Deadly Cargo - Gift Story
"...is the H.S.S Sozdaniye...I repeat, this is the H.S.S Sozdaniye...We require urgent assistance..."
The distress call triggered the sensor tell-tales of Nika Akulina's scout vessel as it cruised through the outer regions of the Damocles system and was immediately relayed by the scout ship's 'dumb' AI directly to her neural net. The implants poured a bucket of digital cold water over the unconscious mind of the cybernetically-enhanced shark anthroid and roused her from the dream she had been rather quite pleasantly lost in. Nika's eyes flickered open as the frantic 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 but the AI was otherwise unaffected by the flare of negative emotion directed its way. With practised ease the shark rolled out of her bunk, stood and stretched, and began to roll her head to work out the kinks in her neck and shoulders. Her downtime attire, a matching pale blue spandex sports bra and shorts 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, along with a continuing and rigorous_exercise routine. This martial discipline also displayed itself in her cramped stateroom. Small as her ship was for luxuries there was_zero wasted space and very little given over to personal effects that might portray her personality. Only the black floral tattoo that curled around her hip and lower torso hinted that there might be a softer side to the blue-striped tiger shark.
Nika hurried through her cabin door and along the connecting corridor that lead off to the cockpit. The boots she had donned thudded dully off the floor plating and 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 enough circumstances called for separation. She slid down into the pseudo-leather seat with her polished cerasteel cybernetic hands already flying across the control surfaces in front of her. She dropped the ship's speed down to zero-point-five and ran a long-range scan using the AI's estimated extrapolation of where the signal 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 of considerable size and bulk. Of course, that was if the mass spectrometer readings were to be believed and not merely glitching out. Nika pursed her lips in silent thought as she stared at the readout displays. Damocles lay well off the established trade lanes. She instinctively shook her head as her implants quickly fed her information about recorded colonies for this sector. The nearest lay 7.4 parsecs coreward, with none listed at all for the Damocles system. The mystery deepened as her telescoping visual sensor finally 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 hull, possessed none of the streamlining used by passenger and military vessels and was almost invisible against the black of space. Nika detected only a trickle of power in use aboard the ship. This would at least account for the automated beacon. Nika frowned as she gazed at the vessel through her display. Numerous questions formed inside her mind.
Was there anyone alive aboard the ship? How long had it been out here? And more importantly, what was it even DOING out here?
Unable to answer any of them at that moment, Nika reclined in her chair and linked to the AI's data-registry and scanned for reports of a 'H.S.S Sozdaniye' in the list of missing ships for the past two standard years. She scowled as a desultory tone chimed in her mind and signalled failure. It seemed that the ship was refusing to give up its mystery quite so easily. She snapped out of hers sour reverie as the AI's soft and pleasantly-accented 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 outer edge of the curved viewport silently withdrew back into its housing. The depths of space, pin pricked by uncounted stars, lay ahead of her. The slate-grey and crater-pockmarked sphere of Damocles IV lay to the right, and almost directly ahead floated the blocky oblong of the H.S.S 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; it was respectably large for a cargo vessel. Curiosity warred with caution and she stared at both the vessel and the data readouts and drummed her fingers on the chair armrest as she replayed the distress call once more. 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 the crew. Though if there had been stasis tubes aboard, there was a chance there would be survivors, regardless of how long it had been drifting through space. However, the low power readings, barely a trickle in comparison to the estimated full-power output of the ship, would rule out many of those fortunate 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. Nika flashed a tight grin, for 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 chrome-plate 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 barely breathable atmosphere in bulkhead sealed areas. It had also detected that 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 still given no clue as to the cause behind the reason that it had been sent or why the airlocks had apparently been voluntarily opened. After all, there was no evidence of external damage that would have forced them to malfunction. The message had merely reported the name of the vessel and the S.O.S, before dissolving into unhelpful static. There had also been no response to her attempts to hail the ship, nor had she been able to wirelessly connect to its onboard data network.
Connection established, stand by for depressurization...30 seconds...
Nika tapped in a confirmation to the AI and took several deep breaths. The armoured tiger shark's nostrils flared as she took as much oxygen into her system as she could, both as a long-practised precaution and as a way of slowing her excitedly-beating heart. With a satisfied nod as her heart rate began to slow she hooked up the angular helmet she would wear to her suit life-support connectors, waited for the status tell-tale to glow green and then switched to internal air supply. Her suit's external audio pick-ups relayed the low hiss as the environmental systems equalized pressure between the two vessels now mated together at one of the opened airlocks.
Depressurization 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. The former military shark's honed senses were alert to_any_ signs of immediate danger, of which there were none. With a few quick taps on her suit's control system, Nika switched on the red-tinted exterior helmet lamps. Sharp-edged beams of light bathed the passage within and illuminated its featureless emptiness. She tilted her head, carefully sweeping it from side to side. Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she sought to catch even the slightest hint of a threat. Again satisfied that she was in no danger, Nika stepped forward and then halted and braced herself as her stomach lurched unpleasantly. 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 manoeuvring jets to slow and right herself. Restoring artificial gravity, if at all possible, would be her first priority. Nika was no engineer but she had received training in emergency system repairs. Her implant would render needed additional assistance if required. Inwardly shrugging at problems that had not yet presented themselves, 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 of such as she forced open the bulkhead doors leading to the crew lounge. In the darkness, debris comprised of smashed displays, wrecked furniture and personal effects of the crew floated free.
There were also ugly red stains on several of the walls.
Nika's chem-sniffers confirmed that this was indeed anthroid blood. More wary now with her battle-honed senses prickling, she began to sift through the wreckage and searched for personal logs or data-cubes that she could access.
Fuck, nothing!
She scowled as she came away empty-handed and remained bereft of hard information of any sort. As yet, she had seen no sign of or detected the presence of injured crew that would account for the bloodstains. Nor of their probable_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 and lips drawn back in a snarl. Her pulse had quickened, setting her thoughts. There had been no proximity alerts on her motion-tracker or via her thermographic sensors. It simply shouldn't be possible for something to slip through her detection net. The seconds crept by as she scanned the area in which she had thought_she had seen..._something. She checked her sensors again, still there was nothing. A minute and then two passed as she bobbed up in down in the centre of the room and waited to catch another glimpse of...whatever it was that she had seen.
Pfah!
Nika scowled as she brought her weapon to rest. She felt the tension seeping out of her tensed muscles as she let herself relax again and mentally chastised herself for her jumpiness. She had work to do, work that did _not_involve jumping at shadows. Nevertheless, she remained ill at ease. It was feeling that she just 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 within had been vented and the navigation systems lay smashed beyond repair--an act Nika suspected had been intentional. There was evidence of plasma-torch scorching and several heavy industrial tools free-floated in the flight decks, the 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, where caught in its gravitic pull, it would eventually spiral 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. The shark's brow furrowed as she considered the evidence so far. So many questions, so many clues, and no answer or explanation had presented itself thus far. With a resigned shrug she set to work in restoring environmental controls and accessing the ship's database.
Two hours later, Nika let out a delighted gasp as her efforts paid off. The ship's reactor systems been locked into standby mode, which certainly 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--another oddity waiting to be explained--and managed to re-engage main power and environmental systems to 50% normal. She braced herself as the gravity plates engaged with an audible--and warning--whining hum. Already positioned with her booted feet braced and outspread, she landed with minimal jarring impact. One by one, the few remaining intact terminals flickered to life, as did the ceiling lighting panels above her and she was bathed in a red-tinted emergency glow. A low hiss sounded in her audio pick-ups as oxygen flooded back into Operations.
Atmosphere nominally breathable.
With a softly punctuating chime, her suit chem-sniffers declared that the atmosphere was now safe to breath. Nika rather gratefully unclipped her helmet, pulling it off and away and shook out her mass of white-blue hair and breathed deep. After close to three hours completely suited-up, it was good to at least be free of the constricting helmet. She placed it down within easy reach and sat heavily down in one of the seats large enough to accommodate bulkier form in front of the main data-panel and began to interrogate the main database.
Fifteen minutes later, she wished she hadn't.
Her blood had run i_ce-cold__._She had uncovered a backup of one of the logs belonging to the ship's Second Officer. It had been audio-only, all file security lockouts disabled and with evidence of attempted tampering. She replayed it again and chewed 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 it turns out, was well aware of its presence _--__ seems he was part of the deal . Offered to bring me in... quite a siz e able sum of credits._ _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- prohibitive 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 nanotechnology. Darker rumours had persisted that it was deeply involved in the design and production of illegal biological weapons and supplied them to the fractious frontier world governments. Conclusive evidence of this had been produced during a prolonged covert investigation lasting almost six years and Hyperion had been forcibly dissolved_after a half as long bloody corporate war. That had been three years ago. The _Sozdaniye had floated out here on the frontier for at least that amount of time, likely longer. 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. The tiger shark's suddenly-rampant imagination presented her with all manner of unpleasant causes for the carnage on board and she fought to keep her cool and a steady head on her shoulders. Her chem-sniffers and sensor sweeps had failed to detect evidence of viral infection present aboard the ship. Nor in the now-functional oxygen recyclers. In spite of this reassurance, she felt unable to calm her jangled nerves. Her fingers reflexively gripped around the stock of her carbine, and her suit sensors chimed a passive warning as her heart raced. Feeling some measure of reassurance in the precaution, she jammed on her helmet and switched to suit air supply once again. That she might have _already_breathed in some manner of unpleasantness was something that she really didn't want to consider at that moment.
It was time to leave. It was time to leave, now.
A flicker of movement caught her eye again as she retraced her steps and her pace quickened as she neared the crew lounge. She halted, weapon at the ready and slowly turned, expecting some manner of attack. It just couldn't be her imagination a second time.
Nothing.
Nika spat out a venomous curse and shook her head irritably. She took a deep and steadying breath and squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm her frantically beating heart.
C'mon, get a grip! There is NOTHING here now!
She opened her eyes, turned, and then let out a strangled, shocked cry as she felt something slam into her back. The shark lurched and stumbled dropping her carbine she flailed her arms frantically for a grip as she toppled forward. Nika hit the ground hard and bright lights flashed in her vision as her forehead and snout slammed against the reinforced visor of her helmet. Dazed and confused now, Nika tried to push herself up again but something had forcefully pinned her prone to the decking and was too heavy to dislodge.
What the fuck?
Possible explanations flashed through her mind for a few brief seconds until another heavy blow from the unseen aggressor that had pounced upon her smashed her face into the helmet faceplate and this time sent her spiralling into unconsciousness.
Nika drifted in and out of consciousness. Through the sickly warmth that had enveloped her she felt herself being dragged. Each lurching motion set off waves of nausea within her already unsettled stomach and left her in no fit state to resist. Dull grey ceiling plating, peppered with dimly illuminated lights was all she could see. Something had her gripped firmly by the arms, and that something was strong enough to raise and pull her 240lb armoured frame.
An indeterminate passage of time transpired until she suddenly came to a halt. Nika grunted as she was unceremoniously released to fall backwards and hit the decking. She winced as tilted her head and neck and heard the bones crackle, only partly being able to brace herself for impact. This time though, assisted by the cushioned collar and neck rest, she received only a minor impact to the back of her already dazed head and managed not to smash her bruised and throbbing angular snout tip against her visor for a third time. Then raw survival instinct tempered by survival training gave an instant jolt of stimulating energy to lethargic limbs and a sluggish mind. Awareness of the as yet unknown danger she was in crystallised in her mind and swept away the last of the cobwebs. She scrambled forward on her knees and pivoted around. What she saw sent an icy chill running along her spine and a shocked gasp escaped her lips before she could bite down upon it.
Ahead of her lay a dimly lit and expansive cargo bay in which air pressure and gravity seemed to be normal. In the centre lay a shimmering form, one that was almost impossible to see and gauge the size of, and profoundly difficult to focus upon. It was almost as if her gaze kept sliding off it every time she tried to look at it for more than a second. That...now that sounded familiar, but from where...and how?
Chrysalis Camouflage!
Nika's cortex implant helpfully fed her the information that she struggled to remember and then suddenly the pieces all fit together in her mind. So that had been the cause of the flashes of movement she had kept seeing in her peripheral vision! She had precious little time though to mentally check off the solving of one mystery before her full attention was forcibly returned to her abductor. The shimmering had ceased and begun to fall away in a dissipating cascade of glowing particles. In its place stood some manner of quadruped creature.
Oh gods...
The remaining shimmer-glow highlighted its glossy black-purple hide and framed a sleekly wolfish head that nonetheless possessed an undeniable reptilian quality with its bone-ridged ears and flared, angular cheeks. It coolly regarded her with gleaming, violet eyes. The alien quad-beast stood more than half the height of Nika and was athletic in its muscularly bulky contours. What caused her breath to catch in her throat though was the mass of tentacles that curled up from its sides to hover and wave above the creature. Each tentacle possessed a glossy gel-like surface and glowed with streaks of inner light that pulsed along their length. They seemed to move independently of each other, darting this way and then that, and this prehensile and unsettling movement only added to its terrifying appearance.
Terrifying...terror...
A vague memory within her mind tugged at her attention. There was something horrifyingly familiar about the characteristics of the beast. She had never seen_anything like it before but nonetheless, there was still something_familiar about it. The shark's jaws tightened in a grimace as sudden remembrance and recognition dawned upon her. A galactic hypernet rumour site had once published an unsubstantiated story during the investigation of Hyperion Biogenic. It claimed to have obtained evidence of one of the corporations' biological weapons: a genetic creation designed as a method 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, and only an evocative codename.
Nightmare.
The scant descriptions had been mostly dismissed as the creation of an over-active imagination, but they fit exactly with the creature that had taken her by force and now loomed in front of her. She suppressed a shiver as she made the mental judgement call 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, or at least trap it in deep space.
...and now ya gone and blundered right into its lair.
A bitterly sardonic but nonetheless nerve-steadying realisation occurred to her as she bent her thoughts to escape. Blundered into a waiting trap she might have, but unlike the crew of the Sozdaniye, this...nightmare beast...was facing a shark _--a shark at the _peak of her fitness and martial prowess. Desperate, white-hot anger surged through her veins and swept away the fear that had gripped her upon recognition of the creature and replaced with confidence in her abilities. She might have lost her carbine, but she still had her_fists_. And if need be, her teeth. Grinning tightly through the faceplate of her helmet, Nika slammed her clenched gauntleted fists together in a showy display of aggression--one predator to another.
"C'mon you fucking monster," she ground out through clenched teeth after keying in the audio amplifier for her suit's speakers. "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. It continued to hold its position with its long and flexible tail swishing from side to side. Nika's blood _boiled_as it failed to react. Against her better judgement she struggled forward onto her feet and took a step closer.
"C'mon! What are you waiting_for? I'll rip ya to _pieces!"
A tentacle whipped forward through the air as if in wordless response to her bravado. This time she was_ready_ for an attack and managed to nimbly dodge the tentacular thrust. She raised her right fist to grab the extruded limb as it whipped around for a second thrust. She'd drag the creature to her and smash its face in or at the very least rip off the tentacle.
But the Nightmare had other plans.
A second and then third tentacle surged forward and grabbed and then wrapped around her forearm. With greater strength than one might think they possessed, the two finger-thick tendrils resisted all frantic attempts to free herself.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK!
The glowing streaks of light within the purple gel flesh pulsed brighter as they tightened their grip around it and Nika let out a panicked cry as another tentacle pair flashed forward and entrapped her other arm. Bellowing out the roar of a trapped animal she struggled mightily and spat out venomous curses towards the Nightmare as it padded forward in an almost pointedly casual fashion. Its brightly gleaming eyes pierced the gloom and they swept over her until they finally fixed upon her own eyes. Then they flashed once and then began to rapidly flicker. Nika's eyes bulged as alarm chimes sounded in her mind and her implant screamed out a warning of a wireless attack directed towards her. The protective firewalls that formed the primary security system for the cortex implant held for a few seconds and then buckled and collapsed under the sheer strength of the cybernetic attack. Then suddenly there was a second intelligence, one that was devious and malevolent within her mind and it began to access both her personal implant database and the one onboard her ship to which the implant kept her constantly connected. The cybernetically-enhanced shark frantically tried to disconnect, gathering the focus--and will--to engage her remaining emergency safeguard. It would short out the implant and in the process result in near-crippling physical pain for her, but it was all she had. A last ditch attempt to save the integrity of her mind and in times of war, to prevent the implant and its information from falling into the wrong hands.
But it was too late. Nika screamed out from waves of punishing physical agony as her thoughts were slammed aside in her own mind by the sheer intruding force of the infiltrating intelligence. The world blurred and then darkened as she squeezed her eyes shut in an instinctual effort to block out the pain. But as quickly as it had wormed its way into her mind-linked implant, the intelligence withdrew, and it left her with a feeling of alien smug satisfaction lingering unpleasantly within her mind. Her full awareness of the physical world slowly returned and the sense of complete disconnection from it ebbed away. Nika opened her eyes to find that she was now hanging suspended in mid-air, lifted up by and left dangling from the surprisingly strong flexible limbs. A feeling of despair and helplessness swept over the shark as she fitfully thrashed and struggled to break free. Another and more slender and flat-tipped tentacle arced up from the mass writhing from the finely scaled flanks of the beast and she recoiled in revulsion as it neared her face. The beast's eyes flashed and then flickered again and Nika's own eyes widened as panic gripped her again at the sound of the connection locks of her helmet disengage. The tendril bobbed about in front of her faceplate, the tip touching and experimentally stroking the transparent surface, before it tired of the teasing game and coiled around the rim of the helmet and lifted. With a hiss of escaping air 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. The tendril released its grip upon the helmet and with a casual flick, carelessly tossed it aside to land upon the decking with a dull clang. With frightening speed, the manipulative tendril returned to hover in front of her face and wove from side to side like a menacing cobra. A raspy and amused-sounding hiss accompanied this display and despite her dire circumstances, the heat of annoyance flushed across Nika's face. She was not going to be toyed with. In as disapproving a manner as she could muster she spat at the tentacle. The hissing ceased and was replaced by an angry and disapproving growl and she cried out as the flattened tip of the tentacle swatted her across her snout. The myriad of tiny barbs that ran along its flattened surface to aid in its gripping and manipulating ability drew savage scratches across her snout and cheek. White-hot fire and welling blood blossomed in its wake. It seemed that playtime was over.
Now the tentacles came quickly for he and in greater number. Three more joined their brethren in assaulting the armoured shark and Nika writhed in silent anguish as the Nightmare launched another assault on her cybernetically linked mind. Tears trickled down her cheek at the humiliation and alien intrusion into to her mind. It felt wet, and dark, like_black oil_ slithering through her implant and into her suit systems. The cybernetically-enhanced beast's intelligence disconnected the locking mechanisms and severed the connections between each piece one after another and rendered them powerless and inert. Then the tendrils went to work, coiling around and slithering in between the gaps in her armour and for the first time touching her naked skin. Nika recoiled from the sensation and her thrashing increased at the slick sensation of the gel-like tendrils sliding across and leaving trails of a slick ooze on her rubber-smooth shark hide. Her skin _crawled_at the unpleasant sensations 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, and to maim and kill. It was a purpose which been disrupted when it had been awoken and subsequently stranded aboard the doomed ship. Now, after years of waiting, it had a chance to escape. But not before it had fulfilled its greater purpose, one that had been subsequently introduced into its programming and only in _this_particular model. It was Hyperion Biogenic's last act of spiteful vengeance on a galaxy that had turned against it and something that threatened to doom the civilised galaxy if unleashed to its full potential. Its new prey, the beast had decided, would be the harbinger of that doom.
The Beast's tendrils began to strip Nika of her protective garb. With relentlessly forceful dexterity they slid off and wrenched free each piece of armour. The pulsing threads of glowing energy within the tentacles flickered quicker in a display of beastly enthusiasm as they assaulted her. She could do little more than cry out in helpless fear and frustration and fitfully struggle with ever-diminishing energy as greater amounts of her naked hide were exposed. The mere act of thinking was becoming more difficult too and her already-rattled thoughts began to slip away from her as she breathed in that musky odour and seemingly heightening her ability to feel sensations in their place of conscious thought. A tentacle slid between the straps of her chest-piece and heaved. Accompanied by the sound of snapping straps it fell away and landed on the decking below and robbed Nika of the final barrier to the beast's exploration and exposure of her semi-naked form. She now hung suspended in the air, naked aside from her spandex underclothes. A thick and luminous ooze trickled across her skin wherever the tentacles had touched her. Shame at her helpless state continued to burn her cheeks and within her heart, and seemingly seeking to welcome in the paralysing terror that hovered at the edge of her conscious mind. A ripened feeling of d_read_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 and she resigned herself to the killing blow that was sure to come next. She tried to stifle her gagging as a tentacle suddenly had her gripped by the throat and coiled and squeezed around her neck and forced her maw open as she _desperately_attempted to breathe.
So, this is how I die...
Then the pressure upon her throat relaxed. Nika's eyes flickered open and then bulged in horror as without warning a tentacle forced its way into her maw. She tried to close it, force her jaws shut to bite down upon the invader. The return of the strangling pressure convinced her otherwise and she was forced to relent. The raspy hiss returned and this time it was one of approval--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 focus to simply not choke and gag upon it and barely holding back the reflex action to do so. She felt a bulge travel up along the end of the tendril lodged in her maw, one that forced it to open wider to accept it. Her jaw muscles burned from the effort of doing so 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 volume and intensity of its flavourful taste made Nika's head swim. Forced to gulp it down, she drank deeply and as she did so, the passage of time and outside awareness slipped away from her once again. Her world-view 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 no longer able to grasp. The shark dimly felt her arms droop of their own volition. She no longer resisted the tendrils encircling her wrists and her eyes slid shut. A wave of rewarding pleasure made the shark's nerves tingle and she arched her back and stiffened within the embrace of the tentacles. 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 seeped from the sides of her maw and dripped down her chin. Nika's belly began to bulge and swell as it filled her stomach to over-capacity. A sudden and powerful induced-orgasm soon followed, the first of many, which tore breathy and 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 it.
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 that filled all three of her orifices, Nika changed forever. The shark's keenly tactical mind collapsed into malleable putty as she became dependent upon the nanotrite fluid that 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 captive shark'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 new 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 had begun as the beast stimulated her muscles to develop further. The beast was patient. It had waited for four years in the void of space in a state of semi-hibernation, semi-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 and blissful 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 cyber-organic young. They drove her into heated orgasm. She would become the brood-mother to a race of Nightmare hybrids and fulfil the new purpose that 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 and were rewardingly punctuated by the rewarding penetrations of her mate's tentacles.
To breed...to cause terror...to_kill_...that was her only purpose now, and one she must impress upon the prey-worlds that together they would infiltrate and ravage and bend 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.