All the King's Horses Pt. 04

For her whole high school career, she had been trained in every tiny trick to protect her throat. It wasn't just against vampires. A werewolf could rip a throat out. A gargoyle could claw open a throat. A demon's horn was just as vicious when used with the right twist of the head. But, at the core of it all, there was the fear of a vampire. Because unlike the others, there was still a battle involved - with her regeneration, she could clap her hand over her wound and hope to recover.

But with a vampire's bite?

It stopped being a fight.

It became the dark purring of a predator to a fly in the web. It became a crooning rasp, the death rattle that gets you off. It was the black kiss of the undead, and it was the worst kind of death. The kind you ushered forward with a moan and a sigh.

To expose herself, now, in this bed, to Sebastian, made Tiff almost melt into the bed. Her thighs spread wide, wide, wide, and she whispered, softly. "Yes..." She needed him so badly, and feeling the fangs rasping against her throat made her whimper and arch her back, her sex clenching as she came almost then and there. Her eyes went out of focus and she whispered. "Master..." And with that last little word, his fangs sank into her neck. The puncture was better than last time. The penetration was smoother. The pleasure was higher. Her back arched and her mouth opened, her face twisted, almost as if with pain.

"A-...Ahh..." She shuddered as Sebastian drank. The gushing feeling of her blood into his mouth...it felt almost addictive. And in a shining moment, Tiff realized that she could get hooked on this feeling.

And then Sebastian's fingers - tentative and gentle and questing - found the smooth, slippery, molten heat of her cunt and the pleasure that she felt rocketed from otherworldly to volcanic. Her back arched and she screamed out a single incoherent moan, her fingers clutching to Sebastian's black hair, clenching hard, tight, holding him to her as his fingers thrust into her and crooked against her G-spot, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and the pleasure kept coming, cresting higher up and up and up, brushing against her nerves, leaving her shuddering, gasping.

Sebastian's fangs jerked free. A few more spurts of her blood and her arousal gushed from her body before his tongue flicked out, closing the wound in her neck, while his thumb found the hard button of her clitty and Tiff spiraled into a warm, comforting blackness, chased through her by yet another raw orgasm.

***

Tiff awoke feeling woozy, and happy, and with Sebastian in his wolf form, curled up beside her. She stroked his silvery fur, and eventually managed to articulate what she needed: A cookie. The replicator provided, warm, freshly baked tasting cookies, which she began to stuff down her maw, letting her Hunter's regeneration work to replace the blood that Sebastian had drunk. She had just finished her last cookie when the alert came through. The DD had dropped out of warp into Sn'gar orbit.

Tiff shook Sebastian awake. "Yo. Sebby. Up. Up boy!"

The bridge actually had a place for Tiff to sit now - beside Bruce and Xelnor in the tactics area, though Bruce did murmur in her ear: "Don't worry, none of the buttons will respond to you pushing them unless the rest of us are dead. "

"Whoa, really?" Tiff asked, poking the button labeled LAUNCH MISSILES.

"...yes," Bruce said, shaking his head. "God, Tiff, we don't even have missiles loaded."

"Aw..." Tiff frowned, then looked at the forward bridge screen. The view showed the planet they were approaching: Sn'gar. It looked like a large blue sphere, with a long, skeletal continent that crawled along the dayside hemisphere of the planet. It was like someone had tried to draw the coastline of a continent, then forgot to draw the interior. She blinked as she saw how beautiful the planet looked. "Wait, I thought the colonists were despoiling this planet to fuck?"

"It's only two million settlers and a few million tourists a year over a century and a half," Tobias said from the bridge chair. "It takes a few orders of magnitude of people and another century for a planet to begin show ecological damage from space." He shook his head. "Planets are tricksy like that. They'll look indestructible right up until the ecosystem collapses and everyone dies."

Tiff shivered.

"Is our cloak holding?" Tobias asked.

"Aye, captain," Xelnor said. "They're not using any of the scanners that might detect us and I doubt they have any lookouts who might spot us in open space."

"Entering orbit," the helm officer said.

The planet swelled before them, growing larger and then filling the entire bottom of the screen. It was breathtaking - and it sent an excited thrill along Tiff's spine. She quivered as she looked at the planet, aware deep in her bones that it was an alien world. An alien world, full of strangeness and...and she realized, too. She had been stuck on this ship for, like, two weeks now. They did a remarkable job at mimicking earthborn temperature and pleasant winds and open skies. But a teeny part of her brain, enhanced by her Hunter's instincts, knew better. She bit her lip.

"All right," Tobias said, standing up. "Bruce, take your marines down."

Bruce stood. "Come on, Winters."

"Sweeeeet!" Tiff sprang to her feet.

"Remember!" Tobias pointed his finger at her. "You are following Bruce's orders down there."

Tiff nodded. "Got it, Quasicaptain!" She flicked a vague salute in his direction. While she hadn't been able to train with the marines in the C-booths, she had been appraised by Bruce about their plans. It was simple. Bruce had explained it like so: The Federation is a utopia...for most people. But you know what they say about utopia, right? It doesn't actually exist. There are whole groups of people who look at our society and they fuck right off. That's okay. We need them. There's actually a pretty close relationship between the Federation and our so called 'riffraff.' We have their ship designs, for one thing...

That was why, when she stepped out of the elevator with Bruce, it was into the cargo hold and she saw the clunky, junky, scrapped together looking shuttle that was sitting in the cargo hold. The other marines, all of them wearing scruffy looking spacesuits that were decorated with bright colors and pictures of naked ladies and dragons and shit, were busy loading supplies. Bryce looked dashing as hell in a skintight black spacesuit with a tricorn hat perched on his head. He walked over.

"Yarharrr!" He said.

"Sup, pirate Bryce," Tiff said, grinning. "So, did you guys name the ship-"

"No, we're going by the Monetta," Bryce said. "The Monetta is a registered human ship. It hasn't been around here, but it will show up on their computers as a smuggler and tramp freighter from one of the wildcat colonies."

Tiff pouted. "But then I could have called it a hunk of junk."

"It is a hunk of junk!" Bryce said, grinning at her and punching her shoulder gently. "It's just a piece of junk that was replicated together within the past few hours and assembled to look exactly like a piece of junk." He patted one of the rust-encrusted landing struts that pressed to the floor of the cargo hold.

Tiff shook her head. "So, like, just to make sure I got this straight: The Feddies let citizens just...go off and found colonies?"

"Yeah," Bryce said.

"Even though the Feddies think colonies are wrong?"

"Yup," Bryce said.

"Then these rogue humans smuggle, trade, and even do pirate shit?" Tiff paused. "And your squeaky clean Federation...gives them fucking guns and a blind eye?"

"Got it in one," Bryce said.

"And no one else thinks that's weird as flip?" Tiff asked as Bryce led her up the gangplank.

"Think of it like this," Bryce said, cheerfully. "Lets say you're a beleaguered semi-anarchist utopia surround by massive interstellar empires." He nodded at her. "You follow so far?"

Tiff put her fingers against her temples as she stepped into the main cabin of the Monetta - where there were enough seats for the marines to lounge around and a few control consoles situated near the front. Bruce and one of the female marines was already seated there. Tiff nodded. "Following." She rubbed her temples harder, screwing her face up.

"All right," Bryce said. "Now, you can't fight every empire at once. So, how do you survive? You get sneaky. You spy. You fund revolutionaries in enemy territories. You forment wars between them. You do shit humans have been doing since time immemorial: You stir up trouble. You sow chaos!" He grinned slowly. "And now you see why we let a bunch of scummy pirates run around."

"So, if a replicator loaded with the patterns of guns gets found, you can point to some pirate baddies and go, ohh nooo...what an accident," Tiff said, her hands going to her mouth in feigned shock. "But it wasn't an accident." She paused. "Wow, you guys really don't have a Prime Directive."

"Besides, most of the really bad ones, we take out first," Bryce said, taking a seat as Bruce gave a tiny nod to the female marine at the piloting console. She started to flick switches and tap some buttons and Tiff hurriedly sat down. She had to actually buckle herself in - a sweep of intense nostalgic feelings hammering into her as she clicked down the buckle. She settled back as Bryce closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. She furrowed her brow as pressure started to press her into the chair. The roar of the engines built up.

"You okay, Bryce?" She whispered.

"Oh. Just hate this part," he said.

"You were fine in the shuttle to the Capellan ship..."

"Oh, no. Not that part. This p-"

The Monetta - or, more accurately, the replicated duplicate of the Monetta - hit the atmosphere of the planet. It rocked and shook and hammered. There were bangs and clunks and Tiff felt herself getting flung against the straps again and again and again. She clenched her jaw as Bruce whooped.

"Why..." Tiff started to speak - but then her teeth clamped down into her tongue and pain exploded through her mouth. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes and tried to not think of how much that fucking hurt. The shaking seemed to last for fucking ever, until finally, there was a slow end to it - petering off and ending with a loud whir and a hiss and then a crunch as the ship finally settled down. Tiff sagged back into her seat and Bryce laughed, shakily.

"G-God! That fucking sucks! Every time!" He shook his head, slowly, his ears flopping down.

"Why is it so terrible?" Tiff hissed.

"The ship's crap, is why," Bryce hissed as he undid the belt buckle keeping him tight to the chair. As he did so, the back of the ship began to open. Brilliant, brilliant light started to shine into it. And it was alien light. Tiff hadn't expected just how blue the light would be compared to what she was used to. It was cool and harsh and it lit everything with a sheen that was nearly metallic. She started to stand as Bruce walked past, swaggering and thumping and already in his warform - making him look huge and imposing and terribly fluffy.

For just a second, Tiff panicked. She was sure she knew what would happen next: Anyone who saw him would scream, faint, claw at their faces, go absolutely bugfuck. It was what people did when they saw werewolves in their warform. Ancient race memories, burned into the entire human race by generations of being hunted by werewolves in the ancient prehistory of the world. But then she stepped forward and found Bruce standing, his hands on his hips, before a short, lithe, bored looking Space Elf, who looked roughly as preturbed as she would have been if she had heard a doorbell ringing on a day where she wanted to just be left alone.

"The Monetta, huh?" the Space Elf asked - but as Bruce started to rumble back to him, Tiff slowly walked down the gangplank, her eyes wide as saucers as she stood at the very bottom. They had landed on a huge, circular metal building that was constructed right at the edge of a white sand beach. The beach itself swept in a curving arc around an ocean that was more blue than any ocean she had ever seen before in her life - a blue that was deeper and richer than she thought her eyes could process. Broad leaves, each one as black as the midnight sky, interlaced with searing pink fronds, swayed in the humid breeze. There was a tall, sleek city growing out of the sea and the coast, thrusting into the air. Flying cars zoomed too and from the upper edges of those building, while a huge, floating boat was skimming slowly away from the city, the bottom edges of the hull just barely caressing the water, while vast white sails belled in the air, catching the wind.

Beyond it all were three moons, faintly visible in the bright blue sunlight.

"Holy. Fucking. Balls."

"Your crew hasn't seen a planet in a while, huh?" the Space Elf asked, sounding snide and sneering.

"Winters is just weird," Bruce rumbled, while Tiff turned, then flipped him off.

"Fuck you, Cap," she said, and he laughed.

"Humans..." The Space Elf shook his head. "You're from the world of Fuck You I Got Mine?" He asked, reading off a tablet. "Non-Federation citizens? Do you have any of that miraculous Federation technology?"

"If we did, would we be flying this piece of shit?" Bruce rumbled, jerking his thumb back at the Monetta. The Space Elf snorted.

"Well, if you have any weapons, you'll need to leave them with the SGPA," he said, while a spider-limbed chest, roughly the size of a coffin, walked forward, whirring and clunking. The back opened up, revealing several niches, a few of which had already been filled with cool, alien looking guns and weapons and blades. Tiff almost salivated, and Bruce groaned, then pulled out a huge bore six shooter from behind him. He slotted it home - and then the rest of the crew started to stash their weapons. Tiff raised her hands.

"Question? Where do I store...these guns?" She rolled the sleeve back on her shirt backwards, revealing her bicep, which she flexed, hard.

The Space Elf looked at her as if he wanted her to burst into flames. "Are you super-strong?"

"No," Tiff said, with easy, casual lying skills. She had had to lie about her strength so often, it was nearly second nature.

"Then I won't cut your arms off with a chainsaw," the Space Elf said, looking right at her, then looking back at Bruce. "There are few rules here, so this won't take long: Don't start shit you won't finish, don't bother the citizens, stay out of the silver district, and be sure to have a good time." He smirked, then turned and walked off, his coffin-o-guns whiring and clicking as it walked away. Tiff watched him go, and saw the other ships that had landed on the spaceport. It struck her then. She was on a spaceport. On a spaceport on an alien planet. On a spaceport on an alien planet, speaking to aliens. Breathing alien air. She started to breath fast and hard, her hand going to her chest.

Bryce jogged over to her, his boots clunking on the Monetta's gangplank. He leaned down, close. "You okay, Tiff?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah!" She said, nodding eagerly, her head bobbing slightly as she leaned into Bryce. "Okay. No. Not actually. I'm on an alien planet. I'm on a fucking alien planet and there are aliens and there are moons! Three fucking moons. Ah. Jesus. Fucking wow. It's so. It's. Ah." She breathed heavily .

"This is a lot?" Bryce whispered.

"Yeah." Tiff whispered.

A shadow fell across her - and when she opened her eyes, she saw that the shadow that was cast across her body wasn't cast by the bulky form of Bruce or any of the other Marines. It wasn't cast by a person - or at least, not by anyone with legs. Instead, her eyes were filled with nothing but empty air and half a sphere of black. She lifted her eyes and saw that a long, tube shaped, rounded shell was floating in the air before her. She had no idea how it was floating, but it was. It had no arms nor legs nor face nor mouth. It was just a big black pill, hovering before her ominously.

Tiff blinked. "Sup?"

"Greetings," the probe said in a warm, polite voice. "It's been a while since I have seen a human or a human ship in this area of space." It bobbed. "Upon hearing about your arrival, I came here as swiftly as I could - and it seems that I'm meeting a first timer upon an alien world. Were you born on your colony planet?"

"Yeah," Tiff said, casually. "What the fuck are you?"

The probe did a slow, tumbling roll - not moving end over end, but it was rotating along its axis, giving it a kind of comforting, shrugging gesture to it. "Well, I do tend to prefer to be spoken to in a more polite fashion...but human colonials are an uncouth lot. Some even say that is why you're so charming. I am named Facilitator. I am a Capellan." The front of the probe whirred and a small, articulated arm emerged out and reached for her, like it was asking for a handshake.

Tiff took it, shaking the hand slowly. "Sup," she said, again. "I'm Tiffany Winters."

The probe chuckled. "Well, Tiffany Winters, I'll be glad to show you everything I have to offer - you and your crew. We Capellans love it when we get a chance to meet with humans - our Benefactors are so fascinated by your race. So many of you seem to be utterly mad, from their perspective."

Tiff grinned. "Cause they're a bunch of commies?"

"I do not know what a commie is - but if you mean the rejection of market based economic systems in exchange for whatever system that they use, then yes." He said. "And so, I would like to cordially invite you to where I have established myself in a rather pleasant club known as the Tidal Force." The arm flicked out again, holding out a card to her. "Have a pleasant day, Miss Winters."

The probe turned and glided off, as if it was upon a cushion of air. Tiff slowly narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips.

"I fucking hate them," she whispered. "I hate them so much. Like, I know I just met the smug robot gits, but I instantly despise them." She turned to Bryce. "Is that irrational? Or what?"

"Nah," Bryce said. "Capellans just be like that, you know. I swear their Benefactors..." He made a jerking off gesture. "Programmed to be as smarmy as fucking fuck."

Bruce thumped down, then took the card from Tiff's hand. He grinned. "Heh. Tiff, how do you feel about bikinis?" he asked.

She blinked, looking at him - and he turned the card around...

Tidal Force.

Underwater Club.

TO BE CONTINUED