Deadly Cargo - Nika's Transformation
"...is the HSS Sozdaniye...I
repeat, this is the HSS Sozdaniye...We require urgent assistance..."The plea for help had
triggered the sensor tell-tales of Nika Sharkeh's small vessel as it cruised
through the outer regions of the Damocles system, and immediately relayed by
the scout ship's 'dumb' AI directly to her neural net. The implants immediately woke her from the
dream that her unconscious mind had quite pleasantly been lost in. The cybernetically enhanced shark
anthropoid's eyes flickered open as the dull chiming in her head intensified,
and it replayed the message for the third time. Okay, okay, I hear ya!
I'm awake!The chiming immediately ceased in
response to her irritated thoughts, otherwise unaffected by the flare of
negative emotion directed its way. With
practiced ease, the shark rolled out of her bunk, stood and stretched, rolling
her head to work out the kinks in her neck and shoulders. Her downtime attire, a matching pale blue
spandex sports bra and hot pants set, did little to constrict her movements,
and only complimented her lithely fit form.
Visible muscles stood out on her abs - the product of several years of
military service before she had mustered out, and a continuing and rigorous
exercise routine. This martial discipline also displayed itself
in her cramped stateroom; there was little wasted space, or given to personal
effects. Only the black floral tattoo
that curled around her hip and lower torso over her neon-blue striped black and
white hide, hinted that there might be a softer side to the shark's
personality.Nika hurried through her cabin
door and along the connecting corridor that lead off to the cockpit, the boots
she had donned thudding dully off the floor plating, her swift passage
scattering the miniature servo-droids scanning for cracks in the hull integrity. The cockpit of Nika's nimble vessel was even
more cramped than her quarters, consisting of little more than a curved space
just large enough for a pilot's chair and surrounding control panels. It would also serve as a detachable escape
pod, if dire circumstances called for separation. She slid down into the pseudo-leather seat, polished
cerasteel cybernetic hands already flying across the control services in front
of her. She dropped the ship's speed
down to .5, and ran a long-range scan, using the AI's estimate from
extrapolating the signal as to where it had originated. A satisfied grin flashed across her maw, as a
soft tone sounded and a fuzzy blip flashed upon her system sweep display. There! Gotcha!Caught in a slow, declining orbit
around Damocles IV, the system's largest planetoid was a vessel; one of
considerable size and bulk, if the mass spectrometer readings were
correct. Nika pursed her lips in silent
thought as she stared at the readout displays.
Damocles lay well off the established trade lades, and she instinctively
shook her head as her implant quickly fed her information about recorded
colonies for this sector. The nearest
lay 7.4 parsecs coreward - none for the Damocles system. The mystery deepened as her telescoping
visual sensor brought her images of the vessel.
It was a commercial bulk cargo carrier, the kind used by mining
corporations to haul raw or processed materials between colony worlds. Without exterior running lights, the cargo
ship's squat, un-streamlined hull was almost invisible against the black of
space, and Nika detected only a trickle of power in use aboard the ship - which
at least accounted for the repeated beacon.
Nika frowned as she gazed at the vessel through her display, questions
forming inside her mind. Was there anyone alive aboard the ship? How long had it been out
here? More importantly, what was it even
DOING out here? Unable to answer any of them at
that moment, she reclined in her chair and instead, linked to the AI's
data-registry, and scanned for reports of a 'HSS Sozdaniye' in the list of missing ships for the past two standard
years. She scowled as a desultory tone chimed
in her mind, signalling failure. It
seemed, she mused sourly, that the ship refused to give up its mystery quite so
easily. She snapped out of her reverie as
the AI's soft, pleasant voice spoke within her mind. "We are now within visual range of the target vessel. Shall I withdraw shielding?"Nika mentally nodded, and leaned
forward as the armoured shielding that enveloped the curved viewport silently
withdrew back into its housing. Space,
pinpricked by uncounted stars lay ahead of her. The slate-grey crater pockmarked sphere of
Damocles IV floated to the right of her and almost directly ahead, floated the
HSS Sozdaniye. She estimated it to be 300-400 metres in
length and easily half as much in width.
The technical readouts fed to her implant confirmed her guess -
respectably large for a cargo vessel.
Curiosity warred with caution and she stared at both the vessel and the data
readouts, drumming her fingers on the chair armrest as she played the distress
call again. She could report it to her headquarters and eventually a recovery ship
would make its way to the system and recover it and the remains of any crew
aboard. Or survivors...if there WERE stasis tubes aboard, though the low power
readings would rule out many of the crew surviving, if any at all. Alternatively, she could go
aboard herself and investigate. It had been a painfully tedious survey mission so far, a little excitement in
solving a mystery, would not go amiss.
She flashed a tight grin; she knew she had her answer.Thirty minutes later, Nika stood
at the docking hatch leading out of her ship, armed and armoured. The non-regulation sliver and blue
chromeplate suit she had donned, a relic of her days in the 22nd
Heavy Cavalry, would serve as both protection and provide life-support aboard
the mostly airless vessel. The somewhat
flexible tail extension would hamper her agility, but not completely. The AI's sensors had detected pockets of
stale but breathable atmosphere in bulkhead sealed areas, but had also detected
several of the aft airlocks had been opened, exposing other sections to vacuum. Nika
reasoned this went some way to explaining the distress call, but it had given
no clue as to the cause of the reason that it had been sent, or why the
airlocks had been voluntarily opened, with no evidence of external damage. It had
merely reported the name of the vessel and the request, before dissolving into
unhelpful static. There had also been no
response to her attempts to hail the ship, nor wirelessly connect to its data
network. "Connection established, stand by for depressurization...30 seconds..."Nika tapped in a confirmation to
the AI, and took several deep breaths, nostrils flaring as she took as much
oxygen into her system as she could, both as a long-practiced precaution and as
a way of slowing her excitedly beating heart.
With a satisfied nod as her heart
rate began to slow, she clipped on the angular helmet to her suit life-support connectors,
waited for the green status tell-tale to glow and then switched to internal air
supply. Her external audio pickups
relayed the low hiss as the environmental systems equalized pressure between
the two vessels, now mated together at one of the opened airlocks. "Depressurisation complete...hatch opening..."The hatch slid open. With caution born of long years of service
and a number of boarding actions, Nika instinctively raised her weapon, and
crouched down into a firing position, honed senses alert to the sign of
immediate danger. There was none. Nika engaged her helmet lamps and sharp-edged
beams of light bathed the passage within, illuminating its featureless
emptiness. She
tilted her head, carefully sweeping from side to side, eyes narrowing to catch
even the slightest hint of a threat.
Satisfied, Nika stepped forward and then braced as her stomach
lurched. The transition to microgravity,
even for an aquatic ancestry species such as Nika's, was never pleasant. With a contrary gracefulness for one so
armoured, she floated upwards, and pushed herself forward along the corridor,
using both the emergency grips along the walls, and her suit's manoeuvre jets
to slow and right herself. Restoring
artificial gravity, if possible, would be her first priority. Nika was no engineer; but she had received
training in emergency system repairs, and her implant would render needed
assistance if required. Inwardly
shrugging, she began her exploration of the ship. There had definitely been some manner
of violent struggle. Ignoring the vast
cargo holds that comprised the bulk of the vessel, she had uncovered evidence
as such, as she forced open the bulkhead doors leading to the crew lounge. In the darkness, debris comprised of smashed
monitors, furniture and personal effects free-floated, and there were ugly red
stains on several of the walls. Nika's
chem-sniffers confirmed that this was indeed humanoid and anthropoid
blood. Warily, her battle-honed senses
prickling, she had surveyed the wreckage, searching for personal logs or
data-cubes that she could access. She
scowled as she came up with nothing, hard information was as absent as the presence
of injured crew...or their corpses. She stopped. A flicker of movement, at the corner of her peripheral
vision, instantly drew the attention of her keen senses. Nika swung around, carbine raised and ready
to fire, lips drawn back in a snarl, pulse quickening, mind racing. There had been no proximity alerts on her
motion-tracker, or via her thermo-graphic sensors, so how could it be possible
for something to slip through? Seconds
crept by, as she scanned the area in which she had...thought...she had seen something. She checked her sensors again, and still
nothing. A minute, then two passed, as
she bobbed up in down in the centre of the room. Nika scowled as she brought her
weapon to rest, tensed shoulders easing as she relaxed again, mentally chastising
herself for her jumpiness. She had work
to do - which did not involve jumping at shadows. Nonetheless, she felt ill at ease; a feeling
that she could not shake as she resumed her exploration.Main Operations was just as much
a disaster zone as the crew lounge had been.
The air had been vented, and the navigation systems lay smashed beyond
repair - an act Nika suspected had been intentional. There was evidence of energy scorching and
several heavy industrial tools free-floated in the flight decks; likely
accomplices for the sabotage. Her
expression turned quizzical as she considered the evidence so far. It all pointed to the crew willingly
disabling their ship, so it would remain stranded within the Damocles system,
eventually spiralling down to crash upon the surface of the fourth world. The whereabouts of the crew remained a
mystery, though the bloodstains gave some clue to their possible fate. Her eyebrows furrowed as she
considered the evidence so far, and then shrugged, and then set to work in
restoring environmental controls and accessing the ship's database.The cybershark let out a
delighted gasp as her efforts of the past two hours had paid off. The ship's reactor systems been locked in
standby mode, which explained the low trickle of energy her own vessel's
sensors had detected. With the
assistance of her implant, she managed to break through the hastily established
firewalls and data-locks on the engineering systems and re-engage main power and
environmental to 50% normal. She braced
herself as the gravity plates engaged and she dropped to the decking, spreading
her booted feet and landing with minimal jarring impact. One by one, the few remaining terminals
flickered to life, as did the lighting panels above, bathing her in a red-tinted
emergency glow. A low hiss sounded in
her audio pickups, as oxygen flooded back into Operations. With a soft chime, her suit chem-sniffers
declared that the atmosphere was now safe to breath. Gratefully, Nika unclipped her helmet,
pulling it off and shook out her mass of white-blue hair, and breathed
deep. It was good to be free of the constricting helmet. Placing it down within easy reach, she sat
heavily down in one of the seats in front of the main data-panel and began to
interrogate the main database. Fifteen minutes later, she wished
she hadn't, as her blood ran ice-cold. She
had uncovered a backup of one of the logs belonging to the ship's Second
Officer. It had been audio-only, with
evidence of attempted tampering before whatever disaster had happened. She replayed it again, chewing her lip
anxiously as she listened. "....discovered contraband cargo within Cargo Hold 4B. Seemed to be biological in nature, with
protected triple-cipher seals.
Confronted the Captain, who was well aware of its presence - seems he
was part of the deal. Offered to bring
me in... quite a sizable sum, really.
Assured me that it was merely biological matter from Agropharm Inc to be
passed onto a third party and sold on the black market on one of the biotech prohibiting
worlds. I suspected otherwise, and
managed to crack one of the data seals, and determined that its point of origin
was in fact our own parent company, Hyperion Biogenic...Investigating further."It was this information that had
chilled Nika to the core. Hyperion
Biogenic had been a corporation infamous for its quasi-legal research into the
benefits of nanotechnology. Darker
rumours had persisted that it was deeply involved in the design and production
of illegal biological weapons, supplying them to the fractious frontier world
governments. Conclusive evidence of this
had been produced during a six-year convert investigation, and Hyperion
forcibly dissolved after a three-month bloody and vicious corporate war. That had been three years ago. The Sozdaniye
had floated out here on the frontier, for at least that long, as all
remaining Hyperion ships had been impounded by the Corporate Court since the
conclusion of the conflict. Nika looked around, eyes
nervously darting about as the feeling of creeping anxiety deepened. Perhaps this
had been the cause of the disaster. Her
chem-sniffers and sensor sweeps had failed to detect evidence of viral infection
present aboard the ship, or in the air recyclers, but still, her felt unable to
calm her nerves. Her fingers reflexively
gripped around the stock of her carbine, and her suit sensors chimed a passive warning
as her heart raced. She jammed on her
helmet, and switched to suit air supply once more. It was time to leave. It was time to leave, now. A flicker of movement caught her
eye again, as she retraced her steps, her pace quickening as she neared the
crew lounge again. She halted, weapon
ready and jangled nerves heightened, as she slowly turned - nothing. Nika cursed, the cybershark shaking her head
as she took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm her
frantically beating heart.C'mon, get a grip! There is NOTHING here now!She turned, and then let out a
strangled, shocked cry as she felt something slam into her back and the shark
lurched forward, arms flailing frantically for a grip as she fell. Nika hit the ground hard, bright lights flashing in her vision as her forehead and
snout slammed against the reinforced visor of her helmet. Dazed and confused, she tried to press
herself up to scramble away, but something
had forcefully pinned her prone to the decking.
Another heavy blow swiped her across the back of the head and darkness
enveloped her, and she passed out.The cybershark drifted in and out
of consciousness. Dimly, she felt
herself being...dragged...each lurching
motion setting off waves of nausea within her, and she was in no fit state to
resist. Dull-grey ceiling decking,
peppered with dimly illuminated lights, was all she could see, as it crawled by
overheard. Something had her gripped
firmly by the arms, and was strong enough to raise and pull her 280lb armoured frame. After an indeterminate passage of time, they
stopped, and Nika was unceremoniously released to fall backwards once more She winced, tilting her head this time and
braced herself, and received only a minor impact to the back of her already
dazed head. She scrambled forward on her knees and pivoted around. What she saw, was like a bucket of ice water
poured down her spine, and a gasp escaped her lips before she could bite down
upon it, lastly turning into a silent exclamation as the fear gripped her
heart. Ahead of her, lay a dimly lit and
expansive cargo bay. Pressure and
gravity seemed to be normal. In the centre was...a shimmering form, almost
impossible to see and gauge the size of, and profoundly difficult to focus
upon. It was almost as if Nika's gaze
kept sliding off it, every time she
tried to look at it for more than a second. Chrysalis Camouflage! Her implant helpfully fed her the
information that her mind struggled to remember. So THAT was the flashes of movement she had
kept seeing in her peripheral vision! She
had precious little time to check off the solving of one mystery, before her
full attention returned to her abductor.
The shimmering had ceased, falling away to dissipate in a rain of
glowing particles, and in its place stood some manner of quadruped
creature. The shimmer-glow highlighted its
glossy black-purple hide; framing a feline head that possessed an undeniable
reptilian quality with its bone-ridged ears and flared, angular cheeks,
regarded her with gleaming, violet eyes.
It stood more than half the height of Nika and was bulky but
athletically so. What caused her breath
to catch in her throat was the mass of tentacles that curled up from its sides
to hover and wave above the beast. Each
tentacle had a glossy gel-like surface, and glowed with streaks of inner light
that pulsed along their length, and seemed to move independently of each other,
darting this way and then that, and only aiding its terrifying appearance. Terrifying...terror...A vague memory within her mind
tugged at her mental attention. There
was something horrifyingly familiar about the beast. She had never seen anything like it before, but
none-the-less, there was something about it.
She grimaced as sudden remembrance dawned on her. One of the hypernet rumour sites had
published an unsubstantiated story during the investigation of Hyperion
Biogenic. It claimed to have evidence of
one of the corporations' biological weapons; a genetic creation designed as a
way of covertly spreading panic among the population of the state or world it
was to be deployed against. There had
been precious little hard information, only a codename.Nightmare. The scant descriptions, mostly
dismissed as the creation of an over-active imagination, fit exactly with the
creature that had taken her by force and now stood in front of her. She suppressed a shiver as she realised that
this was almost certainly, what had killed the crew of the Sozdaniye and what they had struggled against - even going as far
as scuttling their own ship in an effort to kill it....and now ya gone and blundered right into its lair...A note of bitter, sardonic note
twisted her thoughts, as she bent her thoughts to escape. Unlike the crew of the Sozdaniye, this...nightmare
beast...was facing a shark - a shark at the peak of her fitness and martial
prowess. White-hot anger surged through
her veins, sweeping away the fear that had gripped her, replaced with a
desperate confidence in her abilities. She might have lost her carbine, but she
still had her fists. Grinning tightly
through the faceplate of her helmet, she slammed her clenched gauntleted fists
together in a showy display - one predator to another. "C'mon you fucking monster!" she ground out through clenched teeth, keying in
the audio amplifier for her suit's speakers, as the echo of her fists colliding
died down. "Let's do this!"If anything, the beast looked
amused by her display of machismo. It tilted its head as if to curiously regard
her, and flashed it's fangs in what could only be described as a toothy grin as
it stood there, long, flexible tail swishing from side to side. Nika's blood boiled as it failed to react, and
against her better judgement, she struggled forward onto her feet, taking a
step closer, nostrils flaring angrily. "C'mon! What are you waiting for?
I'll rip ya to pieces!"A tentacle whipped forward through
the air towards her in response to her bravado, and nimbly dodged the swipe she
aimed at it with her right fist. It
quickly wrapped around and encircled her forearm, and resisted her frantic
attempts to free herself. The glowing
streaks within the purple gel-surface pulsed brighter as it tightened her grip
around it, and she let out a panicked cry as another tentacle flashed forward
and entrapped her other arm. She
struggled mightily, spitting out curses towards the Nightmare, as it padded
forward. Those bright gleaming eyes
pierced the gloom and swept over her, finally fixing on her eyes. They flashed once and then flickered rapidly,
and Nika's eyes bulged as frantic chimes sounded in her mind, as her implant screamed
out a warning of a wireless attack directed at her. Her
protective firewalls buckled under the sheer strength of the network attack and
suddenly there was a second intelligence, devious and malevolent, within her
mind, accessing both her personal implant database, and the one on-board her
ship, to which the implant kept her constantly connected. She tried to disconnect, mentally engaging
her remaining emergency safeguards, and screamed in physical agony as her
thoughts were slammed aside in her own mind, by the force of the infiltrating
intelligence. As quickly as it had wormed
its way into her mind and implant, the intelligence withdrew, leaving a feeling
of alien smug satisfaction lingering unpleasantly within her mind. Her full awareness of the physical world
returned and Nika found she was now hanging suspended, lifted up by and
dangling from the surprisingly strong limbs.
A feeling of despair and helplessness swept over the shark, as she
fitfully thrashed and struggled.
Another, more slender tentacle arced up from the mass writhing from the
finely scaled and smooth flanks, and she recoiled in revulsion as it neared her
face. The beast's eyes flashed and then
flickered again, and Nika's eyes widened and panic gripped her again, as she
heard the locks on her helmet disengage.
The tendril bobbed about in front of her faceplate; tip touching and
experimentally stroking the surface, before it coiled around the helmet and
lifted. With a hiss of escaping, it came
free, and exposed Nika's naked senses to the beast's domain. A richly musky smell hung in the
air and almost made her gag; such was its immediate intensity as it hit
her. The tendril released its grip upon
the helmet, carelessly tossing it aside to land with a dull clang. With frightening speed, it returned to
hover in front of her face, weaving from side to side like a menacing
cobra. A raspy, feral rumbling purr
followed this display, and despite her dire circumstances, annoyed heat flushed
across Nika's face. She was not going to be toyed with. In as disapproving a manner she could muster,
she spat at the tentacle. The purring
ceased, replaced by an angry snarl, and the cybershark cried out as the tip of
the tentacle swatted her across her snout, the little barbs that ran along its
translucent surface drawing a line of blood across her cheek, pain blossoming
in its wake. It seemed that playtime was over.Now the tentacles came quickly
for her, and in greater number. Three
more joined their brethren in assaulting the armoured shark, and Nika writhed
in silent anguish as the Nightmare assaulted her cybernetically linked mind
again, tears trickling in her cheek at the humiliation and alien connection to
her mind. It felt wet, and dark, like
black oil, slithering through her implant and into her suit systems. The beast's will and intelligence
disconnected the locking mechanisms and severed the connections between each
piece one after another, rendering them powerless and inert. Then the tendrils went to work, coiling and
around and slithering in between the gaps in her armour and for the first time,
touched her naked skin. Nika recoiled;
her thrashing increasing as the wetly slick sensation as the gel tendrils slid across
and began to ooze across her rubber shark hide.
Her skin crawled at the unpleasant sensation, and the Nightmare let out
a triumphant howl as her panicked thrashing increased. This was the purpose that the
Nightmares had been bred for - to infiltrate systems, cause fear, and panic, to
maim, and kill. It was a purpose which
been disrupted when it had been awoken and subsequently stranded aboard a
doomed ship. Now, it had a chance to
escape, but not however, before it had fulfilled its greater purpose; one that had been subsequently introduced into its
programming and only this particular model.
It was Hyperion Biogenic's last act of spiteful vengeance on a galaxy
that had turned against it, something that threatened to doom the civilised
galaxy if unleashed to its full potential, and its new prey, it had decided,
would be the harbinger. The Beast's tendrils began to
strip Nika of her protective garb. With
forceful dexterity, they slid off and wrenched free each piece, the pulsing
threads of glowing energy within flickering and increasing in tempo as they
assaulted her. The shark could do little
more than cry out her helpless fear and frustration and struggle with ever
decreasing energy, as more and more of her naked skin was exposed. Thinking was becoming more difficult too;
her thoughts started slipping away from her as she breathed in that musky
odour, seemingly heightening her ability to feel sensations in their
place. As a finger-width tentacle slid
between the straps of her chest-piece, and heaved. Iit fell away, landing on the decking below,
and robbing Nika of the final barrier to the beast's exploration and exposure
of her natural form. Within minutes, she
hung suspending in the air, naked aside from her spandex underclothes, thick,
luminous ooze trickling across her skin wherever the tentacles had touched
her. Shame at her ragged, helpless state
burned her cheeks and within her heart, warring with the paralysing terror that
hovered at the edge of her conscious mind, as dread at what terrible fate and
death was in store for her, threatened to send it retreating into
oblivion. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and
bowed her head, resigned to the killing blow that was sure to come next.Nika gasped and gagged as a
tentacle suddenly had her by the throat, coiling and squeezing around her neck
and forcing her maw open as she desperately attempted to breathe.So, this is how I die...The pressure on her throat
relaxed; Nika's eyes flickered open and then bulged in horror as a tentacle
forced its way into her maw. She tried
to close her maw, bite down upon the invader, but a return of the strangling
pressure convinced her otherwise and she relented. The raspy purr returned; the beast's prey was
learning. The gel smooth tendril forced
its way to the back of her throat, and it demanded all of her determination to
survive simply not to gag upon it, barely holding back the reflex action to
thrash about. She felt a bulge travel up
along the tendril, forcing her maw open wider as it passed, and the panic
returned with frantic intensity. Moments
later, a thick fluid spewed out from the porous tip of the tentacle. It possessed a cloying sweetness, and the
intensity of its taste made Nika's head swim.
Forced to gulp it down, she drank deeply, the passage of time, and
outside awareness slipping away from her.
Her worldview narrowed until it consisted merely of the fluid and the
tentacle that offered it. The hazy
lassitude that had begun to seep into her mind deepened, as if her thoughts were
slippery fish she was unable to grasp. The shark dimly felt her artificial arms
droop, no longer resisting the tendrils encircling her wrists, as her eyes slid
shut. A wave of rewarding pleasure made
the shark's nerves tingle, arch her back, and stiffen within the embrace of the
tentacles, as the nanotrite fluid seeping throughout her system responded to
the beast's directions to stimulate her pleasure centres, and she responsively
gulped down the fluid, the excess seeping from the sides of her maw, and
dripping down her chin. Her belly began
to bulge and swell as it filled her to capacity. An orgasm soon followed, the first of many,
which tore breathy, muffled moans of mindless ecstasy from her lips, and left
her a quivering sliver of darkly pleasured flesh. The Nightmare let out a satisfied
growl, as it lowered the ensnared shark and pulled her towards him. The process had begun.
Time passed unevenly for Nika as she drifted in and out of
consciousness, and underwent the transformation process. Within the cocoon of tentacles in which she lay
quivering next to the beast, and filled all three of her orifices, Nika changed
forever. The shark's keen, tactical mind
collapsed into malleable putty as she became dependent upon the nanotrite fluid
the beast fed to her, and the pleasurable sensations with which it rewarded
her. One day, she would feast upon flesh
and bone, as the Nightmare had upon the crew of their domain, but for now, the
fluid would be her sustenance. Images
and memories of her former life flitted sporadically through the cybershark's
mind, but she regarded them with ever-duller curiosity, as if they were someone
else's, and not her own. All that
mattered, the sibilant and pervasive voice of her mate insisted, was becoming
one with it, and eventually bearing its offspring. To that end, it had begun to change the
shark's physical appearance and biology down to the genetic level - blending
shark, machine and Nightmare into a new hybrid. The white portions of her hide had deepened to
a deep purple, and her stripes had changed hue to a brilliant amethyst. Bulging nubs of skin ran in parallel rows
either side of her spine - the genesis of what would eventually become
tentacles of her own. Despite her
convalescence, she was fitter and more muscular than before her transformation
begin, as the beast stimulated her muscles to develop further. It was patient. It had waited for four years in the void of
space, in a state of semi-hibernation, resigned to its fate after the previous
prey, all male, had sabotaged the vessel it had been awoken on. That was until its sensors had detected the
presence of the female anthropoid, and had been granted another chance to
complete its purpose. It required the
skills and body-form she possessed to pilot her ship and navigate, and only
then, when they had landed upon a suitable prey-world, would she undergo final
transformation. The hybrid entity, once known as
Nika, writhed in pleasurable agony. The
tentacles lodged within the puffy folds of her sex and deeply in the passages
of her rump vibrated as the Nightmare fed her images of being gifted the quadruped
form of a Nightmare and bearing it's cyberorganic young, driving her into
heated orgasm. She would become the
brood-mother to a race of Nightmare hybrids, fulfilling the new purpose Nika
was now reprogrammed with.The hybrid's maw fell open in an
expression of slack, ecstatic fulfilment, as they flashed through her broken
mind, punctuated by the rewarding penetrations of her mate's tentacles.To breed...to cause terror...to kill...that was her only purpose now, one she
must impress upon the prey-worlds they would infiltrate and ravage, bending
them to their will. Each world that fell would join them in becoming one with
her, and her mate. Joining in the
blissful union in which all life would either join, or become prey to....The galaxy would never be the same again.