dark veins began crawling up from his erect nipples and making their way towards his face.

“Fuck!” cried the Warrant Officer. “Ffffuuuuuu…” His cry tapered off into a sound more like a howl as the veins wormed their way towards his skull, his chin and nose pushing forward from his skull, the grey hairs on his head growing thicker and spreading rapidly down his jawline.

Back in his room, Burke had a mind-blowing orgasm, his cum shooting into his palm and seeping out between his fingers while a cocktail of chemicals drowned his brain in a mixture of relief, exhaustion and the gratification of having just met the sexual needs of a man who had gone over a month without touching himself. All that came crashing into Burke as he slumped into his bed with a loud squish. His body twitched occasionally as he drifted off into sleep.

Perhaps it was best for him as the Genesiseed went to work altering his form. Vivid dreams began plaguing Burke, the alien device’s means of rewiring his brain to the new form he was soon to obtain. Images of sniffing the air and detecting smells that he would never have been able to detect as a human filled his mind. He could somehow tell a person’s mood, what they had eaten and even certain genetic defects just by smelling them. But that was nothing compared to how they tasted. His dreams took him to a fantasy land where he was naked, running long, flat tongue along Captain Warner’s neck and being able to tell his age, what he had last eaten and the fact that the guy was as healthy as an ox though his family had a history of heart conditions. Keen ears could pick up the Captain’s accelerated heart rate, the gurgle of his stomach as he digested his latest meal and even the blood flowing through his veins. With his touch, he felt every inch of the Captain’s muscled form, able to identify how each scar was obtained just by feeling how they had healed. Lastly, with his eyes he devoured the Captain’s image, burning it permanently into his brain and memorising every inch of it, processing it with all the other information that he had obtained, flaws and all. Something in him analysed the data, found the gaps, the errors and the genetic missteps that humanity had taken either and began to reforge the image of Captain Warner into the ‘perfect’ human being.

“Captain…” Burke moaned, his hips instinctively bucking into his cum-soaked sheets.

That one motion kick-started the next phase of the Genesiseed’s transformation. The hairs of his ass began to lengthen and thicken, multiplying exponentially until they covered his bubble butt entirely. The fur-like growths became lighter, almost creamy in colour around his pucker and as they spread towards his balls, they turned a light, yellowish-cream. His testicles gurgled and thrashed, seemingly possessed as the Genesiseed recognised them as the primary means by which the male of his species reproduced. Such an organ would not be needed given the new purpose Burke and the rest of the crew would have but there was a social aspect to them that still served a purpose. Drawing from the collected information from all seven men - particularly Firman’s adoration for big balls and huge cocks - the Genesiseed spent its resources to develop those balls, pumping them with more mass. Burke was forced to slowly spread his legs apart as his sac inflated with his golf-ball sized testicles… and then spread them even more to accommodate the growing orbs that had reached the size of lemons.

The same change occurred in all the men but since they were all awake, they all noticed the changes, some - like Firman and Sire gaping in awe at it while others like Carmichael and Stitch expressing great panic as fur of different colours spread over their genitals and plumped up their testicles.

Then there was the matter of the penis itself. The Genesiseed saw the human penis as being poorly designed. Why would such an important organ used for reproduction be left so unprotected and vulnerable? Another evolutionary misstep in the opinion of the alien device. Going with the theme of fur, it quickly pushed the fur across Burke’s member, wrapping the still-erect cock in a furry sheath, a fur-covered mouth growing around the glands. The entire length of the penis quickly morphed and changed, becoming fleshier, slicker and more sensitive. The mushroom-like helmet tapered to a point which poked out of the sheath and began to rise, demanding blood and growing erect anew. Even though Burke’s six-inches had already been erect at that point, this new tapered, pink cock grew even bigger as it emerged from his newly-acquired sheath, pulling the fur back and revealing the thick, vascular member that only seemed to keep growing, sliding up underneath the Lieutenant’s shirt, brushing up the man’s abdominals and just kissing the base of Burke’s pectorals. The sudden increase in size and mass caused Burke to roll over his his bed, thrusting his hips into the air. That motion caused his new canine dick to erupt from his shirt, ripping it in two and splattering the ceiling with his precum. As he writhed, with his new fourteen-inch dick rising up from him like a big, red flagpole, the base of said member began to inflate, growing bigger and bigger until the spherical mass was just as big as his balls combined - a knot.

This transformation echoed across the rest of the crew. Both Carmichael and Stitch stared in awe at the huge canine members, sitting side-by-side against the console as their huge cocks dripped precum like a faucet all over the floor. They exchanged glances, panicked but at the same time their cheeks flush with arousal. Sire felt his cock change but couldn’t see it as Firman kept suckling on the massive dick despite its grown, constantly slurping at it and drawing more and more of the Specialist’s precum into him. The only frame of visual reference he had was the sight of Firman’s own monster cock rising up from beneath the seat and splattering the Sergeant’s chest. Wildstorm howled in ecstasy when Happy’s canine cock changed within him and that knot formed inside of him. His own black, canine cock sent out its first blast of cum, coating his morphing features.

Satisfied with the change, the Genesiseed began moving outward. It noticed the vestiges of a tail bone at the base of the spine of the humans and momentarily considered rebuilding it but decided against it. A tail was just another vulnerability and these bipedal creatures didn’t need them. So it moved on, shifting its attention towards the legs. Strong, powerful quads and hamstrings. There wasn’t much to improve there save perhaps for their size. The Genesiseed needed strong warriors to fight off the Karn and began pooling its resources into generating muscle mass and bone density without losing any sort of flexibility. The fur of each man began spreading down towards their thighs even as they all inflated with muscle, each muscle group becoming hard and defined with veins pushing out against. The thick layer of fur didn’t hide any of the definition gained from the surge of mass. Even skinnier specimens like Carmichael, Happy and Stitch found their things exploding much to their surprise. Bigger men like Sire, Firman, Wildstorm and Burke would permanently have to walk with a strut just to avoid their thighs from rubbing together and squashing their balls.

The calves were next but before the Genesiseed began its changes, it noticed the structure of the humans’ feet. Mobility was going to be an issue with such flat feet and though they were certainly built for balance, they weren’t the best version they could be. The toenails were next to useless. So the device began changing them. Bones cracked and twisted, loud crackling noises echoing throughout the ship as all seven men found their feet twisting and morphing with a sensation akin to stretching out tired muscles after they had fallen asleep. Toes grew bigger and widened. The nails blackened and sharpened, quickly becoming consumed by fur that sprung up from the back of the men’s feet and sweeping over their changing digits. Claws quickly burst out of the ends of each toe while their heel was pushed back away from their front of their feet. The sudden change of anatomy caused Burke to kicked his feet out, pushing the sheets off his bed. He didn’t have much further to kick as his stretching feet pressed up against the foot of his bed, claws scraping against the metal. To support his new weight, his calves inflated, growing wider and thicker like two melons pressed against one another that tapered down towards his lifted heel. Unlike other canines, however, he didn’t get a dewclaw and all five of his toes remained firmly at the ends of his feet.

Satisfied, the Genesiseed moved on to the next of its targets but not before the rest of the crew reacted to their newly formed anatomy. Carmichael and Stitch toppled to the ground, unused to their new feet and desperately trying to crawl towards the door. They didn’t get far as their bodies convulsed with the next stage of the transformation, their cocks spasming as more cum burst from their canine dicks. Firman felt his own feet changing but he was too engrossed with the delicious and thick cock in his muzzle to care. He lifted Sire’s legs onto his shoulders just so he could position himself better to take more of that thick, red cock into his developing muzzle. When Sire began to whimper in protest, he took his cum-covered fingers and pressed them against the Specialist’s ass. That turned those whimpers into lusty moans. In the bathroom. Happy used the new power in his legs to lift Wildstorm’s legs further into the air, curling the bugger Warrant Officer’s body over itself to the point where Wildstorm’s own humongous, black cock was hovering directly over the senior officer’s face. All Happy needed to do was to run his rapidly mutating tongue over Wildstorm’s feet for a blast of cum to erupt into the man’s muzzle.

It was a natural thing that all seven men came once more as the influence of the Genesiseed passed over their mutated members once more towards their abdomens. The Genesiseed saw the digestive system of the humans. So inefficient. So many nutrients wasted and excreted as waste. All of them, even Burke, writhed a little as their bellies were twisted and morphed. All traces of fat were immediately drained from the surrounding flesh, accentuating already rigid abdominals while inflating said muscles until they were pushing up against their flesh like eight firm volcanoes on the verge of erupting. Their belly buttons were vestigial features from when they were embryos and the Genesiseed saw them as useless, folding the flesh and skin over them and giving all the Marines a nice set of uninterrupted abdominal armour. Their organs were reinforced and optimised, bacteria cultures and nutrient levels changing so that whatever they ate would be completely digested even if it was steel or as deadly as arsenic. Anything they ate would be processed and absorbed. Perfect. As a finishing touch, it covered the abdominal muscles with fur. For Burke, it was a soft covering of the same yellowish-cream fur framed with his darker brown.

Carmichael was just coming down from the high of a second orgasm when his abdomen became a solid eight pack. He had never been fit enough to possess such a chiselled form. The scientist rolled onto his back and gawked as the reddish fur that had sprung up all over his body framed his new sculpted abdominals while brighter tan fur crawled up his abs. There was a moment when he feared the fur would hide the definition but he was pleasantly surprised when it only highlighted every curve and accentuated every peak. Never mind that his belly button had vanished; this was amazing! Then Stitch crawled over to him, the Private’s strangely long tongue sliding up his abdomen and trying to get between those valleys. He was in heaven.

The newly chiselled frame was mostly seen in Firman who had always had a bit more of a belly. That gut bubbled away, replaced with a thick, wall of muscle that was likely the biggest and hardest of the rest of the squad. The Genesiseed noticed the extra mass in Firman’s belly and reinforced those muscles even more, adding another pair of abdominal muscles to give him a rigid ten-pack. For Sire, the added definition and muscle flexibility served him well as Firman pushed two fingers into his ass, letting him buck his hips over and over against into the bigger man’s muzzle.

Happy used his new set of chiselled, bleach-blonde abdominals to the same effect; wildly thrusting his already knotted cock into Wildstorm over and over again. The grey fur that had spread all over the senior officer’s body grew a lighter shade around his stomach but didn’t lose any of its shape or form. Happy saw all this and only grew more aroused, wrapping his lips entirely around Wildstorm’s footpaws and slathering them with his drool. For Wildstorm, it was only natural to use his new flexibility to bright his cock closer and closer to his face. His developing muzzle and colossal dick, the biggest out of the troop at 18 inches, made it easy for him to gobble up the throbbing member and drink the very same cum he had produced, making use of the new organs he had just been given.

The pectoral muscles were next. The nipples were a curious addition and at first, the Genesiseed was tempted to get rid of them just as it had rid the transforming humans of their belly buttons. Then Burke instinctively reached for his with one hand began tweaking it. The burst of pleasure that the Lieutenant received justified the existence of those organs and the Genesiseed went to work reinforcing the pectorals with more mass and more size. All the men moaned, their voices growing deeper. Their lungs expanded, chests widened and the valley between their pectorals growing deeper and deeper. Having noticed that the nipples were such a big source of self-pleasure, the Genesiseed likewise increased the size of the organs, giving them added sensitivity that only seemed to please Burk all the more.

The sudden increase in size made the men a little disproportionate. So it quickly corrected itself by moving towards the back, adding more mass and height to each man. Again, it utterly surprised the Genesiseed that such an important part of the body such as the spinal cord was left so vulnerable and unprotected. It increased the muscle mass around the spine, inflating them as he lengthened the spine itself until each man could stand at least seven feet tall with their back muscles so huge and defined that they could close around valley that their spine made with ease without pinching a nerve or hampering mobility. This, with the added broadness given by the inflated pectorals gave each male a very distinct V-shape.

Almost done with its task, the Genesiseed quickly moved towards the arms of each individual. Burke’s already firm shoulders broadened, widening to match the size of his meaty pectorals with beautiful scalloping from the striations of his deltoids. The divide between his upper arm and shoulders was so clear that even the veins that crawled up and down his arm could note hide them. His biceps brushed up against his pectorals, forming him to always hold them off to his side and with a slight bend to his arm because he could never be able to pin them against his side ever again. Triceps lengthened and ballooned out with some added length while his forearms spread out just like his calves, becoming just as big and just as defined. His dark brown fur spread all over his arms with just the insides of his arms covered in the creamy fur. Burke momentarily pulled his hands away from his nipples as his fingers contorted. They grew bigger and longer, claws springing from the tips of his fingers as the fur consumed his fingernails and left his palms with thick, leathery pads. There would be no need for fingerprints since each man would be a unique specimen in the universe.

At last, the half-changed features of every member of the crew was the final stop for the Genesiseed. It connected all the nerves, all the tissue, all the bone to the brains of the evolved humans and as it did so, it finished the task it had started when it had first been inhaled by each person on the Nascent Dawn. It pushed out their jaws, lengthening their features into the familiar faces of canines. Their ears shifted to the top of their heads, transforming from rounded dishes to big, triangular frames covered in the same fur that had wrapped the rest of their bodies. Noses flatted, changing to black points at the ends of their muzzles while their teeth shifted. More than one of the men ran their long tongues over their new jaws only to find a matching muzzle locked with theirs.

At that moment, all seven men had another orgasm in unison, breaking off their kisses and letting out a unified howl, a chorus of ecstasy that echoed throughout the Nascent Dawn. For Burke, he was still wrapped in the dream of the Genesiseed, keeping him from waking but his body knew exactly what it had to do; arching his back, puckering his new blackened, rubbery lips for his howl and thrusting his cock into the air to splatter his headrest with his strangely white, opalescent seed like it was made from liquefied pearls.

The Genesiseed was far from done.

The base forms had been achieved but now it needed to give each of them their functional forms. There was only so much strain a physical form could take, however, and the alien artifact knew this. Exhausted, their bodies pulsating, each of the crew members slumped into exhaustion, the Genesiseed allowing them to drift off into sleep to rest and recover.

Soon, it would begin the next phase of its operation. -

Pack Instincts

Hosts successfully enhanced to Phase 1.

Warning: physical and psychological strain limit reached.

Entering hibernation mode.

Commencing Phase 2 in approximately 4 hours.

_ _

******

“Marines. A cliche if I’d ever heard of one.”

Burke found himself in a strange, black void. He was… floating? It was clearly a dream because there was nothing in this darkness except for himself and one other being; a black and white wolf man dressed in a suit. The sheer ridiculousness of the scenario immediately made it a dream. Strange because he rarely ever had lucid dreams and it was even rared that he was aware that he was dreaming.

“Uh… Excuse me?” he rumbled. Strange, his voice sounded deeper. Though this was his voice in his head.

The wolf in front of him cocked one brown eyebrow at him. “Ah, so you’re finally awake. Well… ‘Awake’ in a matter of speaking. Let’s just stick with ‘aware’. You’re finally aware.”

“Who are you?” Burke asked, wondering what his mind would come up with.

“I go by many names. Supreme Commander. Chief Commanding Officer. General Prime. But you can call me ‘The Director’.”

That was weird. Burke knew that Captain Warner had been pushing him for officer training and even floated ambitions of rising to the rank of General jokingly with his mentor and idol but those names were just utterly ridiculous. This fantasy was getting stranger by the minute.

“Okay, Director…”

“The Director. Don’t forget the ‘The’.”

“Right… So… what’s going on exactly?”

The Director crossed his arms and tapped the goatee he wore thoughtfully. “Let’s see… From what the Crux has informed me, the Endspawn have activated and you Earthlings - humans from all accounts - have found it. You failed to activate it, however, and since it was so close to being captured by the Endspawn, it self-activated and began changing you and your crew members to be able to provide a fighting chance against the Endspawn.”

Crazier and crazier by the second. These were terms that he just did not understand. “I’m sorry, what?”

The Director let out a soft sigh. “The Karn Imperium, as you call them. They’re the Endspawn.” He held up a paw. “Actually, you know what. Let’s start with what you know. What are the Karn?”

Burke shrugged and decided to play along with this hallucination. “They’re a hostile alien race obsessed with integration. They’ve swept across the galaxy forcibly taking over territory and other species. They use a form of biomechanical technology that seems to filter out undesirable traits in any given species or individual and adopt them into their own genetic code. Anything undesirable is just converted into raw matter for a new Karn.”

“Oof…” the Director huffed, throwing Burke a sympathetic look. “You guys are definitely underdeveloped. I can see why the Crux decided to self-activate if you’re the ones that found it.” The wolf waved a paw in the air. “That’s just a cover-story. Something to make you guys less suspicious about the Nexus Conglomerate and your role in this universe.”

The Nexus Conglomerate. That was a name that he was familiar with. Doctor Carmichael said something about it.

“Allow me to take a step back and explain,” The Director said, pressing his paws together. “You and everyone you love, everything you know, are all part of a single universe that was created by the Nexus Conglomerate, my company, as part of some larger experiment. It honestly wasn’t an experiment that was focused on the human race. I think this universe was created for the purposes of testing out a pair of glasses that would have the ability to shift through various levels of perception with the flick of a switch.”

Burke shook his head in disbelief. “What?”

“I know, I know,” the black-furred wolf said, waiting his paw over his head. “Why create a whole universe just to test out a pair of glasses? Honestly, it’s way easier these days just to use a standard template like your reality and use one of the many pre-designed Conglomerate labs dotting the universe than setting up labs with different variables. I mean, we like to test our products thoroughly and the labs are already set up in different environments. High gravity, no gravity, high temperature, radiation, sub-zero temperatures. It’s all there. Plus there’s always what happened during the Endgame.” The Director looked pointedly at Burke. “Which is what is happening now.”

“The Endgame,” the Lieutenant said bluntly.

“Yes. Our experiments with this universe are done. The Conglomerate is all about renewable resources and we’re not just going to let this reality sit here and fester especially when there are intelligent species running about. You’re basically like a piece of rotting fruit. If we just let you sit out in the open, you’re going to decompose, fill the house with a foul smell and attract pests. So, we’re doing the only reasonable thing to do: destroy you.”

Something in Burke told him this… this wasn’t just part of his imagination or some random collection of his thoughts and memories.

“You’re… serious?”

The Director nodded. “Absolutely. But I’m of the opinion that every person is an asset and we shouldn’t just be destroying entire realities without giving its inhabitants a fighting chance. Every person is a fresh perspective and has fresh ideas that could be exploited. In fact, the idea of the Endspawn actually came from an individual who went through his own Endgame.”

“You made the Karn?”

“Absolutely. The reasoning behind them was two fold.” The Director held up to fingers. “First, the purpose of the Karn is to sweep the universe and collect all the desirable traits of all its species to form an amalgam that, one could argue, is the best that this universe could possibly produce. They will do so under the guise of a hostile alien force. Not only will they reclaim this reality and its materials for reuse later on but they will also bring a nice little summary of all the intelligent species to the Conglomerate of analysis.

“Secondly, they give the inhabitants of the reality a physical target that stirs the imagination and stimulates them to find creative and new ways to fight the Karn. This will ultimately contribute to the first purpose meaning that in the end, the Conglomerate gets a shit tonne of data for their deployment.”

“That’s sick!” Burke cried. “You’re basically condemning us to suffer and die! You’re just watching us fight for your own sick pleasure!”

“Conflict is how species evolve,” The Director said with a coy smile. “Evolution is based entirely around the elimination of lesser species through extinction events. The Karn are your extinction event. But you are not without your own weapon.” The Director waggled a finger at him. “The Crux, the artifact you call the ‘Genesiseed’ was purposefully placed in your universe to give you a fighting chance against the Karn.”

Now they were getting somewhere.

“What is the Genesiseed?” he demanded.

“The long answer is that is a complicated dimensional feature built into your very reality designed specifically to fight the Karn. The short answer: it’s God.”

“What?”

“Well, not really,” The Director chuckled. “The people who ran the experiment and created the reality are your Gods. But I’m their boss so I guess I’m ‘Super God’? No, Supreme God. Yeah, that’s better.” The wolf nodded to himself with a smirk. “The Crux is basically your dimension given a sort of pseudo-sentience. It can feel the Karn tearing it apart and as a result, it is compelled to awaken and empower its inhabitants to fight back against the Karn. By the time you wake up, you will likely find yourself in a physical form that the Crux has deigned to be the optimal evolution for mankind given the circumstances. It was programmed to elevate the individuals closest to it with abilities that would likewise optimise the other species of the universe in such a way that they will be able to efficiently fight back against the Karn and possibly build the Cradle.”

“The Cradle? What’s the Cradle?”

The Director grinned and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know! That’s the fun part! The Crux is meant to optimise as many species as it can and drive them to build some sort of superweapon that will defeat the Endspawn once and for all. Every time the Crux has been deployed, the Cradle has always been different simply because circumstances are always different in every iteration!” The Director threw his head back and let out a laugh. “There was one version of the Cradle that unleashed this massive radiation wave that killed the Karn specifically and it was distributed through a universe-wide warp-gate network. There was another one that literally ripped the universe in half and left one half of the dimension to the mercy of the Karn and behind an impenetrable barrier. Ha! I remember one that turned every Karn into slugs! Just slugs!”

The wolf in the suit shook his head and let out a chortle. “Oh man… It just excites me to think what this Crux will do!”

“Are we just a game to you?” Burke spat. “Lab rats for you to watch crawl around your maze for your own amusement?”

“Yes!” The Director laughed. “But that doesn’t mean that lab rats can’t evolve. Who knows? Survive this and you just mind find yourself with a place amongst the Conglomerate. Your ‘Gods’ so to speak.” He lifted a finger and pointed it directly at Burke. “So let me give you a piece of advice to help you survive, Lieutenant Aiden Burke: Find as many species as you can to help you build the Cradle. The more variation you add, the more different perspectives and insights to you can introduce into the project, the greater your chances of success. And another thing: trust the Crux. It knows what it’s doing.”

Burke shook his head in defiance. “This is sick!”

The Director shrugged his shoulders, lifting his paws into the air in a helpless gesture. “This is just business. It is a question of which is better: the superiority of a single species that has filtered out the flaws of every other species to make a super-race or the optimisation of multiple species working together in harmony despite their racial differences.”

“That’s a no-brainer! Individual species, of course!”

The wolf gave him a knowing smirk. “You’d be surprise just how often the contrary is proved.”

Everything suddenly plunged into darkness.

It took a whole second but Burke eventually realised that he had his eyes shut and opened them slowly. His vision was blurred and the hazy light of his quarter’s lights didn’t help matters. With a grimace, he immediately rolled off his bed. A growling rose from his stomach and he realised he must have missed dinner given how he had jacked off and immediately fallen asleep. Groaning softly, he padded through his room, knocking over the chair by the desk in the process. He grunted in annoyance and set a mental reminder for himself to fix that once he got back. Right now, he was starving and needed something to eat.

He lumbered, still partially asleep and -

WHAM!

Banged his head against the top of the door frame. Growling at himself and rubbing his forehead from the pain, he ducked and slipped through the door one shoulder at a time. With his brain still booting up, he didn’t question how he could have struck his head on the door or why he was suddenly too wide to fit through said door without having to shuffle sideways. All he was focused on was food and he was grateful when he reached the mess hall and headed towards the food dispenser. He was just starting to wake up and the smell of coffee along with the bland Bricks starting to bring him back to the land of the living. He took his plate and grabbed the mug of coffee in his hand before shuffling towards one of the seats and parking his rear on it. The chair groaned beneath his weight and he prayed he wouldn’t have to spend resources to fix that too.

He took a sip of the coffee and his vision finally started to clear up.

Just in time as a loud his emerged from the pathway to the cockpit…

… and in stepped two big, very naked, werewolves.

For a second, all Burke did was just sit there with a mug of coffee to his lips, staring as one huge, thick werewolf with fiery red fur covering most of his body and a lighter yellow on his chest entered first. Right behind him was a taller wolf with full chocolate-brown fur and a tuft of black hair growing between his head that was strangely reminiscent of the curly locks of a particular smart-ass Specialist. Both were very naked with genitals that were the size of Burke’s head… or at least human Burke.

Then instincts started kicking in.

“What the fuck!?” Burke exclaimed, leaping from his chair. He immediately grabbed one of the Bricks and lifted it over his head like he was about to throw it. “What the fuck are you? How’d you get on my ship!?”

The airlock was right next to the cockpit so it was conceivable that they may have docked with them and invaded. Sire was at the cockpit…

“Whoa! Whoa! Hold up, Captain!” shouted the brown furred werewolf, holding up his paws. “It’s us!”

“Us? I don’t know any fucking werewolves!”

“For fuck’s sake! It’s me! Sire! And this is Alloy! You know, Barron Khan and Travis Firman? We played just a few hours ago?”

Burke shook his head in disbelief. “Bullshit! I don’t know what you’re trying to pull you alien freak! But Sire and Alloy aren’t covered in fur and don’t look like they came out of a fucking furry artist’s wet dream!”

The darker-furred werewolf lifted an eyebrow. “Okay, first of all, how do you know what furry artists like and secondly, have you seen yourself lately?”

Burke’s brow furrowed. This was clearly a trick to get him to take his eyes off the two. “Don’t come any closer, you furry fuckers!”

The red-furred werewolf rolled his eyes and waved a paw over his own face. “Do this,” he grunted.

Frowning, Burke lifted his hand and waved it in front of his face.

He didn’t get more than one wave before he realised what Firman was telling him.

His hand - no, his paw - was massive, covered in nutty-brown fur and his palms and the insides of his arms in a creamier coat.

“W - W - What the fuck!?” he stammered, glancing down at his chest and the yellowish-coating there. “What the fuck happened to me!?” It dawned on him that those two other wolves were indeed Firman and Sire. He reached towards his face, feeling the line of his muzzle as it stretched away from his face ended just underneath his black, wet nose. “What the fuck happened to us!?”

There was a hiss of the door to the showers opening to his left. He glanced in that direction just in time to see a huge, grey-furred wolf emerge from the doorway… or at least try to. The massive beast wedged himself in frame because he was just that big.

“Oh god fucking damnit!” roared the lupine. “I’m just having all the luck getting stuck in tight places!”

Another voice came from behind the wolf but given how he took up the entire space, it was impossible to see it’s source. “With all due respect, Warrant Officer, it wasn’t my intention to tie with you.”

“The hell it was! You fucking loved it.”

“So did you…” came the quiet response.

Burke wasn’t sure why but he sniffed the air in the direction of the wolf and something just clicked in him. “Wildstorm? Is that you?”

The huge eight-foot-tall wolf noticed him, ears perking up in surprise. “Lieutenant?”

Padding over towards his Warrant Officer he couldn’t help but notice just how much bigger Wildstorm was compared to him. Sure, even as a human Marcus Aurelius was a big man but this sudden increase in height, weight and mass just exacerbated the differences. The fact that he was stuck in a doorway only made that more evident.

“I’d love to go into how the fuck this happened,” Wildstorm said, “but would it be okay if you got me me out? I’m losing feeling in my arms.”

Burke nodded and beckoned towards the two standing by the cockpit door. “Firman. Sire. Help me out here.”

At the mention of their names, Wildstorm’s ears twitched towards the two approaching wolves, gawking as all three Marines grabbed his arms and pulled. It took two tries but they managed to pull one of Wildstorm’s shoulders out of the doorway, allowing him to shuffle a little to the side and slip through. This revealed the blonde-coloured wolf right behind him with his left ear having a slight bend to it. One sniff and Burke immediately knew it was Happy.

“Jesus, Aurelius,” groaned Sire, “I always knew you were a big boy but fuck me…”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled the grey-furred wolf. “Anyone want to tell me how the fuck this happened? Did we get bitten by some space werewolf or something? Did we just pass some sort of radioactive moon that turned us all into these?”

“Not that I’m complaining!” Happy exclaimed, lifting his arms into the air and flexing the impressive biceps. “I’ve never been bigger!” By human standards, he would have had the physique of a seven foot tall bodybuilder. That little bend in his ear belied his tough, lean physique, however and almost made him look like a hulking man-wolf with the head of a puppy.

A new voice joined the conversation, this time coming from the hallway that Burke had emerged from.

“I believe I can answer that.”

All the wolves turned. There were two more lupines that joined them. One had deep red fur and a yellow crest on his chest. The other had mostly white fur with a lighter-brown belly fur. Both were about the same size as Happy but perhaps a little leaner. Burke immediately knew from the glasses perched on the red-furred wolf that this was Doctor Ross Carmichael which left the other one to be Stitch. He noted that Carmichael was missing his glasses.

“Or… at least sort of,” Carmichael said. “It’s the Genesiseed.”

“Fuck me,” Sire grunted. “I knew it was a bad idea to be carting around an alien artifact…”

“Follow me,” Doctor Ross said, beckoning them towards the cargo bay.

Eager for an explanation, Burke followed the lupine scientist all the way back across the ship. He noted that he was walking perfectly fine with a balanced stride and with his back straight despite the fact he now had a digitigrade stance. Then he realised that he was effectively naked. One look at his junk revealed that his cock, now eight inches flaccid, was wrapped in a furry sheath with his two huge balls hanging right beneath him. It occurred to him that they all had to walk single file down the hallway when previously, it could have fit at least two of them.

This was not going to be sustainable.

He noticed big surprise that Ross wanted to show them the moment the cargo bay doors sprung open.

The Genesiseed was gone.

“Okay,” Happy began, lifting his paws into the air. “What. The. Fuck?”

“Private Stitch and I were theorising that the Genesiseed could actually be some sort of living being,” began Carmichael. “We were just getting into the theory when…” The doctor coughed. “Our… carnal urges took over.”

Happy let out a loud whistle and elbowed Stitch lightly. “Oooh! You and the doctor, eh, Stitch. Gonna make all sorts of smart pups, eh?”

“Please,” snarled white wolf, giving Happy a light shove. “What about you and your ‘physicals’ with Warrant Officer Aurelius, huh? I can still smell him on you.” They both frowned at that comment. “Why did I go there…?”

“Get to the point, doctor,” Burke interrupted, growling softly. “What happened to the device and why are we suddenly…” He waved at his chiselled - albeit furry - physique. “… this?”

Ross shrugged helplessly. “All I can theorise is that the Gensiseed got fed up with being contained and somehow slipped through our stasis field and transformed us. How we could possibly obtain over a hundred pounds of muscle while our bodies changing to such extremes without severe neurological and psychological damage is beyond me! I mean, I don’t even know how I’m able to talk right now!” He gestured at his muzzle. “Canine muzzles aren’t meant for human speech!”

Confused and uncomfortable looks were exchanged. A feeling of unease befell the entire team.

Until Burke said something.

“The Director…”

All eyes switched to him.

“While I was out, I had this fucked up dream,” he said. “There was this wolf. He called himself the Director. Said that the Gensiseed is meant to be some sort of weapon against the Karn and the Imperium is meant to be their way of deleting us or something. They left us the Genesiseed to give us a fighting chance or something.”

“No way…” Stitch gasped. “I had a similar dream. I was talking to the Director too and he said that he called the Genesiseed something else.”

“The Crux?” offered Wildstorm.

Sire’s eyes widened. “Fuck… Don’t tell me we all had the same dream?”

There was a moment of silence…

… only broken by Firman.

“… Yep.”

Then panic began to set in. Everyone was voicing their concerns, shouting over one another with claws paws flailing. Burke remained silent, going over what he had learned and trying to come up with a plan. It took him all of twenty seconds to finally slam his fist into the nearby console, causing a sizable dent and sparks to fly out from the damaged machine. All discussion immediately ended.

“Arguing about it won’t get us anywhere,” he barked. “We’re still humans even if we don’t look it. So here’s what we’re going to do.” He pointed at Sire. “Get to the cockpit. Check the security feeds. See if we can figure out what happened to the Genesiseed.” He then turned towards Stitch and Doctor Carmichael. “Go over your instruments again. Run some tests. Happy, stay with them. They might need blood samples or something. Firman, do a physical check of the ship. If the Gensiseed somehow hatched and became some fucking alien shit, I want to know about it. Wildstorm, check our equipment. See what we can do about clothing. I’m not going to walk around forever in my… fur.”

The Marines immediately saluted.

“Sir, yes sir!” they barked.

That left him with nothing to do but supervise so the first thing he did was followed Sire back to the cockpit. The smell of male, musk and sex was in the air and he could clearly see the ocean of cum that had spilled around Sire’s pilot seat, clear evidence of what Sire and Firman had been up to. He gave his Specialist a cocked eyebrow.

“I’ll clean it up,” mumbled the black-furred wolf. “I promise.”

“You better.”

He was glad that the mess didn’t reach the co-pilot’s seat as it was there that he sat down and began checking the ship’s diagnostics. Thankfully, there was no internal damage. Their transformations hadn’t caused any malfunction and as far as he could tell, the Genesiseed hadn’t somehow possessed their ship. Given all that had happened, he wasn’t sure what to believe. In fact, he was surprised he was so calm.

“Just so you know, Firman and I aren’t an item or anything,” Sire began.

“Just focus on your task, soldier,” rumbled Burke, checking the ship’s supplies. Apart from a little less water and food, they wasn’t any changes. Carmichael’s question of how they could have grown so much bigger without any damage came back to haunt him. Following up from that question was the one about where all the mass had come from? He remembered The Director telling him that the Genesiseed was like… like God. Did that mean it could do anything? Then why wouldn’t it just get rid of the Karn? Unless… it couldn’t and somehow had to act through proxies to make that Cradle?

“I’m just saying,” pressed Sire. “Firman and I were just fooling around. You know what it’s like, Captain. You get a little riled up. The walls to the ship are thin so you can’t really whack one off. I didn’t know I’d turn into a werewolf if I came.”

He jolted upright and glanced at Sire. “What did you say?”

Khan gave him a pleading look. “You can’t blame me for that. Firman has a hell of a tongue and now that it’s three times as long and in that muzzle -”

“No. Not that. You ejaculated, right?”

“Uh…” Sire glanced at the pool of cum beneath his seat. “Would you believe a no and me claiming all of that is Firman?”

“No but nice try.” He held up a finger, counting off the pairings. “You are Firman were here, fucking.”

“It was a blowjob!”

“Whatever.” He held up another finger. “Happy and Wildstorm were having a ‘physical’ in the showers. Stitch and Doctor Carmichael were fucking in the cargo bay. Everyone transformed into werewolves. In one way shape or form, we all came.”

Sire’s eyebrows rose and a smirk touched his lips. “We did?”

Burke averted his gaze, his cheeks going red. “Yeah. I… I had a solo session in my room.”

“Awww. You’re cute when you blush.”

That was not the stance a commanding officer should be taking with his subordinates. Burke turned back towards Sire only to find the other wolf’s muzzle strangely close to his own. He was staring into Sire’s deep, brown eyes and found himself mesmerised by them. Blood was rushing towards his cock and he was starting to get a heady feeling; drowsy but at the same time very aware of his surroundings.

“Wow…” mumbled Sire. “You have the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen…”

“Yeah… and you’re… you’re…”

Before they knew what was happening, their lips were meeting, tongues dancing with one another and their cocks stirring in their sheaths. If it wasn’t for a beep in the console, they would have added more to the ocean of cum that was right beneath them.

“Fuck…” breathed Burke, breaking the kiss. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Sire coughed and straightened in his seat. “I think… I think these bodies come with a crazy libido.”

“Would make sense. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all of us somehow had sex and came at nearly the same time.” Burke shook his head and slapped his cheeks lightly with his paws. “Fuck… Got to keep in control.” He glanced towards Sire’s dashboard. “What was that beep?”

His Specialist brought up the blinking light. “Surveillance from the cargo bay. About three hours ago.”

The image on screen showed Stitch and Carmichael sitting against the console with their backs to the Genesiseed. They seemed to be talking while simultaneously and subconsciously pulling their clothes of. Their hands began gliding over one an other’s bodies and before long, they were kissing and fondling one another.

That was when the Genesiseed moved.

The alien device dissolved into a cloud of black dust that seemed to sweep towards the two, shooting into their mouths and noses while they were entranced by their passions.

“Wait! There!” Burke shouted, pouting a claw at the corner of the screen. “The ventilation shaft! The Genesiseed is heading in there!”

“Fuck…” grunted Sire. “That’s how it got us.”

“Pull up the showers.”

With a flick of his fingers, the scene between Wildstorm and Happy was revealed. Thankfully there was no sound but that didn’t stop their imaginations from filling in the grunts and groans as Happy ploughed Wildstorm there and then on the shower floor. Their rising erections were momentarily halted, however, when the black dust fluttered in from the vents and began surrounding the two like a cocoon.

“The cockpit,” he demanded.

“Aw Captain,” groaned Sire. “Do we have to. We know…”

He just gave Sire a piercing look and the pilot reluctantly brought up the cameras from the cockpit. There was the Specialist receiving a blowjob from the Sergeant Major. As expected, there was also the black dust from the Genesiseed, shooting into them, filling their lungs and infecting them.

Then Sire brought up one more scene.

“What are you doing!?” barked Burke.

“We’ve got to make sure the same thing happened to you too, right Captain?” countered Sire.

There was the scene from his room and as expected, he was caught masturbating on camera while the black dust came in, shooting into his system.

Burke immediately got out of his seat and marched towards the door.

“Come on, Lieutenant!” shouted Sire. “You’re hot! This is hot!”

He turned towards the pilot, lips curled upwards in a snarl. “Delete that.”

“Can I at least jack off to it first?”

“Now, soldier.”

Sire groaned and hit the delete button, purging the scene from the ship. He then have Burke a ‘are-you-happy-now’ look, prompting the Lieutenant to spun on his heel - nearly slipping on the cum - and charged back to the cargo bay.

“Clean up your mess!” he bellowed over his shoulder. He tried not to look too unnerved by the fact that the cum between his toes was still very warm.

He had only been gone for a few minutes, ten minutes at most, but when he came back, both Stitch and Carmichael were talking in animated tones while Happy just looked on dumbfounded.

“Oh thank god,” sighed the gold-furred wolf, padding over. “I don’t understand the shit they’re saying.”

Burke approached the two intellectual wolves with all the bearing and authority he could muster. “Report. Hundred words or less.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than that to explain what’s going on, Lieutenant,” said Carmichael, barely able to control his enthusiasm. “From preliminary scans, I have discerned that, fundamentally, we are still human.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Yes, well our genes ultimately define what we look like and our outward appearance. However, most of the genes that make up our appearances are just that, cosmetic. Deep down, in our genetic code, is defined things like how our organs function and how we pass on our DNA or indeed what our children will look like. But whatever has happened to us has caused the part where we are designed to have children and replaced with supplementary features that enhance our existing qualities.”

Burke lifted his eyebrows. “Wait, so you’re saying we can’t have kids anymore because the Genesiseed took that from us and replaced it with wolf-like features?”

“Precisely! We’re technically sterile superhumans.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” mumbled Happy.

Stitch shrugged. “Me either but here’s the kicker. I don’t think the Genesiseed is done with us.”

That got Burke worried. “What do you mean?”

The white-furred wolf began tapping at the console, bringing up a display of what appeared to be DNA sequences. “There is a huge chunk of our genetic code that’s currently missing. We can tell it’s the part of us that was responsible for reproduction. About 50% of it was replaced with the extra features that make us look like wolves but there’s still that other missing chunk that we think the Genesiseed is warming up to change further. We might get more added ‘features’.”

“I know how I feel about that,” Happy quipped.

Burke lifted his paw, silencing the Corporal. “Any indication why it’s doing this or what it’s planing to do with us?”

“I asked The Director the same thing when I encountered him,” said Carmichael. “He said something about building the ‘Cradle’ which is meant to be some sort of device that’ll defeat the Karn Imperium once and for all. However, in order to do so, we need to enlist the help of other species. The more the better, apparently. I think the Genesiseed is gearing us up to somehow convince other species to help us. How, I’m not sure, but all I can say is that this is not over. We are still evolving.”

Burke didn’t like unknowns. This was not the mission he had signed up for and he wasn’t sure what Captain Warner would do in his place.

“Okay, answer me this,” he said, “if we can’t reproduce, what’s in our cum?”

Carmichael exchanged glances with Stitch who began to blush. Given that his fur was all white, Stitch blushed through his fur and most of his body turned pink.

“We… did some analysis right after we discovered we were sterile. Our… Semen is actually like a multipurpose slurry of ‘blank’ chemicals. I don’t know how best to explain it as it is something entirely out of this world. Think of it as the fundamental building blocks of creation.”

“Atoms?”

“No. Not atoms. Even more basic than that like…” Carmichael shook his head, lost for words. “… I don’t know, the very blood of God Himself. It can be anything we want and it can do anything we want. When we scan it, our systems basically go into an infinite loop because it sees everything and nothing at the same time.”

Burke’s eyes narrowed as he reflected on what The Director had told him again. “Like it’s the very essence of our reality?”

Carmichael’s eyes widened. “Yes! Yes exactly! It’s absolutely fascinating and we seem to be producing it at a steady rate. How, I can’t fathom but the real problem is learning how to manipulate and control it. I mean, if we learn that, we could make this ship bigger, more comfortable or even make it the basis of the Cradle.”

It was starting to fit into place. The wolves produced this ‘cum’ that could somehow turn into anything they wanted and be used for anything they wanted and it would help build the Cradle. On paper, it sounded like they had everything they needed to defeat the Karn Imperium but when he remembered that the Karn were the embodiment of destruction and were specifically designed to destroy their reality, suddenly being able to produce anything from said reality wasn’t such a powerful skill.

Who would win out in a war between Creation and Destruction?

“This is getting a little to philosophical for me,” Happy said, shaking his head. “I’m going to go see if Sergeant Firman needs any help.”

“You and me both,” added Burke. He pointed at the two wolf men in front of him. “You two keep working on it. See if you can figure out what the Genesiseed has in store for us. If we’ve got gaps in our DNA, I want to know what it intends to fill those gaps with and if there’s any way to reverse this.”

It was tall demand but Carmichael seemed enthusiastic and Stitch was always up for a challenge. With Happy in tow, Burke headed up the stairs and made a left towards the engine rooms. The quiet hum of the low-emission ion engines made the Nascent Dawn a silent dropship that could barely be detected without specialised instruments. It was perfect for inserting troops into hostile landscapes. Firman was examining the pipes and consoles littering the large, eerily quiet chamber. The rest of the ship usually creaked or rattled a little but the engine room was always strangely quiet.

“Anything to report, Sergeant?” Burke asked.

Quiet as always, Firman didn’t reply and just handed Burke a datapad. Diagnostics were all clear. There were no elements of corruption or foreign substances anywhere on the ship. Not even in the cargo bay where the Genesiseed had once sat. The red-furred Sergeant Major was meticulous as well. He had brought up scans prior to their transformation and got the signature that the Genesiseed was emitting and compared it with the rest of the ship in the present. It wasn’t visible anywhere. Not even in the crew.

Burke sighed softly to himself. Captain Warner would have known exactly what to do in this situation. Even if they had all been turned into werewolves, he would know exactly what to do and how to utilise his men without sending Firman to do what was effectively busy work and having Happy trail him uselessly. He probably wouldn’t have let Carmichael and Stitch experiment with the damn artifact in the cargo bay. It was impossible to blame the curious scientist and the smartest guy in the squad for trying to poke at the alien artifact. It should have been up to the commanding officer to recognise the danger and restrain them.

This was his fault.

All his fault… Warner would never have let any of this happen.

Suddenly, two, big, fluffy, red arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. The surprise of having Firman’s warm, muscled form press up against him brushed aside all the doubt and depression leaving him momentarily vulnerable to the feelings of reassurance, camaraderie and belonging that being part of an elite Marine squad came with. This added with the gentle caress of a lupine cheek and muzzle against his neck soothed the storm in his chest. Their big, furry junk rubbing against one another was an added bonus.

“Huh…” he mumbled softly, gently patting Firman’s broad, muscled back. “Just what I needed. How’d you know?”

“I think we just know,” offered Happy with a shrug. “I felt you needed a hug too. Maybe it was the scent your were giving off or something else but I just knew you were doubting yourself thinking that Captain Warner could’ve done better.” His smaller paws slipped into Burke’s, gripping his palm tightly. “Honestly, if Captain Warner was even calmer about this shit than you were, he wouldn’t be human and you heard by the doc said. We’re _super_human.”

Firman gently let go of him but not before giving Burke’s left ear a light lick. It felt nice.

“Thanks,” sighed the Lieutenant. “Both of you.” He nodded in the direction of the cockpit. “Come on. Let’s all gather at the mess. Regroup.”

With the datapad still in his paw, he led the other two back towards the front of the ship. He hollered for the two in the cargo bay to head on up and waited for the two wolves to make their way towards him. Wildstorm was already there and Happy went off to fetch Sire. The entire crew gathered around the metal table where Wildstorm had laid out a bunch of clothing. The big, grey wolf was wearing a jockstrap.

“That’s not regulation,” Sire commented, pointing at the dull, black underwear.

“Sure it is,” countered Wildstorm.

“The Marines don’t let you wear jockstraps.”

“This ain’t a jockstrap, kiddo. It’s regulation underwear. It’s just so fucking small on me it looks like a jockstrap.”

Burke couldn’t help but think that was actually very hot. He glanced at the clothing arrayed before them. Everyone had basically gone up several sizes. Wildstorm had been the biggest of the troop and now even his shirts and shorts would be a tight fit for the bigger men such as Firman, Sire and Burke. Stitch, Carmichael and Happy would be strained to fit in the clothing that had once been like a second skin to Burke. Wildstorm, once again the biggest, would have to go shirtless… and pantsless.

“Okay,” announced the Lieutenant, placing his pawns on the table. “Quick recap.”

He went over the details of what he had learned as everyone started getting dressed. Carmichael decided to don his old lab coat which would no longer close around his broader form. There were mild reactions of surprise from the fact that everyone had spontaneously been overwhelmed by a urgent need to have sex and that the Genesiseed had taken that opportunity to merge with them. Carmichael and Stitch had to step in to explain what they had found about their DNA - that despite the fact they looked like werewolves - they were fundamentally still human and their cum contained no genetic material whatsoever. He concluded by summarising that the Nascent Dawn was still very much fully functioning.

“So we’re still alive,” he announced. “That’s something. It means we can still find some way out of this. Some way to turn back into humans.”

Then, right on that mark, four hours had passed since the Genesiseed had last become active.

It activated Phase 2.

Suddenly, all seven men convulsed twice, their bodies going rigid like they had all been shot with lightning.

“Oh fuck!” Happy cried, clawing at his newly acquired shorts. The blonde wolf fell to his knees and immediately thrust his hips into the air, his big, black, pointed cock rising to full erection complete with knot in seconds. The sound of tearing fabric echoed in the mess hall as Wildstorm’s massive dick tore right through his already-strained underwear, flying across the table and slapping Firman in the face with its precum-soaked mess. The red wolf fell on his back, clutching the black fabric to his muzzle and inhaling it, eyes rolled into the back of his head while clutching his own cock that had torn out of his shorts. Sire collapsed against the wall, clutching his head in both paws and gritting his teeth together but unable to stop the massive erection that ripped through his clothing and began spewing ropes of precum with the might of a rogue fire hose.

“L - L - Lieutenant!” panted Carmichael, crawling on the ground, his body dry-humping the steel floor while one paw was firmly wrapped around his dick.

Burke barely registered the plea as he collapsed against the table, his claws digging into the metal as his hips buck involuntarily. His vision began to blur, forth forming in the corners of his mouth. The heat and arousal erupting from his dick was too much. It was like twin suns had been birthed in his balls and now all that energy, all that heat was streaming up his cock and shooting out of the tip in violent bursts.

He was unable to control himself.

And he came.

Each crew member found themselves orgasming withing seconds of one another. Some like Firman and Wildstorm completely embraced it. Others tried to fight it with their very being like Happy and Sire. But there was no fighting the overwhelming need to ejaculate as one by one, each man shot their powerful, glossy seed into the air and their minds became awash with all the chemicals that came with afterglow. But one orgasm wasn’t enough. Not for the Genesiseed.

Wildstorm was the first to have his second orgasm, letting out an ear-splitting howl as his free paw raked across the wall. His cum shot out of his massive, black dick, splattering Burke from where he lay on the table. The Lieutenant instantly found himself unleashing his own orgasm, collapsing entirely against the table, twitching as his cock and balls pumped more and more of his seed beneath the table.

Over and over again, each man erupted, creamy geysers bursting from their crotches and their seed splattering the floors, walls, ceilings and one another in a thick coating of cum. Up to their fifth orgasm, the men had been so drowned in the cocktail of afterglow that their bodies were going completely on autopilot, cum just flying out of their cocks while their minds floating in warm bliss.

That’s when the Genesiseed went to work.

Four, large lumps squirmed against the backs of each man forming a square close to their spines. Flesh undulated and shifted, slowly peeling apart as a unique orifice grew and long, fleshy growths emerged from their muscles. Each of them were too addled by the mind-blowing orgasms to experience any pain from the rapid mutation but they were vaguely aware of a similar sensation like their cocks hardening only it came from these new appendages. The long, prehensile growls were glossy, sticky and serpentine, each one taking on the same colour as their host’s cocks. Burke’s were the longest, perhaps in respect to his rank as the highest ranking officer of the remaining Marines. The fleshy tentacles immediately curled around their hosts almost protectively, driven by some primal instinct to keep the rush from ejaculating going. The two lower tendrils curled around their legs, instinctively pulling them apart. One immediately slid into their ass and even those that hadn’t bottomed before like Carmichael or Burke found immeasurable pleasure from being penetrated. The other curled around their cocks, freeing their paws from stimulating themselves. The upper two tentacles curled around their heads, sliding their tapered points in and out of the wolves’ muzzles. This triggered some instinct in the men who instantly began suckling on the members, drinking in the strangely sweet, clear liquid that was pumped out of each tip.

Whether they knew it or not, all the men began reaching for their nipples. For Wildstorm, it was an easy target as the Genesiseed had purposefully enlarged his nipples. Just one squeeze was enough for a white liquid akin to milk to come shooting out and joining the slurry of cum that was quickly pooling around them.

Phase 2 was almost complete.

The last thing needed was to reinforce the unity that Burke, Firman and Happy had started to feel in that moment when they were in the engine room. Taking full control of their forms, the Genesiseed guided each man towards one another; the wolves staggering towards one another in an almost zombie-like state even as their bodies continued to produce more cum, more milk and more sweet nectar. Happy’s muzzle locked with Sire’s while Firman shoved his tongue right into Burke’s ass. Wildstorm crawled over the table, shoving his dick into Burke’s muzzle just as Happy and Sire crawled over to him to break their kiss and latch onto his nipples. Carmichael and Stitch collided with one another, rolling on the floor until they reached Burke’s cock still spilling seed under the table. Stitch shoved his dick into the red-and-cream-furred doctor while his muzzle clamped around Burke’s cock.

The wolves came, shooting their seed into one another.

Then Wildstorm grabbed the table and shoved it aside, wrenching it from the ground and compelling all of them to reconfigure. They became a tangle of limbs, muscles, fangs and tentacles. Every time they came, it was in unison and every time, they rearranged themselves so that their muzzles were around a different cock, their dicks were being sucked off by a different partner and a different canine manhood was shoved in their asses. All the while, their tentacles lashed and twisted with one another, curling and caressing lovingly, cementing their unity under the Genesiseed.

All according to plan.

Epilogue: Dawn

Phase 2 completed.

Primary transformations complete. Hosts optimised for combat against Endspawn.

Commencing Phase 3.

Awaiting input from secondary species.

******

_ _

Burke… Burke felt really good. He was warm, comfortable and it felt like he was floating on air. It had been a long time since he had actually felt this good. In fact, the last time he had actually felt this good was when he had been promoted to lieutenant and Captain Warner had hugged him so tight that he had been lifted in the air. How he wished that moment would last forever…

… but it didn’t…

And he’d never have a moment like that again.

Ayden ‘Snapshot’ Burke groaned softly as his depressing thoughts stirred him from his sleep. He opened his eyes… and immediately noticed that he wasn’t in his bed as he had expected. In fact, in some sort of… tent? It was dark but there was some light that made it through the thick, fleshy sleeping bag. He could see the veins that made up the membrane that had encapsulated him. For a moment, he feared that he had been captured by the Karn and he was in the process of being integrated.

Then he remembered all the other weird shit that had happened to him.

Though the weird, fleshy container was wrapped tightly around his frame, it wasn’t constraining. When he moved, it adjusted to his body. In fact, as he ran his fingers against the membrane, he could almost feel it as if it was part of him; it was akin to running a finger on the inside of his own cheek except this was a cheek that was somehow wrapped all over his body. What surprised him more was the fact that the hand he was using to caress the inside of the fleshy cocoon wasn’t covered in fur; it was pink, fleshy and human!

His brain couldn’t processed all of this at once so he focused on getting out.

The moment he thought this, a sliver of light peeled open in the middle of the pod. With a loud, gooey, squishy noise, that light broadened, the two halves of the cocoon splitting open with a trail of slime connecting them. The metallic ceiling of the Nascent Dawn was revealed above him and he breathed a sigh of relief. Naked, covered in goo but mercifully human, Burke peeled himself out of the cocoon, sitting up.

“This… This isn’t my room,” he concluded.

He had only been in this room once; when Warner had given him a briefing about what to expect at McAllister Station. Warner always kept his room very Spartan. There weren’t even any personal effects to mark it as Warner’s which was exactly how he knew this was the Captain’s room.

“How…?”

Burke shook his head, pushing that thought aside for the moment as he extracted himself from the pod. He didn’t get more than two steps before he felt something tug against his back like someone had embedded strings into his spine that kept him from moving too far. He turned and noticed the four, long, fleshy rods that were embedded into the pod. His eyes slowly followed the those four tentacles as they emerged from the pink interior of the pod all the way towards his back. Fearing the result but still curious, he reached over his broad back, feeling for where those vines connected. His fingers brushed up against the edges of the soft opening and he froze.

“Fuck…” he muttered to himself.

There was a small mirror in the room. Not enough to show his full body but large enough for an officer to tidy his hair and make sure he looked presentable before heading to the showers. He twisted his back in the direction of the mirror, his fears realised. Those four, bright pink rods sank into his muscled back, sliding into four, circular openings that flanked his spine; two on each side. Grabbing one confirmed that they were his; he felt his the pressure as the muscular tendril was squeezed by his own fingers and even felt a little jet of fluid move within its internal tubes.

“Here I thought it was all a bad dream.”

The pod had a strange, white, tough outer coating like a shell made out of pearls but the interior was soft, squishy and warm. The tentacles seemed to insert themselves into the fleshy parts, merging with it. He gently reached for one such tendril and pulled at it. It was surprisingly easy to yank the length out from the pod but the sensation that followed almost made his knees buckle. It was like someone was pulling out a big fat dick from his ass; a mixture of relief, pleasure and a sudden emptiness. The rush of euphoria made his eyelids flutter and his grip around his own tentacle loosen. The slimy length immediately hit the edge of his bed. The impact sent a jolt of pain through his body. Almost instinctively, the fleshy snake slithered towards his back with a loud, wet slurping, disappearing into the hole and that very same opening closing to the point where it was indiscernible with the rest of his back. Where it went, he wasn’t sure but it felt like he was going flaccid all over again.

Panting softly, he steeled his determination and grabbed the remaining three tentacles with his hands. A quick count to three and he immediately yanked them out of the pod.

“Oooooh fuuuuck…” he moaned, falling to his knees. His cock spasmed, filling plumping up between his balls but this was quickly overwhelmed by the sensation of his tentacles retreating into his back. Falling to his hands and knees, Ayden Burke took a moment to recompose himself.

With his hands in view, he noticed that there were other changes apart from the obvious. Though his dark brown hair had always allowed him some degree of visible body hair he was never what one might consider hirsute. Over whatever else had happened to him, the hair on his arms had thickened, giving him a light coating that was now very visible particularly around his forearms. As he straightened, he noticed that though his chest was definitely bigger and his abdominals far more defined, the same dusting of body hair had spread over the rest of his body. On instinct, he rubbed his jaw and felt the goatee the chin-only goatee hanging from his face; thick enough to be visible but one that hugged his pointed chin.

So much for the Marine’s dress code of staying clean shaven.

With a heavy sigh, Burke got to his feet. He felt his heavy sack and balls slapping against his enhanced legs. Any normal man would have been impressed that he was now eight inches flaccid with low-hanging balls the size of golf balls but this was far from natural. The Genesiseed was toying with them. They had to figure out some way to reverse all this and go back to being normal humans.

Though as he glanced at the mirror on the Captain’s desk, he briefly wondered if he could at least keep some of the size.

He wasn’t going to walk out naked into the ship. Maybe as a werewolf he wasn’t so put off the idea given that he had fur covering himself but as a human, he just felt utterly naked. He rifled through Captain Warner’s clothes. Since they were all standard military issue, he wasn’t too fussed that he would be wearing something that the man he respected wore. At least this time, it would all fit snugly.

A few minutes later, he was fully dressed and emerging from Warner’s cabin. He glanced back at the pod he had just emerged from and watched as the opening slowly closed once more leaving it’s surface perfectly smooth. It gave him shivers that he had been sleeping in that thing.

The ship was mostly silent save for the occasional creaking and groaning for a transport floating through space. Even the loud snoring of Wildstorm and Firman couldn’t be heard. He glanced into each of the cabins, noting that six of of the ten of them had pods just like his own. One of them was stirring and he watched as one said pod peeled open and Happy burst from it, gasping and hyperventilating. Recognising a fellow Marine in need, Burke stepped into the room. Happy flinched for a moment upon seeing him but the blonde-haired human relaxed the instant he recognised the Lieutenant.

“Holy shit…” breathed Happy. “It’s just you, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah,” he replied, padding over to the Corporal. “Just me. Here, let me help you up.” He pulled Happy slowly from the pod. Once again human - at least for the most part - Happy had developed a lighter coat of blonde hair all over his body. His hair had become far more golden in colour compared to a natural blonde which generaly darkened at the roots. His had become completely gold from roots to tip. The same was with his body hair.

“What happened to us?” asked the Corporal.

“If I had to guess? The Genesiseed turned us back into humans to make sure we could fit in with other humans. We’re still weird though.” He made a point of running his hand along the tentacles that stuck from Happy’s back and embedded themselves into the pod. Happy shivered at the touch. “I’m going to pull these out now. Try to stay standing.”

“Why would I -”

He gave all four rods a tug and Happy instantly quaked, convulsing where he stood and biting his lower lip like he had just experienced a mind-blowing orgasm. Burke caught him before the poor guy toppled to the ground. Just like with him, those tentacles slithered into Happy’s back, the opening disappearing amongst the hills and valleys of muscle.

“That… That’s going to take some getting used to…” breathed the blonde-haired Corporal.

“Yeah, it basically crippled me too.” He patted Happy’s back. “Get dressed, Corporal. Then wake everyone else. I’ll run some diagnostics on the ship to make sure we didn’t damage anything after we…”

“Fuck each other silly?” finished his youngest Marine with a coy smile.

Burke didn’t dignify that with an answer and headed out of Happy’s cabin. He headed towards the mess all, vaguely registering that some of the other pods were starting to stir The smell of sex, cum and male musk grew stronger as he approached the hall. As was to be expected, there was a lot of their seed splattered all over the hall. The table was practically covered with it and there was an ocean about three inches thick on the floor. Claw marks scratched the steel furniture and walls.

“This is going to take some doing to clean up…”

Before he could start with the chore, however, he noticed a loud beeping coming from further down the mess hall past the armoury. Curious, he waded through the cum thanking whatever god was watching that he and Warner wore similarly sized boots. The beeping grew louder as he approached the cockpit. Amongst the holographic displays and dark background of space, one such display caught his attention. It was blinking red with the words ‘Incoming Communications’ printed across it.

He sat down in the co-pilot’s seat and hit the display, accepting the message.

“This is Lieutenant Ayden Burke.”

“Finally. We’ve been trying to reach you for hours! We thought something had happened.”

The voice was deep and unfamiliar. “Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Sporekeeper Varrin Ku’thlack of the Orkish Homeship Da’makur. We received your hails and only recently managed to get in range to answer. When you didn’t answer, we grew worried and are now making our way to you, Lieutenant.”

Burke’s heart plummeted.

He had forgotten about the Orcs!

Now they were heading towards one another!

He glanced over his shoulder, just barely seeing Happy waking up the others. They didn’t have enough food, water or air to survive more than another two days - if they even needed to eat anymore. They needed help but they had also mutated into space werewolves because of the Genesiseed. As evidenced from the previous night’s activities - and the messy mess hall - they weren’t fully in control of themselves. There was no telling what they could do to one another or the Orcs if they came in contact.

“What is your ETA?” he asked.

“We should be there in a couple of hours. What’s your status?”

Burke hit the mute button on his side. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Decision time.

Either he delayed the Orcs’ arrival and potentially risked them starving to death out here in space or they met up with the Orcs and hoped that they could control themselves. There were so many unknowns and so many variables that he wasn’t sure that even Captain Warner would be able to come up with a sound decision without any consequences. If he asked them to delay, he could buy them some time but the Orcs could grow suspicious. They may be superhuman but they were still a tiny little dropship compared to a Orkish Homeship which was the equivalent of two human Dreadnaughts! Then again, he wasn’t even entirely sure what the Orcs wanted. Nothing was free in this universe.

“Damnit…”

“Lieutenant?” came the voice from the ship. “Are you still there.”

Gritting his teeth, Burke unmuted himself. “Yes, sorry. We’re having some communication troubles.” He took a deep breath and made his decision. “Thank you for your assistance, Sporekeeper. We shall see you in a few hours.”