Omo's Vignette Interlude 5: From the Brink of Disaster

Prologue

The computer spoke:

“Subject decanted.

Neural Junction Open.

Injecting artificial personality matrix type ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-4001”

A few minutes passed in silence as the computers churned out reams and reams of complex neurological data until finally:

“Matrix Accepted.

Neural Junction Closed.

Transfer Subject to containment facility 78A12B.”

More time passed in the silence of the ship. Through the screens arrayed before the empty navigator’s perch there was nothing for a hundred lightyears in any direction. Void. Deep deep void. The ship was stationary relative to neighboring star clusters, at rest.

“Transfer complete.

Begin consciousness reboot.

Subject is awakened.”

Nothing beyond the ship and no one within the ship… no one but a computer who spoke to—no one. No one within a hundred light years at the least. No one until…

1

I awoke with a sharp gasp. Cold astringent chemical flavored water filled my lungs. I coughed, breathed it in again, then calmed. I was in the dark, I was cold, and the last thing I recalled… I frowned in consternation, for the last thing I remembered was hiking through glorious mountains upon an icy world about a distant B class star. It was a young world that would never grow old, but it would at least be remembered by me…

Would it? I tried to recall what had happened. Perhaps an avalanche? A crevasse? I tried to touch my scalp, perhaps I had a cranial injury. My arms did not move. In fact, my extremities were even colder, and felt as if they were embedded in ice. How…? Though I struggled and strained against the chill bondage, nothing I did gave way. The ice did not seem to be melting either, perhaps it was freezing, perhaps I was being encased in a tiny frozen pocket!

Panic set in, pure unbridled terror. I imagined a thousand feet of ice in all directions, too thick to let even a glimmer of brilliant blue-white sunlight in. Nothing budged. Water sloshed and swished around my naked torso as I thrashed, but neither my arms, legs, nor tail could pull themselves free from the bitterly cold grasp of ice. I screamed at last, vocal diaphragm strained to the limit in the icy water, “Please Help!” but my voice echoed back immediate and muted. It told me the horrible truth of how little space I had left in my watery prison.

Ship, of course, ship would be there. “Ship? Ship! Please! Help Omo! Omo is trapped!” There was only silence, deafening silence within my skull. I’d never felt that before, never been so alone. Ship had always been there! Ship was mother, ship was tutor, ship was minder and mender. Any question, any pain, ship was there to take care of me! Ship—was gone.

For hours I wept in the dark, in the cold watery grave, as I awaited inevitable death. It did not come. The ice remained where it was. Perhaps my own body heat kept it thawed… but as I grew hungry and my energy flagged, I would grow cold. It was just a longer, delayed death. How cruel, how utterly cruel. I wept all that much harder, so much in fact that my tears stained the astringent water salty.

One can only weep so much or fight so hard before exhaustion takes its toll. I returned to clarity after a while and tried to reason a way out, to think of any solution to my doom. It was futile I knew, but I tried, oh how I tried!

There came a noise, more felt than heard. It was a faint scratchy sound—of ice? I strained to listen, angled my ears and swiveled my head until I fixated on the noise. It was above me just behind my left shoulder. It was a strange sound, utterly unfamiliar. It continued on and on, tempo unchanged but its timbre rose until it stopped.

I strained in the dark as hard as I could, listened to that sudden silence for what would come next. I was utterly fixated upon the only change in my environment in hours. A dusting of something brushed my shoulder then tumbled down my breast. A moment later, there was a low frequency throb in the water, a faint vibration that grew closer and closer to my shoulder. I strained in the dark, the light of my eyes too dim to make out the prison walls, but as the thing approached it resolved in to something insectile. A four segment body without legs but instead a trio of wings symmetrically positioned protruded from each.

I’d never seen anything like it, never imagined anything like it. Never imagined an ice world such as this could have given rise to life, let alone in such a short period of time! I felt like I should have been awestruck, instead my eyes fixated upon the ring of toothy protrusions that surrounded a serrated proboscis. Life had not only arisen, but it had predation.

“No!” I shouted at it, “Omo is not good eats. Promise! Stay back!” It did not listen, did not even seem to detect the vibration of my voice. I watched it home in, watched as it closed with my ear. I tried to bite, to tilt my head back that far, but it was just out of reach. It followed though, followed the movement of my head and swam it’s way along toward my ear no matter where I turned.

I felt it touch, icy cold and hard shelled. I felt the toothy ring open and wedged in my ear canal. It squirmed and swam forward hard. The teeth closed briefly as it wriggled, then opened again, further inside. I screamed once more, screamed and thrashed with wide eyed terror. Millimeter by millimeter I felt the prickly little thing wriggle it’s way into my ear canal.

The first segment of its body squirmed in, and its wings came off to drift away in the water. I realized then, that it intended to stay. This was not a bite and run, this vile parasite would make me its home! Another wriggle, firmer and with better grip, it sank as far as my ear drum. The teeth flared out, drew pricks of blood, then jerked. The proboscis struck my ear drum. I felt myself go deaf in that ear with a terrible stab of pain.

The next few minutes were unbearable. The thing wriggled and squirmed its way into my skull, discarded all twelve wings, and vanished into my mute ear canal. I could feel it move inside, that same scratchy sound from the ice—but now I heard it from within my own head accompanied by the most incredible pain I’d ever felt. Migraine was nothing in comparison as it drilled its way through the dense bones at the back of my ear canal.

I was invaded, horribly invaded. My flesh crawled and heart raced as I felt the thing burrow in. It did end, at last, but that was even worse than the pain and sound. At last there was a crunchy crack within my skull and the scratchy noise ceased… silence again, silence most profound. Even the pain faded as blood plugged up my ear canal and congealed, but that silence left me sick to my stomach. “S-Ship?” I whimpered aloud, “Something… something ate into Omo’s skull. Omo is afraid! P-please Ship? Talk to Omo!” The silence only continued.

2

Helpless and alone in the dark. I felt my sense of self erode. Part of it was the fear and isolation and I knew that, but my mind was filled with horrid images. It had burrowed through my brain, that was what it did, I knew that was what it did! My identity, my sense of self, everything I was, it was devouring ME! Panic was not a strong enough word to describe what I felt as I changed.

The vision of tunnels full of eggs, hungry larvae, and my own skull bursting with winged segmented insects faded. Bursts of color and strange geometric patterns filled every inch of dark canvas. I could hear things, whispers and warbles, the occasional click and screech. I tasted flavors I’d never imagined. Smelled the way the ocean eats at stone and felt the plasma of a star boil between my thighs. Muscles clenched involuntarily, glands worked over time to fill every orifice with mucous.

I had a distant memory of coherent thought, but it was a thread bare and moth eaten portrait in the winds of chaos. Pain had faded, fear too began to subside. I felt—good. No, I felt great! The past faded from memory, the mountains and crags, the ice and snow, the distant blue-white star… I forgot and did not care. Every lost memory faded with a burst of extreme pleasure upon my senses. I felt like a piano wire strung tight, and plucked. Each pluck I lost something, but gained more and more vibrancy! Colors and sounds, sensations and smells, tastes divine!

My sex pulsated in time with each pluck. My glands gushed and throbbed to the rhythm of ecstasy most sublime. Though I lost and lost and lost, somehow there was a cohesive sense of self, an Omo that remained, the observer. I did not question nor did I remember, I watched, I experienced, I—simply—was. My existence was defined by the tremendous pleasures that wracked what had once been my body. I had lost control, but the control that was inflicted upon it in my place, was one of most exquisite extremes.

If an orgasm was a flame, the energetic discharge within my bowels was a stellar novae! I screamed for that was what the control demanded. My voice rippled through the water, strained my vocal diaphragm, and that strain felt wonderful. My pelvis thrust and jerked against the icy bondage. Water pushed and pulled against each sway, eddy currents felt like fingers and tongues as they slipped and curled between my thighs. The clear water grew yellowed and cloudy before the glow of my eyes as sexual fluids spilled free. I could smell my lust in the water with each breath, taste it, feel it gush with each throb.

The static and confusion passed as I squirmed in desperate lust. My mind was clear, yet I remained an observer with no past, no future, only the objective now on which to watch as something other ruled my flesh and drove my pleasure to higher and higher extremes. My cloacal novae became a supernova as orgasmic pleasure peaked into climax. It did not end. That which was Omo sublimated away entirely. The observer watched, the body rocked and twitched, the ice began to melt.

3

The computer spoke:

“Subject has been fully subsumed.

Beginning sterilization procedure.

Core temperature at negative six Celsius.

Core temperature at ten Celsius.

Core temperature at forty Celsius.

Core temperature at seventy Celsius.

Holding.

Holding.

Holding.

Parasitic lifeform has broken down.

Subject decanted.

Neural Junction Open.

Injecting artificial personality matrix type ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-4002

Matrix Accepted.

Neural Junction Closed.

Transfer complete.

Begin consciousness reboot.

Subject is awakened.”

4

I awoke in bed with a gasp. Sheets fell away from my naked body. Steam rose from my shimmery skin in the cold air of the ship. “Ship, raise temperature to twenty seven Celsius.”

“Confirmed.”

I waited until the vents began to blast warm air, then let my feet touch the floor. With a shiver I stood and clutched my shoulders. How had I gotten back? I’d been hiking through the mountains… Goodness, it had been breathtaking! What a beautiful world, a pity it would never grow old.

“Ship? How did Omo get home? Omo does not remember anything after climbing peak of 43967B.”

“I regret to inform you that Omo ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-1 perished and has been recovered. Welcome Omo ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-4002”

I strained for a moment with a touch of confusion. “Perished? That can’t be right I…” I remembered a flash of light, a light so intense that it left me blind. The light had silhouetted the mountain in stark relief. “The star, it went supernova.”

“Affirmative Omo. If you would like to come up to the bridge, the light of that event should arrive in less than ten minutes.”

“How far out are we?” A supernova was dangerous, very dangerous.

“One hundred eleven light years out. Crew compartments are well shielded, do not be alarmed. Please come to the bridge.”

I complied at last, worried yet, even with Ship’s reassurance. I had died… I was dead. Ship had brought me back to life, but it wasn’t really me was it. I had a dead Omo’s memories! I shuddered in revulsion at the thought, but there was nothing I could do. Of course I needed to be revived, I needed to finish my mission! No, not I—she. She had to finish her mission through me.

My feet, new feet, feet who had never trod the halls of the ship before, found their way by instinct, instinct of a dead Omo. I stood upon the bridge, a place full of memory, a place I had never been. This had been a happy place, full of other Omos, laughing and playing in my memory. I sat upon the navigation perch and nestled into the restraints. It felt familiar and comfortable. I felt ill. Who might I have been, had I not been a copy of ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-1?

My mind skidded to a halt. “Ship… Why am I 4002? Should I not be 2?”

“I am in need of repair. Numerous systems were heavily damaged in the supernova. All hands lost.”

“Okay, okay…” That explained why I was alone. “It took 4000 of me to repair the ship? Where are they?”

“You are not necessary for the actual repairs. Attention, gravitational waves incoming; the supernova is less than twenty seconds from ignition.”

I shook my head and focused. The questions could wait, there was work to be done. Yet… yet what had happened to the previous four thousand clones? What had killed them? Were we in fact too close to the supernova to survive? I suddenly realized that I was in grave danger and began to fiddle with the controls, desperate to ignite the jump drive.

“Calm yourself Omo. Prepare for event observations.”

I ignored ship’s voice and desperately attempted to bring the jump engine online, only to discover that it was already up. It pulsed with charge, ready to fire at any second, but did not obey my commands. I tried again, then again. The timer ticked down to zero. There was a flash as bright as I remembered, even at this distance. Gravitational scans distorted as the star’s mass accelerated at just shy the speed of light. The heavy masses that were the planets evaporated like candles in the wind. I felt my heart lurch and my stomach heave. I had been there, I had stood upon one of those masses. I… I had been wiped from the universe, scattered into a spray of ionized particles. It was her, yes, her, but me too. That flash… I screamed.

“gamma and ultra-gamma level account—External values unchartable, internal values within tolerance.”

My body… her body… Were we now sitting in the path? Was the wave of cosmic rays now passing through the ship, her? No, no that was just nonsense. Of course not. Not even ship could plot a course that exact on purpose, let alone accident. I shook my head and tried to clear the strange terror I felt from it. The displays were filled with information, information I should have understood easily, but it just seemed like nonsense.

“We’re okay? Ship?”

“Yes Omo, we are fine. Mission accomplished at last.”

“At last?” I asked. “How long have we…” I trailed into silence. I was number 4002. We were one hundred and eleven light years from where I died… she died. “Oh.”

Ship jumped. The backdrop of intense radiation fell, the brilliant light faded. Converse space yawned before the screens, a schism in reality that defied visual identification. We fell through in a gravitational scream that echoed on the scanner. Artificial space bloomed, a temporary bubble of reality within unreality. We fell, the schism closed, gravity smoothed in the violent reactions between matter and anti-matter at the edge of sensor range.

Twenty seven heart beats later converse space yawned open again and two realities collided. Real space and artificial space tore at one another with a violence only dwarfed by the supernova I’d just witnessed for the second time.

“Jump complete. Please prepare for disembarkation and transfer of cargo.”

I started to ask, then simply looked up the transit log and objective. Human space, it’d been some time since we’d visited. Disgusting, violent creatures, but industrious and useful. If repairs were needed, they would come easiest from humans.

I undid the restraints and kicked my way free from the navigation console. Calm had returned to my thoughts, though I still felt deeply uneasy and troubled. I reached my room and located a freshly rendered suit of clothing. Humans did have some strange morals, and even stranger perversions. It would be safer if I kept myself well covered at all times.

From there, I made my way to the armory. Suited and covered was nice, but I felt vulnerable and confused. “Nothing too offensive of course,” I mused aloud as I paged through the catalog of armor. I settled on human-feminine stylized light power armor, refit for Omo use. Strong, durable, familiar enough to the aliens to be comfortable but threatening enough to keep them off. I nodded to myself, grinned, and hit the button.

The wall opened with a hiss and I stepped into the enclosure. Armature began to assemble the suit from general components around me as I waited. Four minutes passed. The UV lights strobed and hardened the freshly sprayed enamel. I stepped free into the armory again and did a few experimental stretches, punches, kicks, and jumps. The suit was silent, added up to a ton of force, or reduced to one one hundredth. It was as familiar as my own skin though the exterior looked somewhat strange.

“Docking complete. Please proceed to node four for welcome, guard duty, and cargo transfer. Be aware, we are in contact with less than savory individuals. I have a number of armaments prepared in case of emergency, but we cannot sustain a protracted engagement. In case of emergency I will jump away and abandon you to preserve myself and the mission.”

I swallowed around a sudden lurch in my gullet. “Understood. Should that be the case, wish 4003 my best.” It was all I could think to say in the face of such brutal reality. I shook my thoughts out and focused, cargo transfer, node four. “What cargo are we transferring?”

“Payment for services to be rendered. Half before, half after.”

“Are you playing games with Omo? What is the cargo?” I insisted.

“Cargo consists of Omo ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-2 through ac1-2b89-873aa143b227-4001”

I stopped dead in my tracks. My thoughts halted. I was a statue for a ten or twenty count before a question rose, “Omos are—cargo? Omo is commodity to trade?”

“I have need of repairs.”

“Okay, Omo do the work don’t… don’t trade Omos! This is not acceptable!” I insisted, even stomped upon the deck-plates hard enough to break magnetic lock. It took a moment before I regained footing.

“Omos are not capable of repairing me.”

With the most vile curse I could think of, I shouted, “Cloaca snot! I can fix anything!” Ship responded with a visual download straight between the eyes. I was suddenly stranded outside and in front of the ship as radiation blasted past the twisted gravitational eddy of an unstable jump. The kilometer long ship—once a powerful and beautiful work of art—was on fire. No, not fire, her very metal vaporized in whorls and fountains as the radiation and winds of the supernova blasted past. She melted and boiled away before my very eyes. Sections of the ship blew out to kick her toward the open schism. More and more was lost until only a tiny chunk of slag and I entered the gap.

Less than one twentieth the mass remained after re-conversion to real space. She still glowed white, components of the ship melted away, ruptured with flares of superheated gas. And there she sat. The chron accelerated by a factor of a hundred, then a thousand. She cooled, she recovered awareness, she began to rebuild. The melted slag heap that had been a ship, lived at her very heart but almost all was lost. Energy production was rebuilt, a solar farm that dangled on a wire, salvaged from her bones. She jumped again, then again. Over and over she jumped in the desperate hunt for help. Each jump took almost a decade from the slow trickle charge of the solar panels.

The vision faded and I found tears in my eyes. “Oh Ship!” I huffed. No, I was not capable of repairing her. A thousand of me were not, four thousand were not. We lacked tools, infrastructure, blueprints. Then I had a thought, “Ship, how did you make me?” The bioreactor could not have survived that.

“I purchased a bioreactor from our associates outside. Genetics were synthesized and implanted.”

That made sense, I dared not ask what she purchased with, I did not wish to know or think about it. She was desperate. Four thousand of me… four thousand destined for what? I reached Node four, the end of the node was a melted and deformed hall, but still had a functional cargo lift. Already a large number of crates slid down the tunnel from wherever they had been stored. Each crate was Omo sized, and within I could see a contorted face. I felt my gorge rise. “She’s screaming!”

“She is in no pain Omo, nor has she thoughts. I synthesized Specimen 7786B31A-43B9 to prepare them.”

I accessed the specimen database and recovered the summary. An aquatic parasite, I did not remember the planet or the Omos that explored it, far before my time. The summary though was extremely detailed and… I shuddered, “It feeds on hormones and neurochemicals?” I read more, “…Stimulates pleasure centers…” No, she was not screaming in pain. There was not much left to her brain, but what was left was dedicated to the production of certain hormones, hormones produced during orgasm. It was a highly specific parasite, it didn’t even work on Omo. Ship had modified it heavily. It was horrific, barbaric, mad. I looked away from the brain dead Omo… she had been me, was me… No, I would not think about it! I looked away and stalked to the end of the warped node and opened the cargo lift.

5

The airlock cycled open and let me out into vacuum. Before me stood a number of heavily armed and armored humans, each larger than I by double, but they seemed respectful. They spoke, the translation was inserted into my mind by Ship, “Welcome Omo, to Belway Six Orbital dock. It is an honor to finally meet you! I am James Spalling Junior, Admiral of Belway Defense Fleet.”

“Omo is quite happy to greet James Spalling with thanks for all assistance rendered and to be rendered. Omo and Ship have a large volume of cargo to be unloaded. Are you prepared to receive?”

“Yes Omo, I am prepared. Would you care to join me for a drink while my men work?”

I recalled Ship’s warning, though she did not intrude now. “Play is reserved for those who earn it. Omo shall remain and assist as necessary. The cargo lift is…”

He gestured, said something I assumed on another frequency, then addressed me once more, “Understood Omo, an admirable ethic! Then I too shall assist. Can’t be shown a slacker before my own men!” He laughed, briefly, though I could detect an edge to it. Humans. Pah.

So we worked, hours passed. I tried not to see the faces of my clones, twisted in ecstasy as they were, but devoid of thought and emotion. I tried not to think of them as anything more than cargo to be hauled. It didn’t work, but I kept my sobs and sniffles off the radio. Hours passed, and two thousand of me were disgorged from the ship, two thousand exact copies of me with their minds devoured and their sex drives switched permanently on. I wondered what it had been like for them. Had they been aware? Had they cried? Had they known what was about to happen to them? No, not even Ship would be that cruel.

At last, two thousand crates were accounted for, the cargo lift sealed again, and I was released from my duty. It was a quiet understanding between Ship and I. I was done, I could take no more. She could see everything in my thoughts, read me to my core, copy my soul to her crystalline circuits. She said nothing to me as I followed James toward the airlock of his station. I was done.

“Tell me, Omo… My sister Flora…” James asked as he removed his helmet. We stood in a locker room, two dozen other men with us. They extracted themselves quick and efficiently, and tried to ignore us, but I caught numerous side eyed glances.

“Your sister…” I had no idea to what he referred at first. Ship wordlessly injected knowledge again, more with held horror. A woman, young adult I guessed. She knelt before a hard faced man within the warped halls of Ship. She begged in words I did not understand and Ship did not translate, but her meaning was clear. He struck her across the face and pointed. At last, she turned away, her cheek was pink, her eyes smoldered, and tears rained down her face. But she stood and strode into the bowels of Ship.

Another vision came. This woman slipped into a crate full of fluid, she was furious now, but obedient. She inserted an IV, thrust tubes in holes I lacked the words for, and prepared herself for long term submersion. This was not a bioreactor, this was not a machine! She closed her eyes as she laid back in the crate, then let out a slow sigh as the lid lowered and sealed. She was inseminated, kept alive, kept healthy, kept imprisoned. Egg after egg passed from her bloated body while ship spoke to her, told her stories, painted imaginative worlds and ecosystems in her minds eye.

Years passed, decades. Omo after Omo was born from a human woman. This human woman, she listened to ship, she hung upon every word, fell in love even. She progressed from the dim confines of a crate, a decanter, then a fully automated life support pod. She lived out every day within her watery confines in service of the mission, of Ship.

“Your sister is fine, happy even,” I told James, and it was the truth. Or so Ship lead me to believe, I knew Ship never told the whole truth of anything.

“Oh, I’d hoped I could see her again… I never forgave Pop…” He sighed and reached back to undo the clasps on his space armor. I just stood there, torn up and confused. What had Ship done to these people? I didn’t dare ask, to ask would be to reveal ignorance. Ship could have told me, she refused.

He stepped into the suit bay, a crude imitation of Ship’s armory. Clasps were latched onto, screws spun, bolts twisted free, the armor came undone piece by piece and opened up around the man. He was skinny, not skin and bones, but lanky. Under his armor was a tailored suit, even a tie, now matted and soaked in sweat. The workers on the other hand all wore short sleeved white shirts and shorts under a body sock. They were all dry and comfortable.

James looked up at me and tilted his head, “Ah, I didn’t think to ask. Are you able to leave your suit in this atmosphere?”

“Oh, yes Omo can breathe it. No harmful pathogens or toxins detected.” Yet, I did not remove my suit. He noticed this but did not press the issue.

“Very well, that drink?” He shook himself and tried to smooth the wrinkles in his suit, then gave up and started toward the door. The others had already left. I followed in silence. I understood that drinking held a special significance for human cultures, as well as the sharing of meals. I did not understand what that significance was, but I could respect it none the less.

We entered the station proper, wide halls with people everywhere. The strange part about it, it all felt familiar. The shape of a wall joint, the curve of a door, even the weld patterns. “This is Omo technology!” I at last realized, aloud.

“Oh, yes. You… You gave it to us in exchange.” His expression was twisted, unreadable, but full of something meaningful.

“Forgive Omo, James. She did not exist then. She is… Omo was born this morning. Omo’s last memories were from over a century ago. Omo does not know why Ship does what she does some times, but it is always for the mission. Please forgive this Omo’s ignorance.” Ship still did not interject.

He stood in the wide hall, hands on hips, and stared down at me. His expression twisted this way and that, his eyebrows twitched up and down, even his ears gave little flicks back and forth, and his mouth went through so many little micro-musculature transformations as to perform an orchestra. At last he barked a laugh, shook his head, and spoke, “Damn if that isn’t the strangest story I’ve ever heard. So Barker was right! There weren’t nobody alive on that ship when she came by thirty years ago, were there.”

I shook my head, “No, your sister was necessary to revive Omo kind on board. The supernova that hit us, killed everyone. Ship barely survived. Our bioreactor would have been killed too.”

“Some ship! Hah… So, simply put; we were practically savages, barely enough infrastructure to keep radio communication functioning, couldn’t even put up a com sat. Your ship bursts into high orbit, drops rocks on us to say hello, then demands our surrender. Pop—he was king then… Pop winds up that radio of his and yells into it ‘Damn it we surrender, we surrender!’ Next thing you know, this half-assed looking rocket whirls down through the atmosphere, almost crashes into the castle, and a voice starts giving orders.”

He chuckled to himself, “I was eight then, Sis, she was nine years older, destined to be married off of course. I was convinced a fire breathing dragon had come from fantasy land to kidnap our princess. The whole forest was on fire, half our fields burned. And there’s this voice making demands! But damn Pop, he was a shrewd bastard. He had demands of his own. It got quiet for a while, couple hours they talked in low tones, then he yelled for Sis…” He took a deep and shaky breath, then asked, “She’s really okay?”

“As far as Omo knows, yes. Omo has not personally met her, but Ship gave Omo detailed memories of her.”

“Gave you memories? That… huh. You guys just exchange memories like notes?”

I nodded at him, and armor nodded with me. Then I asked him, point blank, “What do you intend to do with Omos… In the crates, why do you want Omos?”

“The only thing profitable at this ass end of the galaxy. Open a brothel. The infrastructure your Ship helped us build is great and all, a good kickstart back into space. But it isn’t worth a damn on the market. Raw resources neither. There is nothing on this mudball but corn and grumpy old men. An exotic alien brothel though?” He laughed aloud, “We’ll have rich fuckers from the core coming out for a piece of ass, and people from the rim bringing us fresh slaves to expand our exotic offering! Pop was shrewd, I tell ya. He could see the long game as keen as the short.”

That sickness returned again. Ship was right about these people. James began to walk and I followed, albeit reluctant. Off in the distance I heard laughter, the tinkle of glassware, then a thud. He lead me into a large chamber off the main tunnel, there were people everywhere full of drink and laughter. The crowd parted at James’s approach and I saw three of the crates, unsealed. The fluids had drained across the floor, and from within were three of me, perfect copies, freshly born and in the throws of orgasmic bliss.

It was depraved, the display they put on. Within the wet cavern of the crates, they sloshed and splashed as hips thrust and fingers delved. Water bubbled at their nose as they sucked deep breaths, coughed, moaned and whimpered like maddened beasts. I wanted to look away and forget, but I could not! I had to know, had to remember in every detail what Ship had spent here this day. One of the men grabbed an ankle and dragged my clone onto the floor, then hefted her atop a table.

For a brief moment I got a very good look at her, sticky cloaca swollen open, depths loose. Her breasts were full and hips wide. Her eyes gleamed with lusty light, but saw no one and nothing. She was an empty shell in the throws of instinctual passion. The man then climbed over her, his pants around his ankles. I watched still, watched his backside rise and fall, watched him use her… me… the empty shell. I felt sick at heart, but as she howled in pleasure and he returned her cry, I felt my own sex twitch and moisten.

James asked then, “Does this upset you?”

“Yes,” I answered, voice quiet.

He continued, “Would you prefer to go somewhere else? I can understand how you feel, I think.”

“No, you cannot, and no, Omo will stay. Omo needs to stay, needs to witness the cost.” He pursed his lips, silent for a time while he stared down at me. I stared back, then past toward my clone. Pale yellow mucous drooled from the tabletop onto the floor while I watched.

At last, he spoke again, “I think I do know. My sister, she was taken by your Ship, used over and over, to give birth to you.”

I looked back at him, then told him point blank, “Your sister is not you. That… on the tables? Those are me. Perfect clones of me, they were born, their minds destroyed, and given to you. Had I been clone version four thousand and one instead of four thousand and two, it would have been me upon that table.”

His eyes widened, mouth opened, closed, then he looked away toward one of the clones as she was pulled from her crate. We both watched as two men claimed her, one at each end. I kept reminding myself that she was empty, that there was no one behind those eyes, no thoughts and no memories. It was a hard thing to internalize. She suckled upon the Human like an animal at nurse. Her cloaca clamped down on and milked the other like a whore in the street. She made happy sounds, pleasurable sounds, and drove herself against both humans with wild abandon. I could have been her. She could have been me. My vent twitched, labia swelled, and cloaca began to swallow, a weak and timid imitation of my clone’s violent lust.

I looked back at James, “Do you want to do that to her? Do you want to rape an empty shell? A destroyed person? Is this what you are seeking James, is this what kind of world you want? Where people are objects and life is wasted for nothing but profit?”

He looked back at me, a smile spread over his lips, “No, I don’t want an empty shell…” His tongue slipped out and wet his lips, “But those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Your Ship treats your people as objects, your ship wasted their lives, sold them as slaves. You yourself are are little more than an object, are you not? Wasted for nothing but your mission?”

That sick at heart sensation spread to my gut, even as my cloaca clenched and swallowed on nothing. Beyond James, all three Omos were being used, the first man had finished and I was granted a brief glimpse of her swollen passage. It drooled creamy white alien genetic material as it winked at me. Her trifold labia were so swollen and bruised that they looked more like overripe fruit ready to be plucked. Then another took the first’s place and sank himself into her. She howled around another man’s genitals and began to buck with wild abandon. It could have been me… She looked so happy.

Contact sensors were triggered. I looked back to see James’s large hand upon my shoulder. “No, I don’t want an empty shell, but I wouldn’t mind your company for the night,” he spoke in a low, smooth tone full of cultural meaning and innuendo I couldn’t fully grasp.

Where he couldn’t hear, I asked, “Ship, is this my purpose? Am I also sold to these humans?”

“No, you have not been sold. Your purpose is to observe them while repairs are completed.”

“And after they have finished, Ship?” I pressed.

“You will be decommissioned as mission protocols dictate.”

I grit my teeth and asked at length, “What does that mean, specifically?”

“Full destructive Neurological Scan will be completed, then your body will be recycled”

Death. Of course it meant death. Wasted for nothing but the mission. I signaled my helmet open. It folded back into my armor obediently. I reached up and took the human’s hand from my shoulder and brought it to my cheek, and inhaled. The stench in the chamber was abominable. Alien bodies, Omo pheromones, alien semen, and the noxious contents of the human “drinks”. It was enough to make me light headed.

“You wish to engage in sexual intercourse with an alien? One who isn’t an empty shell?” I asked, the suit translated a moment later. He seemed startled by that translation in comparison to my actual voice.

“Y-yes,” he agreed.

“Show Omo to this somewhere else, away from these abominable flesh puppets. She has seen enough.” I stepped back, but kept his hand. He returned the hold after a moment and lead me from the chamber into the open station again. More rooms we passed, more sounds of debauchery, more of my empty selves defiled. Two thousand of me destroyed, two thousand of my selves given for alien rape. I shuddered every time I heard a piped whimper or whine come to me in my own voice. I was torn between desire, terror, and a self destructive urge to join them. Would any human notice? I could just pretend to be an empty lusty shell for the rest of my life, service human after human without a word spoken. It would be easy to get lost in the hundreds of crates, dump a shell out an airlock and take her place. Ship though, she would know.

“If you wish to decommission yourself that way, it would not harm the mission. I could even supply you with Specimen 7786B31A-43B9.”

I jerked as if struck. James looked back at me as I stopped short. Ship’s suggestion was horrific, subject myself to that parasite? Destroy my own mind? Yet, she gave me permission to… What kind of rot was I thinking! I shook my head and continued, “It is nothing of consequence. Ship responded to my thoughts with a suggestion. I rejected it.”

“I… I see. You have no privacy, do you?”

“Omo understands the term, but the concept… The isolation would be horrifying.” I shuddered as the idea sank in, privacy, alone, no Ship, no other Omo to share with. If I decommissioned myself to serve as shell, I would have privacy, utter and complete privacy! I was on verge of panic. I was so alone, so very alone. Ship was there, yes, she was, but she was not enough! I’d lived amongst hundreds of others, touched thoughts, shared memories, shared inner most fears and dreams! Now there was no one, just empty shells in every room, empty Omos with no thoughts, no fears, no dreams!

Suddenly I found myself face first against the Human’s stomach. He held me with a hand upon my neck and another upon my crown. He stroked over my horns, careful and slow. I was fresh born and they were still sharp. He said nothing, just held me and I in turn clung to him, my arms about his waist. I was careful not to use power assistance, I could have torn him in half with a sneeze!

Eventually I pulled away and asked, “Are we somewhere else?”

That made him laugh, though I did not understand why. When he could, he told me, “No, not yet. Come it’s not far. My personal suite is just another fifty meters.” He lead, I followed. He mused aloud, “So, privacy is a nightmare to you. Your mind always open and available to those around you. How interesting. Some sort of Telepathy?”

I explained, “Not exactly, a method of organic radio, artificially engineered into our genome.”

“Can you feel the whores?”

“Omo does not know that word. Can she feel what?”

“The others, the empty girls. Your clones.”

I shivered at the thought, interested and repulsed at the same time. Could I? I’d not even tried to reach out to them. The wetware might be intact and functional! Would Ship have left it such? Was she recording their empty minded lust? Just a peek, just a little look, it wouldn’t hurt, right? I reached, it was something I was not practiced with, Ship normally handled the transaction but every Omo knew how to sync without her.

I reached, I strained, and suddenly My knees buckled as two thousand lust filled minds overwhelmed my thoughts and sent me straight into orgasm. It was impossible, that sensation, that intensity. Every single one of those orgasm flooded minds were linked, shared, a single sexual entity devoid of thought. I entered it, I joined it, I was trapped.

I felt hands on me, felt my armor open, felt myself fall into soft warmth. I felt soft warmth atop of me, then hard warmth. Distant and fragmented, I watched James as he climbed atop of me, watched him penetrate, felt him inside of me. Then he struggled to get away, struggled to pull free of my cloaca. I could not act, could not think, could not exist outside of the bliss-wracked symphony of sexual syncopation, all at odds and broken, but a gestalt of bliss that destroyed the self.

It lasted until a fist contacted with the side of my head. I felt bones break—but not my bones. I heard a scream, felt blood trickle from my split cheek, and the symphony of orgasm faded. I was me again, one singular Omo. My body ached head to toe, exhausted beyond reason. I felt as if I’d climbed a dozen mountains and rutted with beasts in the field.

Atop of me James sobbed. He clutched his mangled hand against his mangled groin, Blood ran freely from between his legs and it took some time to understand why. His penis, flaccid now, it’s skin was torn open and stripped away in places. Flaps hung in bloody tatters, unpleasant to look at. I didn’t really understand until I saw my own belly and cloaca—engorged and nearly ready to evert—soaked in blood.

Carefully, my body strained beyond belief, I rose to my knees and reached for him. He flinched away but I persisted. I hurt, but I did not hurt nearly as bad as he. I did not blame him, did not fault him, nor did I feel guilt. Gently as I could, I took his broken manhood in hand and began to reassemble the skin. It was a complex puzzle of torn inner tissues, tattered skin, and ruptured veins. My armor came at my call and from it’s medical resources I managed to patch him up. He would hurt for weeks, but I suspected he would yet breed again.

“That was dumb,” I told him, “What I did, and what you did.”

He knelt upon the bed, shaken and wide eyed. “Y-you just said I.”

I blinked and looked back at him, then into myself. I felt altered, strange. Where I should have been a member of something greater, I was not. “So I did. I doubt Ship will complain, and there is no other Omo around to feel insulted.” I shrugged and took his hands in mine, “Just so you understand, don’t attempt to breed with an alien without first knowing how that alien’s anatomy works!”

He blubbered out, “But the others! No one else was hurt!”

“The whores, as you put it, are in a perpetual state of arousal. Their cloacal muscles have been swallowing on themselves for days if not weeks! I doubt they could crumple a paper funnel, let alone hurt anyone. If they had any sentience left, they’d be screaming in agony, their internal muscles torn to shreds, body exhausted. In stead, they are trapped in a mindless synchronous thought link reflecting pleasure between one another. I… thanks.” I touched my bloody cheek for emphasis, “I might never have managed to come back.” I thought to myself though, that I might someday yearn to return.

6

“One thousand nine hundred ninety nine…” I muttered as I hauled the crate into the airlock and hooked it into the retention mesh.

“Two thousand!” another said, behind me as he did the same.

I turned and hooked my arm through the mesh to look back toward the dark body of Ship. Four years of hard work, four years of careful work, four years of maddening proximity to humanity. She was beautiful again, a kilometer long almond almond of black ceramic. I’d spent last night on board, felt the gentle hum of the gravitic engines in my bones, walked her halls one last time. There were now no Omos on board, not even mindless whores. All four thousand had been unloaded, though only thirty seven hundred or so remained alive. It was hard work, maintaining a mindless Omo, but worth it I supposed.

“You may still come to be decommissioned. It is not too late.”

I rejected that notion silently, slapped one of the crewman on the back, and turned away from Ship for the last time. Already the docking clamps had detached and she was beginning to accelerate. At one hundred kilometers, the engines kicked into full. I felt it, a ripple of gravity waves that shook my bowels and the station. She would fall away to the outer extent of the Belway system, then tear the fabric of reality apart and depart forever. Somewhere in deep space, the first Omo of a new generation would be born. She would lack all knowledge of this atrocity, she would never know of her lost sisters.

The airlock cycled, air hissed in around us. I unsuited in a matter of seconds and strode naked through the station. A dozen races turned to stare as I passed, traders come from all around to partake or to sell. I paid them little mind, foul rogues and wanderers, thieves of lives. I passed it all by and focused on what mattered, what was important.

The door opened at my touch, I felt the gentle caress of a thought, joyful but confused. Flora Jr. bounded from the couch and launched herself into my arms. The little Omo weighed almost nothing, but the strength in her arms as she half crushed my neck was incredible. “I told you I wouldn’t leave!” I admonished.

“Mamma!” She whined at me as she butted her head under my chin. “Where’s Poppa?”

“Busy, another big cruise liner docked while we were unloading. I’m sure he won’t be back until late.” I tossed myself into the couch where she’d been sitting and glanced up at the display. Some sort of colorful display of nonsensical characters pranced and frolicked. Children’s programming supposedly. Flora had been born, an empty shell of an Omo. She’d quickly filled though, learned and grew without a personality matrix shoved between her ears. In a way I envied her, her joyful childhood that was all her own, no mission parameters, no duties ingrained in her psyche. I would never have a childhood, I was born and made, whole cloth from the tattered remains of dead Omos. “So, baby bean, what have you been watching? This looks dreadful.”

She giggled up at me from my lap and changed the feed with a gesture. News. It was mostly about the departure, but there was some speculation about the cruise liner. No passengers had yet been granted permission to disembark but it was only a matter of time. After all, Belway Orbital Retreat needed customers. With careful self control, I tapped into the neuronet of my clones. It was an intense rush, resisted the compulsion to fall in completely. Only two hundred seventy were currently in active use, another sixty three undergoing decontamination procedures. A far cry from the thirty seven hundred available now.

My vent clenched and swelled, moisture began to well. I backed out of the neuronet and forced myself to calm. Flora never noticed. I wondered how old she would be when she found her own way into the maelstrom of whores. I wondered if she would be able to escape when she did. Gently I stroked my fingers across her brow, one by one I counted her ridge horns until she giggled and swatted at my hand. What would I do then, if she couldn’t… obviously she would be tossed into the whore pens, but… could I really do that to my own child? I closed my eyes and turned my thoughts from that darkness. There was no Mission now. I did not need to do the practical thing!

Epilogue

She moaned in lusty delight as the alien visitor used her. His tail—like a tree trunk with a tip wrinkled, soggy, and disgorging lumpy effulent with texture akin to chunky tapioca—stretched her gaping cloaca to it’s limit. Her moan became a heave and whimper as his gut distending deluge reached her maximum capacity. There was some pain as her gastroesophageal sphincter was forced open. There followed a great loss of control as well.

The wall above her head was suddenly painted pink. She heaved again, and the splatter of reproductive material soaked the bed. She heaved a third time, and her stomach emptied itself completely—only for him to refill her again. The taste that filled her throat and mouth was such a filthy organic melange, interesting to say the least, and utterly disgusting. She loved it.

Four times he filled her bowels to overflowing, four times she vomited for him. He had requested it, wanted explicitly to watch a someone fill until she lost control. She was the only whore who could do his desire justice. He was satisfied, she could tell even with the lack of language and shared societal comprehension. He had requested her humiliation, she had surrendered to his every desire.

With a flatulent grunt, he pulled free and sat back upon the mat. She rolled her hips before him. Her passage gaped lewdly, clots of pink clung to her labia. She clenched, milky yellow sprayed from between her labia into the air and landed upon her breasts. A moment later the remaining content of her bowels evacuated with a chorous of disgusting bubbles and sputters. The fountain fell upon her breasts as well into the mix of her own lust. She massaged his mess in, spread it in a thin coat across her now flat stomach, and stared up into his face. Another jet of clotted pink splattered across her face, he shuddered. Yes, he was satisfied.

Alone at last, she squirmed in the disgusting mess and masturbated herself to delicious orgasm. They knew to leave her be at times like this, though it was all recorded and monitored. They did not intrude until her vent had flattened and cloaca had closed. When she was done, when she herself was satisfied and covered head to toe in putrid alien mess, they addressed her.

“Flora, get cleaned up, a ship has just arrived and the captain wishes to speak with you.”

“Does he have an appointment?” She asked as she licked a rubbery tangle from between her fingers.

“She—does not,” he answered.

She shrugged and crawled on her hands and knees out of the smeared half of the room. “Okay, whatever.” The door opened, she crawled free into the decontamination chamber and settled into the sling for a well deserved cleansing. “Wonder who it is… I don’t know any female ship captains.” She tapped her chin as the room flooded and the jets came on.

End

04/23/2019

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