Snakepit : A Stargate - Draka Crossover

[iborg]

Well, Space-Cthulhu is fortunately stuck in its star's gravity well.

I'm posting the first part of tonight's update. The second part will arrive later.


Two days later

It was rather ironic, Rayner thought, that she was blissfully idle when it seemed tha everyone else on this world was busy in some way or another. It also seemed ironic that she found herself brooding about her death even though she was alive and whole, while many others mourned dead ones who’d stayed so. After the doctors were satisfied with her lively condition and allowed her (a bit reluctantly, for they clearly would have loved to keep her under the microscope for longer) out of their care, she had found herself wanting of something to do.
Returning at once to the comfortably familiar routine of military life was forbidden by Merarch orders. The Solar System was familiar ground, and anyway… the local restrictions and shortages weren’t so appealing. There was Abydos, she could to go there and see Anise at the plantation. At least the wench had been out of Dante Base when the intruder had attacked. Smart and gifted with common sense, as her mistress had discovered, and trusted to oversee the groundwork on the domain she was creating on Abydos Southern Province, in the temperate regions. The girl wasn’t alone though, a cousin of Rayner’s was settling there as well and she trusted him to watch over her and the rest of the serfs. So far things were going well and Anise was taking her mission with enthusiasm. She hadn’t mentioned the dreams again in her messages.
No, she wasn’t going to Abydos yet. The idea didn’t seem to appeal much for some reason.

Still, it meant Rayner was alone at the other end of the universe. A bit of an exaggeration, she scolded herself. She was not the only Draka out there. And it wasn’t the other end of the universe, just a long way out in the Milky Way. And it was true that her race was popular among the folks here. A thought that was fantastically weird. Yet the Nautonans viewed the Drakas as allies, liberators, heroes. They didn’t know the whole truth, admittedly, but it didn’t make the whole exprience less bizarre.
She had flown to Satria the day before, borrowing one of Friendship Base’s (ha ! irony striking again in the joint research facility’s yet-unofficial name) Tollan aircars. The city was still showing the scars of its brief Goa’uld occupation, although the speed at which Tollan engineering was mending those was remarkable. Those scars in the mind of its denizens, on the other hand, would take longer to mend, and they ran deep even though they were invisible at first glance. There was a sense of loss and underlying sorrow in the air, in the eyes that didn’t stay quite steady, as if unconsciously on the lookout for the dreaded sight of a descending staff butt. She’d heard that some survivors from the slave marches were nearly catatonic, hidden from view in off-world healing centers where Tollan mentalists could quietly work on repairing their broken minds.
And they’re not even under the Yoke, Rayner had reflected.

Her trip had an immediate goal though. Her personal belongings had gone to ash in Dante Alpha’s self-inflicted destruction, and she needed new clothing among other things. She’d gone in a borrowed Space Force uniform, blank and rankless and not quite her size as it was a male model. Instead of outlining her physique it hung rather limply on her and she had to tighten the fasteners to their maximum in order to prevent the trousers from slipping. She had studiously avoided to check her temporary outfit in a mirror, but some friendly quips at the base had told her the essentials.
Fortunately, once out among the urbane folks of Satria, the ill-fitting uniform had become as shining beacon attracting barely concealed awed stares in the time it took her to cross the short distance from the landing pad to the boutique complex she’d been helpfully referred to. The reasons became obvious as she skimmed the rooftops on the way : it looked like the less-vandalized one in the upmarket commercial district.
She had been welcomed as a queen by the owners, who had later insisted togive her a massive rebate. Ans she’d exited the boutiques two hours later much better looking in her opinion, in civilian clothes that albeit a little too sober, were still complementing her physique rather than deforming it.
She still needed a fuck. Unfortunately, while in town she didn’t dare attract too much attention to her race’s hidden abilities by screaming “SEX ME NOW, ANYONE ?” in big pheromonal letters. And somehow it had seemed wrong to basically trick someone into it. That was something she had never felt any qualms doing before, and the she had almost unconsciously relegated that unconventional thought to the back of her mind.

Anyway, she would need to move soon. While functional and clean, the temporary prefabricated quarters on-base weren’t a place she wanted to spend her whole leave in.
And as much as Nautona was a beautiful, near pristine world, the current mood overall wasn’t exactly about fun and games, with the civilian population busy repairing their wounds, and the Tollan military swarming about to prevent another attack, as unlikely as it was for the time being.
All that ruminating (carefully avoiding memories of her past torture, which were ever-skimming under the surface of her consciousness since her resurrection) didn’t prevent the Decurion from luxuriating in her current setting. After all, there was only so much fretting one could do when sitting in a natural hot bath. The small thermal pools were nature-made, filled by mineral-laden water heated by deep magma under the hills - which were themselves ancient eroded volcanoes, long-dormant according to the Tollans. The stone was smoothed by millenias of water erosion and decades of human skin rubbing against the natural benches, as the place used to be a popular outing for Satrian urbanites. So far Rayner had been alone, and according to the other Drakas on the base, nobody else had come around even though the hot springs were clearly outside the restricted military area. The walk up was rather steep too, twelve kilometers along a winding path that was showing signs of neglect until a layer knife had unceremoniously cleared encroaching branches and tall herbs. For a Draka, it was barely a warming-up exercise, but it nevertheless felt good and the scenery was pleasantly bucolic in the season. There were even sweet acidic berries to be picked. All in all it was just what the Decurion needed.

She was sitting lazily with warm water up to her neck, eyes closed and listening to the murmur of the spring flowing out of a crack in the rock a short distance behind, and the little stream feeding the pool from the source. The rustle of leaves and peaceful animal life calls completed the sensory picture with the tang of minerally-charged water and the vegetal fragrances of the surrounding trees. A proverbial oasis of tranquility.
Therefore Drakensis ear and nose had no trouble picking up the pair of feral humans approaching her location long before they came into view of the pool which was their destination.

[Baughn]

And here we go again. What atrocity is going to be committed this fine day, I wonder - probably some breach of self-determination.

You're right, the S4s are going to be stuck in their gravity well for some time. They're really smart, though; I suspect they'll have FTL cracked in another decade, at most, now that they know it's possible.

Even if they don't, I expect a large amount of the system's mass will be converted to weaponry by the time someone arrives, and they might be trying to spread via just-barely-sublight probes. They also aren't limited to habitable systems, and the uninhabitable ones outnumber the habitable ones by at least a thousand to one in the SG-verse. Oh bother.

(Are you sure we shouldn't be calling them SL4-ers? Because that's what it looks like to me. Somehow, they've escaped the general developmental limitation on that universe.)

[[R_H]]

Wow, the sarcophagus had some effect on her. I did not expect that.

[KlavoHunter]

The Sarcophagus makes Draka... less evil?!?

What an odd effect, I can't wait to see more.

[iborg]

He eh. Ehehehehehe. What's the worst thing that could happen to a Draka.

I'm evil. :p


***


They were humans, that was clear from their scent. Young, not much older than teenagers, clean aromas of young musk and perfumed soap. Tollans. They didn’t exude the same testosterone tang as Drakas who spent all their life training and shaping their body for peak-human performance. But healthy specimen nonetheless, one of the sickly sweet rotting smells of disease. And it was a couple. A male and a female.
Her senses perked up in anticipation. The first flushing wavelets of potential arousal. She sat still, the water undisturbed, and consciously adjusted her own free-flowing scent to a moderate, almost neutral, mix and level.
Minutes ticked by as the stimuli came closer to the pool and its protective thickets of vegetation and rocky moss-eaten outcroppings.
They appeared, finally, past the last bend and out of the shadowed path into the scattered rays of mid-afternoon sunlight. The young man walked in front of the girl, and their showed such a strikingly well-matched pair that they could have been brother and sister. Blonde hair and fair skin, blue eyes - his a more greyish hue, hers an opale blue - she was a head below him, both on the tallish side for their sex. They were both clad in light outdoor garments in bright primary colors, which rather contrasted with Rayner’s knowledge of Tollan general fashion tastes so far, and sensible thick-soled boots. Small backpacks completed their outfits. It was clear that they were local youth on a nature excursion, familiar enough with each other that they didn’t need to fill up the silence with small talk, or so Rayner assumed. It still left the matter of whether they were a couple of lovers or merely brethren. Whichever the case, though, their looks were more than attractive, the girl a true beauty and the boy also showed neat delicate features - more like a servus than a Draka, for sure, and his body, while fit-looking, didn’t seem bulky or Janissary-like.

In the Domination they would qualify as a high-price pleasure pair. The water-soaked Draka woman felt eager to make their acquaintance. And she would, for they’d surely spot her as soon as they took their eyes off the path’s bumps and dips and set their gaze on the welcoming pool. What would their reaction be, she longed to discover it. After the surprise, how would they react to her presence ? Would they be scared or awed or repelled - she shook herself mentally. Repelled ? How did such a preposterous notion even came to her ? She was New Race for Wotan’s sake ! She made humans do her bidding, her race was designed to hold mastery over mere homo sapiens. That one could be repelled by her, without her consciously allowing that reaction, provoking it even, was materially inconceivable. Why had the fear of it been allowed to cross her mind, there was no…
Her brief self-scrutiny was cut short, to her unadmitted relief, as the couple finally spotted her.
The young man froze in place, causing his companion to almost bump on his back, and then she saw the cause of it. Surprise painted on their face, mouth slightly agape, the thoughts in their heads almost comically obvious to the relaxing soldier. After walking or hours in the wilderness to reach this secluded little paradise, they must have expected to have the place for themselves. Alone. Without some strange woman already dipping in the warm natural bath.
Their surprise turned to curiosity immediately mixed with embarrassment. Maybe the sight of Rayner’s neatly folded clothes - the little of it - and subsequent realization that she must be quite naked had stilted them, too. Their emotions were an open book for the Drakensis to read, she sensed their sudden discomfort and - she frowned inwardly - a spike of irrational fear that wasn’t due to her actively doing anything.
They didn’t appear to know how to react and she suddenly became afraid that they would turn and run away, leaving her alone there. What the hell, she wasn’t going to let that happen.

Her extended right hand broke the pool’s surface, swiftly but smoothly and deliberately unthreateningly and she composed her most innocuous smile. Her voice, poised and clear, loud enough to be understood without hindrance, but not so that it would appear like shouting at them. She was deliberately projecting a welcoming and unintimidating image for them, stepping back on the natural assertion of dominance - she thought it was easier than expected.
“Greetings there !” It was the best thing she came up with. It appeared to be enough to break the unexpected visitors out of their panicky spell and cause them keep breathing.
They even managed a reply in a not-too-squeaky voice.
“Uh uuh sorry, we didn’t expect to meet anybody here” it was the male who spoke.
Rayner forced herself not to roll her eyes at the plainly obvious statement. The situation was becoming amusing.
“We didn’t want to intrude or surprise you” he added.
“Oh, don’t worry about that” there was never any risk of it, she didn’t add and waved her hand casually. “I heard you approaching, you know”
“Oh, er, good then” the boy’s unease seemed mollified. His companion, who hadn’t said anything until then, put her hand on his shoulder and stretched her neck to whisper something close to his ear, keeping the immerged woman in the corner of her vision. If she wanted not to be overheard, it was for naught, Rayner thought mirthfully.

“Cenor, we shouldn’t disturb her, she’s one of them, let’s find another pool”
Hassle ? Well her intentions were polite enough, but Ann didn’t want her and, Cenor was his name then, to leave her alone. She found herself relishing their presence.
“You don’t !” she interjected hastily as the two of them fiddled undecidedly “I mean, you don’t bother me with your presence” she added amicably. “The other pools aren’t as nice and there’s more than enough room in for the three of us.”
They were still hesitating.
“Really, don’t make me come out and drag you forcibly !” Rayner said in a humorous tone, but she saw them tense instantly, reflexively. There was fear there, her sentence even intended as innocuous and joking had triggered a reaction in both of them. It was fear, she smelled it - but not of her. It was something else, a memory she had awokened, she realized. Uh oh. Damn, shouldn’t have said that. She quickly released a burst of calming pheromones to support her calming words next.
“Okay, I see that you probably had some unpleasant experiences in the recent past, you two. Well, so did I.” she told in a placating voice. She could alread see her chemical spell work on them. “Maybe it would be good to relax and, perhaps, talk about it ? Talking’s good to deal with that kind of thing, I was told. While hot water takes care of the soreness of the body.” She made little waves with her hand under the surface to illustrate her words.

The pair looked at each other for an instant, pondering, the girl made little nod, a little nervously still, but she seemed to agree with the idea at least.
They still felt self-conscious about something Rayner understood at once. She spoke again cheerfully.
“I won’t watch you as you undress. Look, I’m turning around. Just take your clothes off and dip in, all right ?” She added gesture to words and made a deliberate show of sliding forward of her stony underwater bench so she could face the other direction. In the motion, she allowed herself to rise a few centimeters, innocently looking enough and allow the top of her breasts to show out of the obscuring water surface as she made an about turn. She was feeling horny - but she didn’t want it to show it in her behavior too much. Just a little flirtiness, she reasoned, and rationalized her admittedly un-Drakaish reserve as making allowance for the locals’ collective trauma and officially-endorsed need to act nice and sensitive - without delving too much into self-analysis.

She was distracted from the distracting musings by the soft rustle of clothes being discarded and skin rubbing against skin and forced herself to clamp down on the answering contractions in her nether regions. A moment later, she heard them enter the pool and felt the ripples in the disturbed water against the skin of her back.
“Oooh this feels good” It was the young girl’s voice. A male sigh echoed her well-being. Ann Rayner took it as a hint she could turn again and face the newcomers. She didn’t ogle. Her enhanced sight and perception was enough to detail them at a glance. The side of the pool they had just entered was shallower and they weren’t as deeply immerged as she was. Barely chest-level in fact. Her gaze took in their youthful bodies and her lust was rekindled. He was showing an Adonis’ build and smooth golden-skinned chest. His companion - they had to be lovers, the way they stood and their body language together - was slim as well, soft-skinned, pleasantly proportioned.
There were bred servi back on Earth that weren’t as pretty as those two. Good genetics certainly, the Draka mind calculated out of habit. Certainly they were just what she need to release her sexual tension, weren’t they ?

Yet she was guarded - not exactly guarded… something was preventing her from simply treating as she ought, as she would have done in the past without an afterthought. And she didn’t want to dwell too much on that feeling. She’d rather believe - convince herself - that she was simply allowing for circumstances. Yes, that was it, had to.
Maybe it was the way these young humans, pretty, naked and vulnerable as they were, reminded herself of something, someone. She peered at them, their faces and especially their eyes. Inhaled their scent whole, breaking its fabric up into separate emotion threads.
She found it.
Barely hidden under the facade. The fear. The pain. The shame. The little rift, precariously covered by a layer of fake paint that was dangerously flaking. The small hard kernel of broken sanity underneath the coping appearance, that scar that would never leave again. The fracture betwen the “before” and the “after”.
She realized who else she was staring at in those young Tollan beings. Deep down, she was staring at her own anguished mind.
She resisted the urge to shook her head in frantic denegation. It simply shouldn’t be possible, she a Drakensis, one of the New Race to dominate the rest of the Creation as they creators and forefathers had intended, to feel what she was finding inside her exposed mind. The little smudge of fear, anxiety, dread, that wasn‘t clearly defined or aimed, at the core of her psyche.
Her kind had been hardwired to prevent that.
And this protection had been stripped away.
That realization was even more terrifying.
She slowly became aware that she was staring blankly at the water in front of her, that her mouth was half-gaping and that she was feeling a wetness on her face that had nothing to do with the hot water she was soaking in.
It was as if a barrier had just come down and a huge flood of repressed emotions were pouring through.
Ann Rayner, ranked Decurion in the Domination of the Draka’s Citizen Force, began to cry quietly.

[[R_H]]

Drakensis tears are - delicious.

[Baughn]

..if they're capable of them, I'm not sure they properly count as Drakensis anymore.

I'm not going to shed any tears over hers, though. She certainly deserves it.

[Simon_Jester]

Hey, a Draka who wakes up and discovers that they somehow acquired a soul is a nice twist. I like it.

[1234q1234q]

Wow, could it be that the Drakensis are not born evil that instead there just made to be that way. Seriously though don’t kill her; she is the ONLY active main character that is not currently trying to enslave the universe.

[Simon_Jester]

The Draka school system (even back in the days when they were human) was always designed to raise young Citizens to be monsters when they grow up. The drakensis genetic mods are extensive, of course, but I doubt they were able to do all that much with the brain. If they had, I suspect it could have backfired and made their children into drooling idiots- a risk I doubt they wanted to run.

[iborg]

Well, not really monsters - in our logic, yes. Their system is monstrous, but the individuals can act semi-decently in the limits of that system. I always got the impression that Draka society ideals conform to the mythical paternalist plantation with the kind Master and the Uncle Toms. With the actual unpleasantness rationalized as necessary to prevent more unpleasantness if the serfs think they can pull out a rebellion instead of settling in the written scenario "Master orders, slave obeys and lives hapily as long as he doesn't think too much".

Anyway, update, and the angst flows thick in this one.

***

“Cenor, she’s crying !” The young Tollan whispered, keeping her gaze on the mysterious woman who had just as mysteriously burst in tears.
“I see that !” he breathed back. I should do something, the thought flashed in his mind. Do something. That hadn’t worked so well the last time. Anger and shame rushed back with the memories. The pain, both physical and spiritual. Being powerless to save his loved one, the most precious being in his existence, from the brutal degradation at the hands of Tanith’s lust-crazed Jaffas. Being forced to watch them as they violated Natylis repeatedly, and then bite back screams of pain and humiliation as they raped him on the floor in her presence. The hate. Hate against his tormentors, hate against himself and his impotent weakness. Failing her, failing to protect her when she needed it most. The self-loathing had been eating him constantly since their liberation, but at least the hate had kept him alive during the backbreaking marches without food and drink, allowing him to support her in their shared ordeal.
Finally after days of living nightmare they had crossed the stargate’s threshold again and found behind, not more leering and beating, but home and safety with those strange and awe-inspiring soldiers, those who had struck swiftly and decisively in the heart of Tanith’s own empire. They kept their distance, usually faceless under their combat helmets, distant inspiring figures of strength. Stories, speculations and rumors about them were flowing, such as how they had daringly boarded Tanith’s flagship and captured him, only freeing him in exchange for the Tollan captives’ liberation. As regrettable as his survival was, nobody was complaining about the deal, unpredicted as it had been.

Do something ! the little voice snarled in Cenor’s head. Do something, there’s no Jaffa to stop you ! Are you going to be such a useless weakling forever ?
He almost snarled aloud, but managed to control himself enough that his sudden surge of disgust manifested itself as a self-directed sneer, twisting his features for the time of a heartbeat. And he found himself moving - not too quickly, he didn’t want to startle the woman - followed a step later by Natylis.
So deep was Rayner’s temporary loss of control that she didn’t notice the couple moving in her direction with looks of concern and compassion. They were close enough to touch her when she registered their near presence, and raised her head between heavy sobs. She saw them, reaching, recognized they understood her condition, harbored a similar grief in their hearts. The impulse to lash out, tear apart the ferals who had witnessed her shaming state of weakness and displayed the nerve to think that somehow the common grief made them peers, equal enough to touch her as if their inferior touch could be allowed to mar her, reared its ugly head in the depths of her mind only to drown on the spot, extinguished by her newly-acquired humaneness.
She felt gentle fingers press lightly on her shoulders, two bodies closing on each side, displacing the water between them. Understanding eyes, devoid of malice, questing for her attention, eager to distract her from her present disconsolate state. She answered their gaze, focusing through her veil of tears. On impulse, she reached out, almost gingerly, and pulled back, one surprised young Tollan in each arm. The girl squealed as she found herself nearly crushed against the Drakensis’ chest and Rayner precipitously released some pressure, remembering her superior strength with embarrassment at her awkwardness.
She held them in a tight embrace against her, their soft bodies against her steel-carved physique, relishing the simple human contact, without a single word. Eventually, she felt them squeeze back, wrapping their arms around her shoulders too.
Unmoving, skin against skin in warm soothing water, the unlikely trio lingered in a silent communion of souls. Long minutes streamed past, the Tollans’ empathy unwittingly fed back by the pheromonal taste of their Drakensis companion. There was nothing dominant in those any more, just the desperate need to be comforted and loved and they answered it unconsciously.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Ann Rayner’s tears ceased and her mind emerged from the dark pit it had sank in. She blinked, twice, to focus, and wiped the accumulated grit under her eyes, rinsing her eyes. She relaxed her grip on the couple, sniffed a last time, and conjured a weak smile looking at them in turn. Words left her mouth in a low husky voice.
“Thank you. Both of you...” It felt strange, telling that to a pair of… normals. But heartfelt, nonetheless. And now you should kill them, a wicked hatefilled little voice echoed deep in her head. Ann found that she hated that voice, what it meant, what it wanted. So what if two ferals had seen her weak and crying. They knew what it felt like, they knew there was nothing wrong in feeling pain. They didn’t judge her. They reached toward her, to comfort her, not to point and ridicule. They had acted like kindred souls.

She knew that no Draka ought to feel that way. She knew that, not so long ago, she would have considered such a scene with utter revulsion.
And she didn’t care. She felt whole even though something had been removed from her. She felt… herself. Not a construct, designed to behave and act in a predestined way.
She realized her conduct was at complete odds with her upbringing and taught values. Was she a traitor to her people ?
The Draka were her people, her race. She didn’t want to betray them. She saw the terrible purity of their purpose and the magnitude of their accomplishments. And yet she, the Drakensis soldier, didn’t want to dominate and subjugate anymore. She still understood the cold necessities of the Domination, she knew her duty to serve her Race and her State. She was still ready to wield arms against those who would destroy her people.
But she couldn’t wield the bullwhip any more.
At least she didn’t have to, as long as she stayed out of the Domination. Bred servi she could deal with, she felt. They were designed to be pliable, to fit in programmed symbiosis with her own species. They never knew freedom and didn’t miss it. They slotted under the Yoke naturally, painlessly. They relished it, in a sense.
But she could no longer bend a resisting human mind to her Will. That was a frightening discovery. And at once she understood why she didn’t feel like returning to Abydos and see Anise. Anise, whom she had made her serf, her thing, an object of pleasure and vanity. She was afraid of meeting her serf’s gaze.

What use was a Draka who couldn’t face her serf’s gaze ? Rayner was scared of the answer.
She wanted to rage at her fate, at the thrice-damned alien device who had… changed her. She knew it was useless. And she decided to face the present instead.
“My name is Ann Rayner.”
They understood.
“I’m Cenor.”
“And I’m Natylis”
“We live here”
“The Jaffas came, took us into slavery -”
“Your people saved us !”
They spoke fast. As if they didn’t want to leave an interval of silence, that could allow her sadness to burst again. And the girl’s last words filled the soldier’s heart with sorely needed pride and joy. Yes, her people had done good. The young Tollans’ gratitude was burning in their eyes and it was deeply comforting.
Rayner’s smile became less forced. Her answering words left her mouth without any forethought.
“I’m glad we did. I… I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of a Goa’uld -” she was hesitant to pursue, afraid of succumbing to the agonizing memories again.
They understood that too. It was a shared experience.
“You don’t have to tell -” the girl began, and stopped when two fingers gently brushed her lips.
The woman’s voice was soft. “Yes I do. I need to tell it to someone… someone who understands.” And these two ferals could understand, more than her people could, who had never experienced anything alike.
Natylis nodded in comprehension. She and Cenor were ready to listen to the Draka’s tale. And so she told them, in clinical detail, as if it all had happened to someone else, her ordeal inside Bar’shan’s palace. Her companions listened, and looked suitably horrified by the Goa’uld’s cruelty. And then savage satisfaction when she told how she had escaped, enacting a bloody payment on the Jaffas in doing so.
She ended the story at Barshan’s eventual capture, and left out Anise.

Nevertheless, the Tollans’ eyes were shining at the conclusion. The Drakas had given the Goa’ulds a bloody nose, twice, and it felt good.
For Ann as well. It was true, speaking had metaphorically lifted a part of the weight on her shoulders. The wound was nowhere fully healed, still throbbing deep inside her mind, but it was a dull ache, and she sensed it would become fainter with time. She could deal with it at least, she thought.
On impulse, she looked up. The light had changed, casting elongated shadows. It was already late afternoon, she realized, and her impromptu confidantes matched her observation.
Rayner understood their subtle change in body language.
“Sorry” she chuckled lightly “I suppose I wasted your afternoon”
Both blonde heads shook in protesting denegation. “No ! Not at all, it was amazing to meet you !”
“But, it’s true it’s getting late” Natylis added sheepishly. “Not that we’re bored, but we need to get back to Satria before night...”
“...and we have to trek back to the beginning of the trail, the automated aircar service won’t land here.”
Ann nodded in understanding. The couple was late indeed and likely wouldn’t make it before nightfall. She had a sudden inspiration.
“Look, I will call an aircar from the base - it can land here and then take you home safely.”
“Oh, we don’t want to -” Natylis began to protest, only to be interrupted firmly.
“Not at all. It’s the least I can do, and it’s no bother at all.”
“Oh then well I suppose it’s all right…”
Rayner gave them a “that’s decided” look and moved decisively through the water, toward the rocky ledge where she had left her possessions. It was a good bit higher than the water surface and she had to climb out halfway, allowing the Tollan couple to see her naked body down to her sculptured buttocks. Cenor stared at them until Natylis slapped him lightly and he guiltily turned his gaze to some flowers away from the nude, beautiful and athletic woman.

The Draka retrieved her small communicator and made contact, explaining her request. She listened to the answer, concluded with a “good” and put the little box down. She turned around happily to confirm the aircar was on the way, distracting Cenor off the flowers and innocently giving him a good view of her front side before slipping back into the water neck deep.
Perhaps fortunately for the young man, his girlfriend started to ask Rayner about her liking of Tollan life, and the food, and how different it was from what she usually ate, and where she had bought her local clothes, to which all Ann answered truthfully, conscious of the girl’s subtle (for a human) diversion maneuver but allowing herself to go along, rather uncharacteristically again.
Tollan aircars were fast. Ten minutes later, the grey-silver military limo swooped down noiselessly but for the sound of air torn apart by its passage, and hovered just above a clear spot near the pool. The couple had dressed already dressed, but to Rayner’s small pleasure had not asked her to turn around, mimicking her own lack of modesty. She found herself standing naked and waving Cenor and Natylis goodbye, as the aircar lifted away on autopilot.
The aircraft quickly faded from view and the Decurion remained standing in the light evening breeze, unmoving and unfocused. Her mind was pleasantly blank, and the perspective of a nightly run back to base was invigorating.
Still.
That’s all well and good but I didn’t even get fucked.




---------------

I know. I just made an emo-Draka. ;7

[Baughn]

No, no you didn't. That's no Draka.

[iborg]

No, no you didn't. That's no Draka.

True, it's a mutant.
A freak, by Draka standards, actually.

[Baughn]

Would this happen to any Draka that is turned into mashed potatoes and then resurrected? If so, I've got a stellar-scale potato masher I'd like to apply to their empire.

..oh, who am I kidding. I'd like to do that either way.

[iborg]

Deep space, Sol Sector
04/14/2011


“Do you realize that no Draka ever went this far from Earth before ?”
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson shot an amused glance at the man who had just spoken aloud next to her. Centurion Edwin Palme (named after his illustrious great-grandmother of Eurasian War-era fame) was a first-generation Drakensis like her, who had made his career in the Space Force like her, but started later enough to be her junior. Nevertheless a competent and dedicated officer, proficient in every technical aspect of their ship as was becoming standard practice thanks to his race, or rather species’ huge memory and intellect.
Back then, in their parents’ time an officer would major in two or three technical fields and then pick up working knowledge of other systems as they served. Nowadays, all-Drakensis crews were expected to be specialists in everything from ship-borne hydroponics to laser weapon systems, and cross-train regularly. Such cross-expertise was a necessity with small crew sizes and long-deployment times, but in practice everyone would be assigned one set of assignments for a given cruise and focus on it. Studies had showed this practice to afford better mission effectiveness.

Therefore Centurion Palme was Ingolfsson’s Executive Officer for the duration of the mission, with a secondary technical role in life-support and pulse-drive maintenance. Naturally, he was also expected to get practical experience with the brand-new hyperdrive installed on the ship. That was, after all, the whole point of the cruise. It was no secret that more hyperdrive-equipped ships would be entering service in the following months and every young and ambitious officer in the fleet (which amounted to everyone under Merarch-grade) had eyes set on those coming slots.
The discovery of the stargate and its new perspectives had come as a wonderful unexpected surprise for the Space Force. Before that, future was envisioned as “a long long time of doing nothing new while every effort went to rebuilding what was destroyed in the War, and no building new warships for centuries maybe, since there was nobody to contest the Solar System any more”. All that, while the groundsloggers on Earth had fun uprooting the deeply-buried Alliance stay-behind forces. Everyone knew it was dirty, nasty work, but at least it was action, and worthy of the Race’s martial prowess.

Those young men and women in space felt they were left out of the fun and into a dead end. Many had asked to be transferred to Ground Force, and obtained it. Those who were left were either too far or too indispensable, or too fond of spacer-life to leave.
And finally the future was brightening. Not only was FTL travel possible, but there was a whole galaxy to explore, fight and conquer. And the Fleet was shaking itself up and out of its utilitarian slumber. And that generation of officers had something great to look forward to.
And those who had stayed up by choice were now sniggering as those who had succumbed to the call of planet-based duty were now fielding requests to be reassigned for Fleet service. And their applications were shuffled at the back of the queue by the Manning Board.

At Gwendolyn’s slightly mocking glance, Edwin caught himself and slapped his forehead.
“Yeah, yeah, apart from cheating and using the stargate, I mean”
“True” she answered, some of the levity gone from her voice as she remembered a younger self in her lover’s embrace, peering out of a viewport to watch the Alliance colony-ship accelerating towards its far-flung goal on a pillar of antimatter-fueled flame. How she had longed to emulate them…
“Well, we know the hyperdrive’s fine for short distances” such a change of perspective, calling it a short distance what used to take years of voyage, she thought, “and soon we’ll find out if it holds long enough for an interstellar journey.”
Edwin Palme shifted in his couch and glanced at the viewscreen above - well, above related to the thrust axis - and its steadily scrolling checklist readouts. Ingolfsson was doing the same out of the corner of her eye. The process was automated, and would stop anyway if a glitch was discovered. Everyone was strapped in acceleration couches as if for a conventional pulse-drive boost. Without inertial compensation, the initial submergence into the hyperdrive window would amount to a sharp acceleration of five gravities for about three seconds, which was an aftereffect of the exotic physical processes at work and fortunately not the relative acceleration of the ship as measured from its real-space starting point.
Five G was already straining the ship’s structural strength, but pulse-drive cruisers were tough for things designed to move in space using newtonian physics. The main drive system itself made it both necessary and possible, as it pushed the ship forward through series of timed low-yield nuclear explosions, their momentum smoothed by massive shock absorbers. The cruiser’s primary load-bearing framework was a geodesic sheathed carbon-nanotube composite, designed to soak up huge stresses without buckling, and protected from external aggression by the rest of the ship.

The Starsword had lingered six hours after the last “short-range” jump beyong the Oort Cloud. Time for its twenty crew to do another round of checks before the main journey. The hull was inspected by remote to find any stress damage. The various hull attachments were safely secured for boost, antennas, solar and thermal panels and other flimsy structures folded and tucked against the hull.
Hatches were battened and locked, everything not firmly attached tucked inside lockers where they wouldn’t budge during the boost phase.
Standard procedures for a decidedly non-standard happening.
Of course, it was part of the learning process. They were making procedures as they went.

“Capacitors are fully charged” the XO read the latest scrolling update. A glance on the systems board confirmed it. The banks of capacitors surrounding the hyperdrive, and part of the FTL assembly replacing one of the basic cruiser design’s six main pressurized reactant tanks, a series of large spheres laying inside the geodesic frame on top of the fusion reactor and pulse-drive section, were all at 100% of their nominal charge.
The hyperdrive assembly itself was a 6 meters wide by 5 meters long cylinder, half its thickness devoted to ring after ring of supercapacitor circuitry with the hyperwindow generator at the center. Another of the original reactant tanks had been removed to make room for the naquadah generator feeding the hyperdrive’s voracious appetite during FTL flight. The opening of the hyperwindow was the most energy-intensive process, and why the generator’s already considerable output had to be supplemented by the capacitors.
The loss of reactant mass was deemed an acceptable tradeoff. After all, the hyperdrive meant that a ship wouldn’t have to spend as much time under conventional boost to cross long distances.
“Navcomp is green, vector coordinates uploaded in the system…”
“And final countdown” Gwen almost whispered. The rest of the crew’s readiness was acknowledged by the crew status board, all green, meaning they were all lying down and harnessed in their couch. Everything was green. A textbook example of readiness. She felt proud of her command.
Nothing left but wait. It was the compcore’s show now. Their destination and the hyperspace vector were entered into the hyperdrive’s built-in control logic, which would tune and shape the astronomical energies going into the faster-than-light travel mechanism. The precise instant where it would activate and set the Starsword on its headlong race between stars was left to the inhuman accuracy of electronics. Not even Drakensis reaction times could ever hope to approach the accuracy needed to control the system at such breakneck speeds.
As it was, astrogation was a very automated process. Anyone inside the ship could calculate orbital vectors, acceleration and delta-V requirements in his head (after training), but doing it every single time would drive the best ones mad. The navcomp overtook the drudge work. Give it initial coordinates and a destination and it would spit out the corresponding vector, time and acceleration needed, accounting for operating parameters, such as a zero-zero (as in zero relative velocity, zero vector divergence) intercept solution.
Before the fitting of an hyperdrive, Starsword’s navcomp would have complied with the “take us to Alpha Centauri” request with a perfectly working solution, albeit with a caveat of “...but the crew is unlikely to still be alive when we finally get there”.

But now it would “only” take a month. Which was still fantastically short as far as everyone was concerned, their perception shaped by an entire life of non-FTL spaceflight expectations.
The Starsword’s maiden interstellar voyage was to take it to the very bolthole of the defunct Alliance for Democracy. It was too bad that apparently they wouldn’t have the pleasure of greeting the New America with a missile salvo. The mystery was still deep about their disappearance in the middle of nowhere and that was the reason why the Starsword’s return journey, if all went smoothly, would involve stopping in the sector where the colony ship had last been sighted and search for clues about its fate.

The countdown reached 0 down to the microsecond figure. And Gwendolyn Ingolfsson was pressed back in her molded couch by a giant’s fist as the Dragon-emblazoned cruiser vanished into the swirling blue depths of hyperspace.

[Baughn]

..I really need to curb these aggressive impulses. Nobody's going to be hurt right now, so I should really just relax.

...okay. Calm. Deep breaths. Hmm...

Would you object if I borrowed your universe for a Macross multi-crossover? There's a half-Vajra girl I need to traumatize, and this place is just right for the job. Of course she'll be dragging a battlefleet along behind her, so it won't stay that way, but that's not really an issue for the story.

[iborg]

..I really need to curb these aggressive impulses. Nobody's going to be hurt right now, so I should really just relax.

...okay. Calm. Deep breaths. Hmm...

Would you object if I borrowed your universe for a Macross multi-crossover? There's a half-Vajra girl I need to traumatize, and this place is just right for the job. Of course she'll be dragging a battlefleet along behind her, so it won't stay that way, but that's not really an issue for the story.

Bah, it's just a little space jaunt. Nothing more sinister than a little pleasant cruise... the Draka Love Boat!
Feel free to borrow, as long as you include link to the original (preferably the FF.net version since it's more edited.

[Baughn]

Sure thing, so long as you don't mind if I blow up the Drakas.

[iborg]

Sure thing, so long as you don't mind if I blow up the Drakas.

LOL, don't make them suffer too much, poor things. After all they can be nice when not actively trying to enslave you.

[Baughn]

Hehe, not too much. It won't happen until the end, and it's still the Macross universe getting involved.. they're going to get befriended, though not until after having their space fleet blown up. The S4 entities will definitely be involved.

Let's just hope the Drakas don't give Mika too much trouble first. She's just escaped the Cthulhu Tech universe, and likely to enjoy some therapeutic destruction - I don't see her really being able to hide on this Earth, which means a subtle demonstration of relative firepower is indicated.

[Sky Captain]

I bet when they reach Alpha Centauri something bad will happen either the hyperdrive will break down or something nasty will wait there. Or maybe the Navi will have a really bad day

[Baughn]

One can only hope.

[iborg]

No update because I've been lazy. Just to make people wait...


Starsword FTL Mod 1 refit

Total length : 240m
Width : 46m, 360m with panels fully extended
Mass : Empty 14000t, Fully loaded 25000t

Primary STL drive system :
• Operating Mass : 7600t (with a full complement of fusion pellets)
• Length of pulse-drive section : 60m
• Thruster plate : 43m diameter, 10cm average thickness, special-treatment alloy with enhanced radiation resistance, graphite covering
• Fifth-generation pulsedrive; deuterium-boron-II fusion pellets
• Maximum acceleration : 3G
• Delta V : sufficient for a Mars-Saturn one-year roundtrip with included water reaction mass
• Thruster plate lifetime : nine years normal continuous use (with water reaction coating)

Secondary drive system : two deployable sponson-mounted plasma thrusters, maximum thrust of 0.1G

Tertiary drive : deployable micron-thick solar sails with diamond coating

Maneuvering and attitude adjustment system : small plasma thrusters and high-impulse liquid propellant rocket engines

Power generation
• Electromagnetic regenerative braking of pulse-drive dampeners arrays
• Deployable solar panels : maximum throughput 5 MW/h at 1 AU from Sun
• He3 compact fusion reactor : 70MW/h peak output. Advanced regenerative cooling now allows continuous operation at maximum output as long as reactant is available (4 year reserve)
• Naquadah generator : 1.8 TJ (500MW/h) output for limited periods
• Three banks of supercapacitor arrays (normal rating 60TJ)

Hyperdrive performance : 1LY/week (with cooling stops)

Armament :
• Two railgun turrets - 3cm caliber, 7000m/s muzzle velocity, 1200 rounds/minute firing rate, 800 armor-piercing DU slugs in ready magazines
• Four pulse laser emitters with 360° coverage, 5MW peak output power, one shot every four seconds at maximum power for three minutes or one full power shot every 20 seconds indefinitely
• Fourteen Deathglider staff cannons in regular 360° coverage emplacement as part of FTL refit
• 2x18 cell magazines, externally mounted, for SM-8 space combat missiles, throttleable solid-propellant rocket engines (max 150G, 30s duration), 10Kt dual-mode warhead (impact or X-ray laser burst), anti-laser coating and aerosol diffuser
• pulse-drive energized X-Ray laser emitter modules (40 rounds), 185° hemispherical coverage of rear area
• Four Star Arrow heavy ship-to-ship missiles on twin mid-ship hardpoints

Protection :
• lightweight composite ablative armor
• tethered mirror shields and aerosol dispensers for laser protection
• front-mounted triple-layer kinetic shield
• energy shielding emitters, maximum instantaneous absorption rate of 15KT before bleed-through and failure (assuming fully charged capacitor arrays)

Sensors :
• radar, lidar, passive electromagnetic, electro-optical IR/UV surveillance and tracking, 150cm pursuit telescopes, gravitic
• Effective range of active sensors : 12LS against similarly-sized targets
• Subspace sensors not available for FTL Mod 1 refit
• Four expendable sensor drones

Communications : radio and laser, max bandwidth 10Gb/s up to 0,3AU

Crew : 15 core crew (3x5, 8 hours shift rotation), 5 mission specialists or passengers. Crew module is a 5 by 28m cylinder inside the geodesic main framework, surrounded by water-filled tanks acting as armor, radiation shielding and heat-sinks.

Maximum endurance : 1 year (food and spares)

[Baughn]

1 MW = 1MJ/s.
1 MW/h would mean the panel throughput is increasing (or decreasing) continually. You probably mean just MW.

[iborg]

1 MW = 1MJ/s.
1 MW/h would mean the panel throughput is increasing (or decreasing) continually. You probably mean just MW.

That's... good to know. I'm not an engineer by far but I tried to use reasonable and coherent values (thank God for online converters !)

And while Gwendolyn Ingolfsson travels between stars and Ann Rayner tries being normal...

Luna, Sol System
04/16/2011


Polignac watched the surveillance camera’s take with mild interest. He was deep, very deep in the lowest and most secure levels of Aresopolis Command, kilometers under the lunar surface, inside the maximum security detention block’s monitoring station. A small room filled with banks of monitors, kept in perpetual low light. Ordinarily, two servicemen were tasked with keeping a close watch on the guests. Jaffa officers mostly, a handful of them among the scores of captured warriors, who were kept alive just in case their knowledge might be needed. They were difficult customers, with a high resilience to questioning. The methods to make them talk were still being worked on. Standard drugs didn’t work well because of the symbiote, and the hosts had the ability to enter a deep state of trance where they were unresponsive to stimulation.
They were still small fry compared to the other guest. The Domination’s pet Goa’uld, some said. Bar’shan had been persuaded to collaborate out of self-interest and preservation, and he had indeed given valuable technological insights. His input had accelerated the development of the Domination’s indigenous hyperdrive by a magnitude - even with him deliberately holding out his best knowledge. He gave in so that his captors couldn’t openly accuse him of not cooperating, but at the same time he delayed as much as he felt he could get away with. And his captors knew that. And he knew they knew. It was a delicate balance. His own interest was to drag out the process. Theirs was to keep getting data out of him. For that, they had to accomodate him… and his tastes. Or he’d get moody and sultry. And the threat of direct physical pain didn’t frighten him as much as before.

That could have become a problem. Fortunately, Anton thought, the rest of the Domination’s scientific establishment hadn’t remained idle. And the fine folks at Virunga Biocontrol had an abundant supply of live symbiotes to experiment upon. And they’d come up with a mighty fine development indeed. One they were 99% confident would work on Bar’shan’s mature symbiote.
And so Anton was there. He had asked to. His only regret was Rayner’s absence, but he didn’t want to interrupt her vacation for the slimy creature’s sake. She’d see the result later.
Presently Bar’shan was busy. Not working, not eating, not resting. Busy with a pleasure serf. He had refrained from hitting them since Polignac had explained the rules - in a very explicit fashion - but he still liked it rough. The girl - she was sixteen, a bred servus from Stevenson and De Veere, trained in the arts of sex, and dosed up to the nostrils with an Aphrodisine-Dociline mix so that she wouldn’t keep any mental scarring from the Goa’uld’s hamfisted treatment. Her dark brow hair were spilling around her face and concealing her contorted features, but the loud moans and whimpers of delicious agony were explicit enough, coming out in rythm with the banging of Bar’shan’s greasy hair-covered balls on her cunt. His own grunts and occasional utterances kept a counterpoint to her vocalizations, his hands gripping her hips firmly to keep her in place while he pounded her rectum. He was also naked, unfortunately. That was really an ugly body, the watching Drakensis reflected. Fat and hairy, apeish in a way - a Ghouloon might find it attractive, maybe.

From Bar’shan’s point of view, the girl didn’t appear to be in pain enough. Sure, she moaned and whined well, and her blood made a fine lubrication over his cock, but it just wasn’t the same thing. Those thrice-cursed Drakas didn’t allow him to get really rough with the fucktoys. And the food was bland. And the surroundings were… well they did put some printed reproductions of the paintings that used to hang on his palace’s walls. But it just wasn’t the same thing ! How he longed for his Goa’uld allies to notice those damn primitives and burn their worlds to cinders, preferably after freeing his person…
His fingers tightened their grip on the brunette’s pale flesh, making her gasp and squeeze the member buried inside her. Soon… real soon… any minute now… he wouldn’t hold a second more… He felt the tension rise up and his scrotum tighten in anticipation of climax. His breath becoming more ragged… the glorious pleasures of a finely tuned host body…
He was so focused on the exquisite sensations coming from the engorged flesh that he didn’t notice the armored door sliding open.
Just as the Goa’uld felt the first palpitations of orgasmic release, a smirking Polignac fired a zat blast at his sweaty back and the naked alien went limp, collapsing like a sack on the wench, who in turn collapsed on her belly with a cry of suprise and then a great sigh of relief.