The Light Within Ch. 04

"So, can you control my mind now, then?" I asked Perikos. We'd been traveling less than half an hour since we met up with Shadow and I was forced to confront my imaginary exhibitionism.

"Of course not. Why would you wonder such a thing?" Perikos sang back at me.

Why indeed. Only that our last and very recent sexual encounter had involved Perikos' power of suggestion and when I tried to clear my mind or alter the imagery I couldn't. Not that I was particularly worried. We'd talked some stuff out and I was ninety-eight percent sure Perikos wouldn't use his powers for evil. Still, I told him to be honest with me from now on.

"What, you mean you can't control my mind anymore? Your powers stopped working half an hour ago?"

"No," Perikos began, pausing to allow me to shift in his embrace. My leg had been falling asleep. "If you are referring to my suggestions – "

" - Suggestions?"

"I presented you with a scenario I thought would excite you. You created the details, collaborated in the fantasy. It would not have seemed realistic otherwise."

"What about when I tried to change some of details?" Like my estranged brother looking on in disgust. Honestly, that wasn't supposed to happen.

Perikos uttered the musical equivalent of a shrug. Fairly or unfairly, I thought I might already have the answer before I put Perikos on the spot. I hadn't really wanted to be able to change anything. I was quite content, actually, for things like that to stay out of my hands. Of course, how would I know I was being forced if I didn't at least try, however feebly, to break the bonds? Depravity, thy name is Jayn.

"Okay, then, but can't you at least admit – "

"Silence!" Perikos' voice slammed against me like a steel trap. For a moment I felt like I'd been slapped. Hadn't we worked our way past this bullshit? Then I heard something that made my gut clench and twist so badly I thought it was trying to fight its way out. Then I saw it overhead; the red light of a Kragosa ship speeding towards us. A moment later a blinding javelin of light hit the ground not far from us and began gaining as the ship closed the distance.

If we had more time, Perikos and Shadow could have outrun it. If it dropped in altitude before the spotlight got us, Perikos and Shadow could have grown big enough and strong enough to pull it out of the sky. But we didn't have that kind of time. I knew it even as I turned and broke into the fastest run I could. This time there was no shelter to take, and no place to hide. Perikos caught me around the ankle and I sprawled onto my stomach, unable to stop my forward momentum. My head bounced off the soft fungus floor and Perikos pushed my thighs apart roughly. He reached between them and I felt four thin tendrils pull me open and hold me there. The whine of the engine was getting louder.

"In!" I heard Perikos scream and I felt Shadow compress his shape between my legs and push his mass inside me. Shadow tried to push his way into my womb but he didn't seem able to make himself small and thin enough to push past without making me feel like I was being quite literally ripped open.

"No time!" Perikos shouted and pushed inside me as well, so that I was stretched wide enough to accommodate both Perikos and Shadow. I doubled over in pain. Even if I wanted to run now, I couldn't. Perikos wasted no time and made himself slender enough to force his way through my barrier and into my womb. I felt and odd sensation that I imagined was Perikos pulling Shadow in behind him.

The light was overhead now, and blinding. I stumbled to my feet and tried to run a few more meters but just as I registered how slow I was actually moving and how awkward my steps had become, I felt a horrible, searing pain in the side of my head.

Spots clouded my vision. There had never been anything like this. I was being boiled in hot tar, in lava, I was being shredded on a cellular level. I wanted to die, I wanted to have never been born. Then it all stopped.

I felt a sharp prick in my neck and before I opened my eyes I knew where I was and what had happened. My arms were strapped to a metal table and my legs were attached to some off sort of stirrups. I was on the Kragosi ship. I could feel hot, smoldering light on the other side of my eyelids and my head was pounding like someone had raked dull shards of glass all round the inside of my skull. The intense pain at the side of my head was gone.

I kept my eyes closed to give myself time to tally my situation. The Kragosi guards had me and the rest of planet's Most Wanted and we were royally fucked. For all I knew they were waiting till they saw me wake up before carving me up like a goose and throwing Perikos and Shadow into the gravitational pull of the first star they passed. I was all alone again.

"You are not," Perikos' tune reverberated in my head. It sounded deeper, warmer than usual. The quality of the sound seemed different.

"I'm standing by for any and all suggestions", I thought back at him, not daring to open my mouth and give the game away.

"They undoubtedly know you're awake," Perikos said. My stomach felt much more stretched, much larger than normal. "They gave you something to revive you." He paused a moment more. "Be strong, Little Shade. I promise you we are not going back to Kragosa and you are not alone. We will get away, we will just have to be...strategic in our timing."

Something grunted near my feet. A Kragosi guard. What I thought was a grunt was actually just spoken Kragosi. He uttered a few more guttural grunts and snorts and I couldn't decide if I would prefer he was talking to me or to someone else on board. I heard static and then another oddly familiar series of grunts coming from what sounded like a badly tuned radio. Then the guard poked my swollen belly with something. Not a stick. A rod, maybe?

Suddenly there was pain. My body spasmed and twitched. My teeth clamped together hard as the blast of electricity slammed through my body. My back arched hard enough that my legs and torso cleared the table. My eyes flew open as the guard withdrew the cattle prod from my belly. I had forgotten about those. Didn't stop me from wanting to fly off the table and beat him to death with it.

"Awake!" He blurted out in thick, slurred Common. Definitely an order. The light was so bright I could barely make out his thick grey skin, his cleft, hoof-like hands or his flabby, pig snout or the tusks poking out from either side that made his Common even more incomprehensible.

It occurred to me to wonder about Perikos and Shadow. Had the shock hurt them? They were oddly silent. As my thoughts went to Perikos, I heard his soft whisper in my head. "The electricity is detrimental to your species, not ours. Unfortunately, I had not realized it was coming in time to redirect it."

And me on a metal table. I tensed and prepared for more of the same when the bay door slid open and in the glowing light I could make out another guard's dark shape in the doorway.

"Jayn bek Sherop. Do you know why you're here?" His Common was fluent. The husky, rasping tone was horrifyingly familiar.

"Brogn?" My voice came out somewhere between a gasp and a squeak. The last time we had met, the Warden of Kragosa had promised to rape me, but only after Perikos raped me. Well, that hadn't gone as Brogn had planned, but I had it on good authority that any female creature of my size and stature was likely to bleed to death from Brogn's brand of lovin'. I had sincerely hoped he and I would never meet again.

The door slid shut behind Brogn and he waddled over to stand beside me. Three thick, sausagey fingers drummed against my belly next to where the guard had shocked me.

"Surprised to see me?" he asked, emitting another series of grunts mixed with an odd sort of hacking, wheezing sound. Laughter, Perikos suggested wordlessly. "I am surprised to see you, Jayn bek Sherop. Why, in our short time apart you have become quite a fat sow, am I not right?"

More laughter as he swatted my belly. If he hadn't been so sick, so revolting, I could have described it as playful. This was more like a mangy cat playing with its food before eating it. Fuck, I was disgusting myself with that line of thinking.

"Of course you are surprised that I would involve myself personally, am I not right? I will admit that I took your escapes personally. I like to think I am a thorough warden. I am fastidious. I was well paid to make the Perikos problem go away and then I find out that I delivered it a mule. Or more accurately in your case, a sow."

He slapped my belly again and I felt Perikos and Shadow shift and move inside me.

"Had you been other prisoners, I might have let you go. Sometimes a good warden must make a decision; is retrieval cost effective or a waste of valuable, limited resources? In the case of the Perikos, we would receive funds as long as it lived in our custody. You, on the other hand, were nothing. Hardly more than a wet hole to sleeve myself in, but I told myself good things come to those who wait. I was right, Jayn bek Sherop. Instead of being paid in small, erratic installments by the Perikos government, I will receive a sizeable lump sum for guaranteeing his demise."

My heart thrummed like a harp string in my chest. Nothing was ever gained by playing nice with Brogn. "Good luck getting them out without getting killed in the process."

Brogn laughed again, so hard this time he wheezed and huffed to catch his breath, his girth shaking like jelly under the strain. It took him several moments to reply. "Your bluff is pointless beyond its capacity for amusement. There is something more valuable to this government than the death of belligerent rebels. Do you know what that is, Jayn bek Sherop?"

There it was again. Something was closing in on me. I felt Perikos expand slightly and then contract again inside me.

"If you guessed that the Perikos government has offered me enough to allow me to live out the rest of my life in obscene luxury if I deliver you to them unharmed, then you are correct!"

I thrashed and strained against the straps holding me down on the table. Brogn laughed again and squeezed my right breast hard, like he was trying to ring out a sponge one-handed.

"Stupid Human. I would have thought you'd be happy so long as something was pummeling your cunt. You lack foresight at any rate. Suppose they did not want you? What would stop my doctor" – he gestured to what I had taken to be the other Kragosi guard, who was watching me – "from sawing you open with a dull blade and shining a very bright light on your passengers? What would stop me from riding you like the bloated sow you are, even if it killed you? No, Jayn bek Sherop, you are very lucky today. We are devising a way to extract the fugitives from you without causing any noticeable damage, and when we do, we will deliver you to our...clients. I'm certain they can think of a great many things to keep you occupied."

Brogn reached over to what I supposed was a table behind my head and brought with him three lengths of cord and an oddly shaped crescent piece of white plastic. I watched Brogn take one of the cords and open a metal clip at the end of it. He pinched the flesh around my navel and I felt the metal clip snap closed around the skin there. He closed another between my first and second toe.

"These are hooked up to a battery, of course," Brogn said as he tightened the straps at my ankles and wrists. "I would like to cause you a certain degree of mental and physical anguish before we part ways and if it kills of harms or even encourages those cowardly worms inside of you to come out, so much the better. The most obvious places to shock you into submission would be the most sensitive parts of your anatomy. However, I have learned from my mistakes. I will not do anything to you while your...passengers are still alive that could possibly be interpreted as pleasing, even to someone as reportedly desperate and whorish as you."

He forced two fat, dirty fingers into my mouth and I bit down hard. Brogn jerked his hand back a moment, probably to examine the damage. Then I saw his hand move almost before it started and something told me to close my eyes and brace for impact.

I felt the impact, the physical pressure and sensation of Brogn's vast, bolt-like knuckles pound against my face but something thrilling, even spine-tingling coursed through my torso instead. I didn't just feel good. I was nearly there.

Brogn seemed to decide my shriek of ecstasy was really one of immense suffering and he took the opportunity to wrench my head back by my hair and jam his fingers halfway down my throat. I was so aroused I forgot to put up a fight and before I knew it Brogn had forced the crescent-shaped white plastic thing between my jaws. I tried to close my mouth but the retractor held it wide open. He then reached down and closed a bulbous, sweaty hand around my throat and I coughed and spluttered. Brogn waited until my tongue poked out between my teeth and then snapped the final clamp shut on the tip of my tongue. I screeched and squawked through the pinch of the metal but I also knew the shit hadn't hit the fan yet. He hadn't even turned the damn thing on yet.

Brogn grunted smugly and slapped my exposed pussy. "You may be pleased to know I've set the charge to an interval timer. I would hate for you to die or become accustomed enough to it that you no longer wish to die. If the reports I have been given are correct and the Perikos truly has some affection for you, perhaps it will take pity on you. This will not stop until they are prepared to cease hiding and realize they are only prolonging the inevitable. You have been bought and paid for by those who matter on this planet. And they have no life here at all. No life anywhere, for that matter. I will leave you to ponder that, Jayn bek Sherop. See you in the morning."

I waited under the unpleasantly hot lights. Any second now. Then something ripped through my body, so brutal and thrilling it took me a moment to realize where it came from.

"Jayn?" Perikos spoke softly in my mind. "Do not be afraid, Jayn. I am here with you."

"At least the electricity isn't so bad," I thought at him.

"I am doing my best to modify the current and your brain's response so that you will not have to experience pain, at least not as Brogn intended."

That was a lot to take in. I counted down from ten slowly in my head. "Let's review here. We've been caught. You two are trapped in me and I'm trapped in here. Brogn wants you two dead but me intact for some reason."

"Correct."

"Any idea how I became public enemy number one?"

Perikos twisted inside me again. "Do not be naïve, Little Shade. You know as well as I do why they would pay handsomely to possess you."

"Is it so wrong to hope I'm not going to end up getting raped to death by Loyalists?" I hoped my dry, dark humor sounded just as funny in my head.

Another surge tore through my body, leaving my tongue, belly and toes and every part in between feeling as though I'd tickled softly for hours until I became so sensitive I came from it. I fell back onto the table, gasping for air.

"Well, according to what I overheard while you were unconscious, there is other motivation, besides reaping energy from you."

"Do I want to know?" I thought, still gasping.

"According to the 'doctor' they have stated that first they intend to attempt to breed with you. If that proves unsuccessful, or perhaps even if it does not, they have decided they will attempt to capture a human male and attempt to breed you as livestock. Obviously the final decisions have yet to be made, but – "

I didn't hear anything else. Breed?! Not okay, not in the least. It was bad enough I couldn't even fall back on my usual strategy of identifying the worst case scenario and trying to be optimistic, or at least, not utterly pessimistic. I thought I heard Perikos calling my name through the din of my own rising panic.

"When did they mention breeding?" I tried to play it cool but the simple fact is that nonchalance is a lot easier to fake when you're able to say things out loud.

"While you were unconscious," Perikos answered.

Another jolt of pleasure slammed through me, much more rapidly this time. It hit hard and fast like a stack of bricks and then my mind was clear again, even through my bellybutton, toes, and especially my tongue, where still pulsing.

"What happened down there?" I thought through the fog. "They found us, you two took shelter, then what?" My head still throbbed. I remembered something hurt badly right before they took me aboard their ship. Some sort of taser, maybe? The echoing ache was too precise to been any sort of blunt instrument.

"They brought you to this sealed room," Perikos said, but this time I could hear the omission.

"Come on, out with it," I told him. I would have dearly loved to have clenched my teeth but the gag and clamp made that impossible.

Perikos didn't waste time asking what I meant. "They turned their Light on us and we had to hide or risk a very painful death."

Not news to me.

"There was no time to warn you to guard your ear from the light and it was integrated so thoroughly in your system that I doubt I could have stopped you from experiencing its death in time to prevent the agony you experienced."

"Its death?" I felt myself tremble in my bonds.

"Yes," Perikos said quietly. "It could not withstand the exposure. The overwhelming pain you experienced preceded its demise."

"But it was so small. That's what you experience even in unnatural UV light?"

Another electric jolt jarred me, left my heart pounding and the cleft between my legs humming.

"Yes," said Perikos.

"And so then did you feel it? That time?"

"Yes," he said, his melody gentle. "I experienced something akin to what you felt, although likely not as intense."

"How come?"

I felt Perikos squirm and shift inside me again. "I mentioned that I feel a sympathetic connection with that bit of myself but it was beyond my control. It had bonded with your body, though it largely retained my will. Surely you have noticed we are still communicating although the external remnants of the bond is gone, obviously many internal bonds are still available to us. You are not remotely vulnerable to Light, but you are energized by your own fear and arousal. You and I can communicate quite clearly without articulation on your part. You body is stronger and more resistant as the result of the bond. I can also experience your senses. Prior to the bond, I was relying on signals from your body – increased heart rate, perspiration, body temperature, vibration and the like – but now I can hear what you hear and I can gather information from your eyes and interpret that information correctly."

It was hard to concentrate on the ramifications of all that with two more jolts sending sharp, rippling shock waves through me. At least they were shorter now.

"They have not actually been shorter, but I believe that I can absorb and contain a certain amount of energy from the shocks, I may be able to overload the battery, which should short circuit the ultraviolet lights in this room."

"Is that the plan?" I wanted to roll over and sleep, and when I woke and I would find out that Perikos and Shadow and I were curled up together some place safe and warm, far from Kragosi merc ships or deranged Loyalist armies who wanted to make babies.

"In actuality, the plan my Second and I have devised is a dangerous gamble, but I will not continue to hide while you suffer to protect us."