In Search of Royal Jelly
By Rix Writes
Commission for Femukki

“Listen, sweetheart, I don’t really care if you’re the damned queen of all creation, let alone some fuckin’ sixth princess of Yahael IV’s royal line. Your shipmates?  They got caught with contraband. You’re lucky you didn’t have any yourself. Unless you got the fifty thousand credits for their fine, they’ll be out in two months.  Besides, if you really are a princess, you can get the money. Next!” The bored looking functionary, a raccoon somewhere just past middle age, waved to the security guard that stood near the exit door and pointed at Aleria. “You’ve got about five seconds to make way for the next sob story or you’re going to end up with a trespassing charge.”

Aleria considered for a moment making a bigger scene, but the hulking bear that was making his way over looked angry already, and he had pulled out a metal baton. The pangolin threw up her hands and stepped away from the desk. “Fifty thousand,” she muttered, “For a rutting crate of tequila. Who in their right mind bans tequila?”

She pushed open the door that led outside the squat building that served as the bureaucratic arm of the border colony’s security force. The hot sun beat down on her immediately, almost punishing in its intensity. Sighing, she looked up and down the dusty dirt road. Like most border colonies, the place was a mixture of ancient technology and modern convenience. This one had a distinct old-Earth western flair.

Fifty thousand credits. Her personal account was nearly empty now, and the last time she had tried to get a little more, she’d endured a twenty minute lecture on behaving like a good little princess from her mother.  Then one from her father.  Her older sister had wanted to pile on, but she’d turned it off before Alenia could put in her two credits worth. The message was clear.  As long as she wanted to be out amongst the stars acting like a commoner, she’d get nothing from them. So how in the hell was she going to get enough money to spring her shipmates from the local lockup?

She remembered the day that she’d all but begged Mukki and Neiva to get her off of Yahael IV.  To let her join the crew of their ship. She had extensive medical and scientific knowledge from some of the best education available on her planet, and could use her name to at least get past a few hurdles on the way. Still, as much as that knowledge and identity had helped, she still had tried as hard as she could to prove she was more than some petulant princess running away from home.  Even if she was running away from home.

Checking her wrist terminal, she took a look at her balance and sighed.  She’d have enough to wait her shipmates out, but it would leave them with almost nothing to travel on. That crate of tequila had been destined for a merchant’s house in one of the satellite communities away from the spaceport, and that was where she was stuck right now. The merchant had, predictably, refused to help and had tried to insist she owed him personally for the money he’d paid for the drink.

“What in the blazes am I going to do?” She asked herself as she pulled up a directory of the local businesses. One look at the prices at a real hotel was enough to make her stomach churn. She’d be able to stay there maybe a single day at those rates. One after the other, she scrolled through the options until she came to rest on a dive bar that had a few rooms to let on the upper floor. The rating on the place had it listed as ‘survivable’, with reviews of ‘at least there’s no bugs’ and ‘the best I can say is the rooms are clean’. “Well,” she said with a sigh, “at least it’s not far away.”

Five minutes later when Aleria stepped through the doors of The Last Chance, she inwardly squealed with delight. It was definitely the sort of place that her mother would have been horrified to have any of her children go into. Aleria’s cousins could get away with it, but someone who was technically part of the royal line of succession? It was positively scandalous for a Blackscale of the royal line to be seen in this place. With the distinct black, red-tipped scales that covered her from shoulders all the way down to the tip of her tail, Aleria knew that at some point a report about her presence here would reach her mother. With her dark red hair and deep blue eyes, an oddity for the royal line that had often led to rumours related to her parentage, there would be no mistaking just which of her mother’s children had been there.

When she stepped up to the bar, the ferret behind it looked up. For a few moments all he could do is stare at her dumbly, then his eyes narrowed. “Well, sweetie, where’s yer entourage? Surprisin’ to see one of you Blackscales here. You slummin’ it or summat?  And on somethin’ so backwater as this? I’mma go to the casino and bet m’life savings on keno.”

Feeling her temper flaring, Aleria actually snarled at the ferret, “Cut the crap, sehlet! I want a room. Cheapest you got. And a meal. And some of your swill to wash it down.”  Sehlet was the worst insult she could think of, the name of a traitor to the crown who had done it out of greed. It also implied they laid with animals.  

The ferret, rather than looking upset, just grinned. All his snideness disappeared to be replaced by an almost gregarious demeanor. “Darlin, I ain’t part of the kingdom, and I dun give a shit who knows I fuck my livestock! Yer that one that’s a-runnin’ all round the galaxy, pissin th’queen off. Sure… lemme get somethin’ from the kitchen. On th’house today. I’ll get you set up with a room.”

The pangolin blinked at the bartender, her mouth hanging open for a full thirty seconds before she burst out into laughter. “Has everyone in the colonies heard of me at this point? God, once those two are out of lockup, I think I’ll beg them to go to the border worlds for a bit. Alright. I have enough money, just about, to pay for my room and get some meals sent up to me. It’s going to be a boring month. Just give me a heads up if anyone starts poking around about me?”

The ferret nodded and then reached out to pat Aleria’s cheek. “Yer a cute one. Gotta respect someone who’s really tryin’ to escape that shit. Don’t worry. I just know a lot, it’s m’job. Most nobody here’s gonna recognize you as nothin’ more than another traveler down on her luck and stuck in a dive like this. I know how it is, if ya can believe it. Everyone wants their kiddos to take on th’family business. Keep th’whole thing runnin’. My parents were researchers. Stuff’s boring. So I’m here. Sorry for takin’ the piss with ya, miss. You’re a customer. That’s all.”  

The ferret bowed a little and made his way through a door behind the bar. As he did, Aleria caught glimpses of two kitchen staff hard at work. She shook her head and let out a sigh. It really did feel like everyone knew her story. Not for the first time, she wondered about getting her scales dyed so people would just see her as any other pangolin, but like every time she considered it, the idea was quickly dismissed. Just because she didn’t want to get in on ‘the family business’ didn’t mean she shouldn’t have pride in who she was.

While she waited for her dinner, she took a look through the dim tavern. Like everything in the small colony, it wore its humble origins openly. Colonies like it were all over, barely above twentieth century technology for the most part other than the computer networks and spaceports, with building resources drawn from whatever people could scrounge up. It was hard living, but honest and decent. Aleria felt more at home here than she ever had in her parents huge estate. 

As she relaxed and let the conversations all around flow over her, she contemplated a whole month of hiding out at the Last Chance.  Would it be better to go out and explore, figuring her family would track her eventually?  Getting out of her family’s owned systems had been a good step, at least, but the Blackscales were famous in pretty much the entire settled galaxy.

“I feel so damned helpless,” she muttered to herself. Given the ferret’s demeanor, she wondered if he’d let her help around the place in return for some lower rates.  It would pass the time, and it would just frustrate her mother, and her sisters, to no end to hear that their wayward scion was working in some bar on a backwater colony.  Suddenly, a word she recognized caught her attention.  Four ranchers were sitting around a table talking to each other, but one of them had said something she’d not expected.  Her heart began to beat rapidly; if what she’d heard was right, she might have a way to get her friends out tomorrow.  She hopped off the bar stool and made her way over.  “Hey.  Did one of you mention the tavor?  Those uh, weird wasp-things?  Nasty and dangerous if you get up in their territory?” 

All conversation at the table stopped, and the one who had been speaking peered at her with narrowed eyes. “Now don’t you get no ideas, sweetie. You don’t want to tangle with ‘em, even if I hear the swarm was seen without any of them guardians. Last thing you wanna do is piss ‘em off.”

“No, I just… hey, they make for good stories. I’ve heard of them. Bout their royal jelly, right? Get some of that stuff and you can buy yourself a moon! But no, I’m not a fighter. Just kinda curious, how’d they get here?” Aleria could barely contain her excitement. Tavor without guardians?  She probably knew more about them than anyone on this entire planet. For once, her bloodline was a benefit instead of a curse.  “Come on, keep talking.  I’ll buy you guys a drink.”

“Well, then, sweetie… normally, I’d be sayin’ take a seat in m’lap, but…” he gestured at Aleria and smiled.  For a second she thought the old rancher was going to mention her family, but he continued.  “Dun think it would be too comfy for either o’ us. Yer scales, right? Is a shame, really. Yer a pretty girl ‘n any good man would be honored t’have you close.  Anyway, pull up a chair.”

Early the next morning, Aleria stood by the entrance to an old mine a good day’s hike from the colony town. The men had all been incredibly informative, and chatty, and to the pangolin’s delight, incredibly flirty. Not a one of them had recognized her for who she was.  It was for that reason that she’d spent almost the whole night in their company. For the first time since she could remember, she had a chance to spend a night in the company of strangers without anyone making a comment about her parentage. The one time one of them had called attention to her scales, it had been to compliment on them and how beautiful the black and red-bordered scales were.

In truth, the night had been one of the nicest she’d ever had. An honest-to-goodness barfight had broken out, and she’d startled all four of her new friends with her ability to defend herself. And to help care for the many little injuries afterward.

She had all the information she needed now, and a solid plan. Tavor wasps. Not actually wasps, they were a highly-adaptible species of nesting insects that were among the most dangerous creatures to come across in the wild. Because of their ability to camouflage and above-average intelligence, they had learned to hide in shipments, their instinct to propagate strong enough that they had spread to dozens of star systems in the hundreds of years since their discovery. A discovery made by Aleria’s ancestor, the woman who would become the founder of the only functioning monarchy in the settled galaxy.

What nobody knew is what bankrolled the birth of that kingdom, and which continued to keep it thriving. Royal jelly; tavor excretions meant to feed larvae in the nursery of their massive cave-nests. Everyone knew there were tavor in the royal palace back home, but it was always assumed that they were somehow domesticated ‘guardian’ tavor. It was a closely guarded secret that only direct family members knew, that there was a carefully-maintained nest in the heart of the palace. Only the women of the Blackscale line ever went to harvest the jelly.

Tavor royal jelly was one of the most valuable substances ever found. It had medical applications that could treat life-threatening diseases, with only a single cubic centimetre, when processed and mingled with other medications, was capable of combating and even eradicating previously incurable parasitic infections. It was a powerful narcotic in its own right as well. In fact, it was finding applications in dozens of industries, including biotech and weapons research.

Aleria undid the straps on her body armor and shrugged off the cloak that she’d been wearing and let it all fall to the ground. Most people only knew that tavor were fiercely territorial, with a ‘guardian’ caste of sterile females that made attempting to get into a nest near impossible. A single guardian could take out an entire squadron of highly trained mercenaries or soldiers. This nest though, in a rarity for their kind, had somehow ended up propagating without any guardians in the swarm. Every report said that there had been only one large tavor, among a huge flight of males. That would be the queen… dangerous in her own right, but avoidable if she was careful.

For some reason, when the women of her family went to harvest, they went unclothed, with as little technology as possible. And so it was, with only a single flashlight and a pouch with a number of empty vials in it, Aleria stepped into the gloom of the old mine.

The deeper into the mine that Aleria got, the more worried she became that she’d been sent on some sort of fool’s errand, but just as that feeling grew close to a certainty, her flashlight fell upon a ghastly sight. Six pairs of spindly legs covered in deep purple-black chitin that looked like the rocks around it, with the forelimbs about three times the length of the others. A carapace of segmented dusky chitin down its back with a pale red underbelly. Its face was hard to see, but she knew it would have a number of sharp teeth around a circular mouth. They fed on fungus and rare minerals, and their mouths were made to break up rocks as easily as anything. This one had a long, thin tail that curled upwards, and two sets of powerful-looking wings. Aleria felt a flash of fear at the sight, but when she realized it was only a male, she let out a sight of relief. The guardians, with their double sets of forelimbs with razor-sharp scythe-claws and nasty stingers, were definitely absent. She knew enough not to tangle with the guardians, but this one? The male, on becoming aware of her, scuttled away and then took flight.

Just a little further, the pangolin thought to herself. I’ll know the nursery when I see it.  As she headed down each corridor and passage she found, she marked her progress. An arrow pointing how to get out, an X to show a dead end. It felt like she had been in the mine for hours, catching glimpses of the males, who quickly scuttled away, more and more often. Somewhere nearby would be the nursery, where tavor larvae were kept safe, and the males produced the glowing amber fluid that was tavor jelly.

When, finally, after Aleria was worried she’d have to leave and come back after resting and eating, she stumbled into an expansive chamber that the tavor had obviously dug out of the walls of the cave. She knew this had to be it!  The nursery!  She had to be careful even more so now. She’d heard of the queens, who could defend themselves quite well, but generally did not move very much. If this was the nursery, the queen’s chamber would be nearby.

Looking around, though, Aleria’s heart sank. It was all wrong! She’d expected eggs all over, and the soft amber glow of fresh jelly in the alcoves where the eggs would be waiting to hatch. But while there were alcoves all over, ready to hold the eggs, the room was as dry as an old tomb. What the hell was wrong here? Why weren’t there eggs?  Why was there no jelly?  “Son of a bitch!” Aleria grumbled. It had been such a good idea. Tavor never seemed to be threatened by the pangolins of her family, or their servants. She could have come in, taken jelly and then left.  Dejectedly, she tossed the belt that held the vials to the floor and turned to leave.

Something huge and multilegged was blocking her way.

Aleria froze, fear flooding her whole body as she stared at the creature that had somehow managed to sneak up behind her without making a sound. Easily three times the size of the males, it was a monstrous sight to behold. For a few moments, she thought in a panic that there had been a guardian present after all, but this particular tavor had no wings, nor did its first two sets of legs end in the scythelike blades that could cut through most kinds of body armor like butter. Like the rest of them, this one had a fleshy reddish-brown underbelly and the slate-gray carapace on its back. Though not built like weapons, its legs looked dangerous enough, thicker and heavier than the males’ had been, each tipped with a wicked-looking pointed claw. With a growing sense of dread, she looked toward its hind end past its six sets of legs. What she saw there confirmed her growing suspicion of what kind of tavor this creature was. The lower end was bulbous and pulsed slightly, the reddish flesh of its underbelly stretched almost taut, the tip of its abdomen ending in a long, muscular appendage tipped by a wicked looking stinger made of the same substance as its carapace, and though it wasn’t dripping with venom like a guardian’s.

The queen, Aleria thought, eyes wide. Very few people had ever seen one of the queens and lived to tell the tale. They were reportedly not overtly aggressive, but they would defend their nest from intruders who had delved into the deepest chambers, especially if it was the nursery. As she watched, it reared up on its lower legs and brandished its forelimbs. She gulped when she realized that they were much larger than any of its other legs. This looked like the nursery, though it was bare of any sort of eggs, so Aleria had no idea what the queen was going to do.  Her muscles tensed as she looked up at the queen’s smallish head, trying to get a sense of what she was going to do. If she was lucky, the pangolin might be able to run deeper, to find some way out of the warren of corridors and tunnels. Just as she prepared to burst into motion, the queen’s almost abnormally long antennae began to glow with an intense, pulsing blue light.

The moment that Aleria focused on the twin sources of that light, she let out a gasp. There was something captivatingly beautiful about them, about the glow that they emitted. As they pulsed a little faster, she felt her muscles begin to relax, and though her heart was still hammering with the fear that she felt, she let her arms hang at her sides, her flashlight dropping from nerveless fingers. She couldn’t stop staring at the antennae even though she knew she should be moving. When they suddenly moved independently of the rest of the queen, she followed their light.  Left, then right, then up and down, she remained focused on them. Aleria realized then that her mouth was hanging slack, and she was taking deep breaths of a sudden sweet scent in the air.

Seemingly satisfied, the queen began to advance on its rear three pairs of legs, careful to keep her antennae within the pangolin’s line of sight. As she advanced, Aleria felt her heart begin to hammer in terror inside her chest, but she couldn’t stop staring at those antennae. The pulsing light grew more intense as the queen closed the distance.  No matter how she moved on those skittering legs, though, the queen somehow kept her antennae in the same position.

Aleria knew what was happening; the guardians would fight with their scythe-arms and venom-tipped stingers, the males could fly away and their strength remained in numbers.  The queen was simply leveraging her own sort of defense against this intruder that had invaded her nest. “I’m sorry Mukki…” she whispered hoarsely. She wouldn’t be getting the mouse or the bat out of lockup any time soon, and they may never know what happened here.

Within seconds, the queen stood only half a metre away, reared up in all her horrific splendor. Despite the fear that continued to make Aleria want to bolt and run, she still couldn’t stop staring at the captivating blue light emitted by the queen’s antennae. She was about to be torn to pieces by this monstrous insect, and she knew that she would be entirely unable to lift even a finger in her own defense.

Suddenly, the quality of the light emitted by the queen’s antennae changed and the speed of the pulsing increased. Aleria let out a low groan as the queen inspected her. A sort of calm settled onto the helpless pangolin, and she knew immediately that the light was responsible for it. She was still terrified, anyone would be at the realization that they were about to die, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to care anymore. There was nothing she could do to stop her imminent demise, and there would be no purpose to feeling any despair. Maybe the light would keep her from feeling the stinger and claws slicing through her flesh.

The utterly alien visage of the queen drew closer, and Aleria wondered how many others had fallen prey to this last line of defense that a nest would have. Midnight black eyes stared back at her, multifaceted and completely unreadable, and a double set of strong mandibles clicked unsettlingly.  The sweet scent that had first teased at Aleria’s nostrils was almost cloying now, overwhelming her sense of taste and smell in the same way that blue light was overwhelming her volition and instincts. As the scent grew stronger, the pangolin began to feel a little less scared. 

Suddenly, the light flickered away as the queen moved with preternatural speed.  She skittered around the pangolin and came up behind her. Even though the moment the light was out of her immediate sight, Aleria felt herself able to act, whatever was in that thick and heavy scent in the air had her reacting too slowly.  She felt a pinching on the back of her neck, but before she could even scream, the queen’s antennae hovered before her, now over her head, mere inches away from her eyes.

The queen’s mandibles gripped Aleria’s neck tightly but delicately, the serrated inner surface digging into the soft skin there, and in that moment she wondered if that would be the last thing she ever felt. As she prepared to meet whatever came after a life such as hers, she was surprised when the queen rested her first set of legs on her shoulders and pulled her roughly backward. Two more legs grabbed Aleria then then, and she was pressed back against the queen’s fleshy underbelly.  Soon, another pair did the same.  All the while, the captivating light emitted by the antennae held the pangolin helpless.  Before she knew it, the surprisingly dexterous legs were touching her all over, seeming to explore her.  Their touch was rough and heedless, and to the pangolin’s dismay, they shredded the light vest and shorts she was wearing into tatters. Dismayed, her only thought was that not only was she going to die, she would face her maker dressed only in tatters of cloth and leather. What a way for a princess, however much a black sheep of one, to face her end.

The first realization that there could be something more to this than just defending a nest came when the queen hooked two more legs between her legs and began to pry them open. For a moment Aleria was confused, but then she saw it just behind the beautiful blue lights; the queen had risen on her last three pairs of legs so that she was higher off the ground, and her abdomen had curled up and under between them, the stinger extended on one long and flexible tube of muscle, waving around just behind that light.

It was only in that moment, held in the grip of a monstrous insectoid queen, legs forced wide to bare her smooth, pinkish-peach mound that the pangolin realized that her fear had seemingly bled away while she wasn’t paying attention. There was a strange fascination now, a curiosity that was somehow more unsettling than the pure terror she’d initially felt. What was the queen doing?  What did she want?  This wasn’t simple defense, this was something else.  Something possibly worse.

The light seemed to dim, but only a little, and in that glow, and in the beam of light cast by her dropped flashlight, Aleria watched as the stinger’s tip separated, and an inch-thick tube pushed outward from it.  Immediately the scent in the air became overpowering rather than cloying, and a sense of dull pleasure fell over her. Held fast against the queen, the grip of the huge legs like iron bands, Aleria found herself able to move of her own volition as the pulsing of the antennae slowly faded away.  She struggled almost immediately, fighting the unnatural pleasure that was suffusing her, but the queen immediately tightened the grip of those mandibles on the pangolin’s neck, an unsubtle reminder that she was at the monstrous insect’s mercy.

The stinger and that strange tube lowered, and Alleria’s creeping suspicion that she knew what was to come grew to a certainty. She knew the reason there were no eggs, royal jelly or pupating larvae in this space that had obviously been prepared for them. The nursery needed one more thing: a place to incubate the eggs!  Horror and disgust washed through the pangolin, though the gentle bliss that grew more insistent on her mind kept insidiously pushing at other emotions. A little voice kept telling her to simply relax and enjoy what was coming. 

Even deeper, though, there was a thrill of triumph; this monster obviously didn’t know the Blackscale’s bred-in defense. Only in the throes of heat could they be bred. Impossibly powerful inner muscles kept anything from penetrating farther than half an inch unless one was fully aroused and excited. Forcing the muscles was possible, yes, but the tearing would cause internal bleeding that could be fatal, and she doubted that tube had that much power behind it. Still, Aleria wondered what would happen when the queen found herself foiled by her first incubator’s own biological defenses.

The pangolin wouldn’t have to wait long to find out, as the tube and stinger lowered down towards her mound.  The flexible organ that had emerged from the stinger smeared itself all over Aleria’s bare flesh, drawing out a low and delighted moan from the pangolin.  Despite the situation, the feeling of that muscular organ gliding wetly over her bare flesh felt good in a way she couldn’t describe.  When it glided between her labia to the lip of her vagina it pressed in and quickly found its way blocked entirely.  She felt a pressure, insistent and powerful, pressing at her passage, but her body held out. The queen suddenly stopped moving entirely, going utterly still, as if she had no idea what to do.

Aleria held her own breath, the fear of what might happen to her muted by the soft bliss that grew more insistent by the second. Would the queen tear her apart?  Keep trying until she ruined muscle and fatally injured her?  It was a strange feeling to the pangolin. There was a very real chance she was going to die in this very spot, victim to a sexually frustrated queen, but she wasn’t terrified anymore. Her lips curled into a little smile and she murmured, “got you now, bitch. I’m no fucking incubator. I’m a princess.”

Then, something happened, something that Aleria had not expected. Something that made her stomach churn and a fresh knot of fear come bubbling to the surface, cutting through the bliss. The source of the cloying sweet scent, that oily amber-hued substance that coated the tube that kept trying to push into her, was having a new effect on her. Warmth was growing in her loins, gentle at first, but quickly rising. As the flexible organ prodded and probed, she felt her breath coming more rapidly. It had been so fucking long since she’d felt any sort of sexual pleasure or excitement that she was completely unprepared for the sheer intensity of it. And, to Aleria’s horror, it felt good to have that muscular organ sliding between her labia, teasing her clit, and occasionally insistently probing at her passage.

In the light of the flashlight that illuminated her and the queen, Aleria saw the change being wrought by the amber-coloured fluid. Her labia were swollen and puffy, flushed a deeper pink, and incredibly sensitive.  Every time the appendage pressed against the now quite thick nub of her clit, she let out a helplessly ecstatic cry.  It was no surprise when she felt a tightness inside her, one she was so accustomed to that she was typically unaware of it, suddenly relax.  When next that appendage pressed between her labia, it met no resistance.

A ragged, horrified cry pealed out from within the pangolin, and she jerked and writhed as the monstrous organ made its way into her. As more and more of the slick stuff that coated it was absorbed into her skin, she could feel the insidious bliss beginning to overtake everything. She didn’t want to enjoy this, she didn’t want to want what was happening, but the squirming and shoving motions of the queen’s organ was making waves of pleasure rock her body.

With the queen completely silent, the only sounds in the deep nursery chamber were the slick and wet sounds of that organ fucking into Aleria and her low groans and sharp cries of unwilling pleasure.  The queen was literally fucking her with the tube, pressing in deep then pulling it out.  Once or twice, she even pulled it out completely and a spurt of that slick lubricating fluid would splash all over her belly and thighs.  The pangolin soon began to tire of her her struggles, limited by the grip of mandibles holding her neck that Aleria knew were likely powerful enough to tear through even the thick scales on her neck.

The queen suddenly shifted a little and her whole body tensed.  When next she drove that tube into her incubator, she didn’t stop. Aleria felt pressure inside her, and then a sudden sharp pain that drew a low scream from her as the organ forced its way right into her womb. Some dimly conscious part of her mind understood why the queen hadn’t done this immediately; whatever chemical or hormone was in that oily lubricant had to relax that last barrier within her. It wouldn’t do to injure this living incubator that had just waltzed right into her clutches.

Almost immediately, Aleria was made to watch as the tip of the stinger opened more and a small bulge began to descend the length of the tube. “No… no no no…” she babbled. Did her family know what happened with the tavor? Were there dozens like her down in the nest that her family maintained? As the first bulge began to spread her that much wider, she saw a second begin to emerge. 

Try as she might, the pangolin couldn’t hold onto her fear.  She couldn’t fight the pleasure and the bliss that was pressing onto her consciousness, no matter how much she told herself it was being forced on her by this monster. It felt good to have the queen’s organ buried in her, and as the bulge rippled down her passage, she sobbed out one last denial of what was happening. Then, surrendering to it all, she had the most powerful climax she’d ever had in her life. Her whole body shook and bucked and a scream of pure and primal pleasure filled the chamber.  She barely felt the sharp sting of her cervix stretching that little bit more as the egg passed into her womb.

When the next egg began to spread her inner walls, followed almost immediately by another and another, Aleria watched with dull eyes hazed with need. They had to know, her family had to know, and the last remnant of her rational mind not confused by the induced heat and pleasure hated them that much more for this. How else could they have tavor guardians defending their estate?

Every time an egg passed into Aleria, she felt a smaller aftershock of climax rock her body. Exhausted, helpless, she watched as her belly began to swell. Something in the lubricant had to be making it possible for her womb to stretch like that so quickly. With the fear gone and bliss replacing it, she watched with a strange fascination as her belly grew.  She could feel the queen’s organ deliberately packing the walls of her womb with the eggs, then packing more on top of the first layer.

It was a strange feeling indeed, to see something so unsettling, so very wrong, but to not be afraid anymore.  Indeed, the pangolin realized she was smiling at the sight. It really wasn’t so bad, was it? What would happen when they hatched, when they changed? That particular thought cut through the unnatural pleasure that clouded her mind. She was in the claws of an alien insect and there was a very real chance these eggs spelled her doom.

As the pangolin’s belly grew round and even a little lumpy from the mass, she found herself with only enough energy to jerk and twitch a little with the little swell of pain that accompanied each. She was beginning to feel the ache of her body being forced to accommodate the mass of small orbs, and little whimpers had begun replacing the ecstatic moans. Finally, after what had seemed like forever, the queen tugged the ovipostor out, a couple smallish orbs spilling out from the tip while Aleria watched with wide eyes. Her breath came out in rapid little gasps, and she let out a groan. Maybe when she was let go she could crawl out of here, she could escape. There were no guardians yet, and the males had consistently skittered away.

The queen made the very first sound she had for the entire ordeal.  A low, chittering croon that resounded throughout the still-empty nursery. Not empty for long… Aleria thought darkly as she looked at the swollen belly that held a mass of eggs. The queen’s crooning grew louder and louder, reaching a deafening crescendo of sound before it abruptly cut off. Her job done, she retracted the strange organ into her stinger and, with surprising delicacy that Aleria could scarcely believe from those wicked looking legs, set the pangolin on the floor, laying her on her side. After one last low chitter, the mandibles brushing up against her incubator’s belly, the queen scrabbled away deeper into the nest, presumably to her own chamber.

Aleria rolled onto her hands and knees, her entire abdomen throbbing with the gravid mass of eggs that had been laid therein. She couldn’t believe that the queen had simply left when she was done. She’d been half-expecting to be immobilized or held captive in some way. She was still incredibly aroused, her rump oozing the dark amber fluid that had lubricated the queen’s organ. But at least she could move.  And if she could move, she could crawl. She retrieved the flashlight that she’d dropped when the queen had first caught her, then began trying to make her escape.

Every single motion that the pangolin made, however, made the mass within her shift unsettlingly. The arousal and bliss was beginning to fade slowly, though it was most definitely not gone completely as she slowly made her way on hands and knees toward the door. Her belly was swollen enough now that she couldn’t even try to roll herself up for protection.

After about ten minutes, when she was approaching the bend in the tunnel that led out of the empty nursery, she heard the buzzing of wings. A whole lot of wings, more than she’d ever heard before. In the dim light offered by her flashlight, she watched as a veritable flood of the males piled in around the corner.  Some were in flight, others were skittering along the floor. And unlike when she’d crept into the old mine-turned-nest, these ones weren’t trying to get away from her. Indeed, they seemed to be focused directly on her!

There were almost too many of them to count, but from the sheer number of them coming into the room, the pangolin wondered if every last one of the males in the entire nest was coming into the room. She realized, then, what the queen’s crooning sound had been for; it was to summon the males! Aleria tried to curl onto her side, tried to cower, closing her eyes instinctively, but as the writhing mass of male tavor reached her, they paused.  The skittering sound of legs and wings buzzing flowed around her, and the mass of them went still.  She opened her eyes to see the tunnel floor all around her carpeted with the male tavor, their pale blue undersides hidden under amber chitin.

The first male skittered closer to her, and it let out a strange, surprisingly gentle sort of trilling sound, as if it was trying to soothe her.  The sound was repeated throughout the nursery, and a few more males approached. Aleria whimpered, feeling the pleasure bleeding away even more, the throbbing ache of her gravid abdomen growing more and more keenly felt.  There was no way she’d be able to move much more at this point, especially with the mass of males in the way.  Whatever was happening now, it had to be a part of what the queen had started. 

The first male that had approached skittered right up to Aleria’s face. Its eyes, like the queen’s were unreadable, and as it inspected her, the pangolin felt the fear rising again. Nobody knew she was here. Nobody at all. Mukki and Neiva were going to be stuck in the lockup for two more months. It would be even longer before they found their way here. If she was even going to survive this, what sort of state would she be in?

Suddenly, the throng of males advanced with startling speed, and the pangolin tried as hard as she could to curl forward, but to no avail. Dozens of hard-tipped claws could be felt on the soft places she couldn’t defend, and the sharper sound of those claws on the black scales on her back resounded in the chamber.

A new scent came to Aleria’s senses, and when she noticed it, her eyes went wide.  It was like the queen’s amber lubrication, but softer, sweeter.  And with the awareness of the scent, her arousal returned.  Not slowly as it had been fading, but in full force, slamming into her like the fire of a shot of the tequila that had gotten her into the trouble she was currently in. “Oh… oh my… fuck… god…”

Dozens of legs grabbed at her arms, her legs. As one, seemingly guided by instinct, the males used their weight and the grip of their spindly legs to roll her on her back.  She made a futile effort to push them off, but there were far too many of them, and soon the heavy mass had her arms pinned.  Even her long tail was held down to the floor, her legs splayed out. One of the males climbed up onto her and let out that trilling sound.  It turned away from her, and it waved its long tail around in front of her face.  The queen had a stinger and that egg-laying organ. Guardians would have a wicked serrated stinger dripping with venom.  This one though, it was long, and uncurled from the male’s underside. It was barely as wide as her index finger, but it was long and flexible and was dripping a similar amber substance.

A few drops of that strange fluid dripped onto Aleria’s lips, and instinct mingled with curiosity and the overwhelming sexual arousal that flooded her system had her licking it off before she could think better of it.  The taste was sweet and heavy, without a hint of the bitterness she imagined the queen’s oily lubrication would have.  An instant later, as her tongue absorbed the fluid and it flowed into her bloodstream, the pangolin felt her inner walls clench and ripple. “ohhh,” she moaned, and she lifted her head to lick the tip of the male’s tail.  She wanted more to taste, more to feel overwhelming her thoughts. It would feel so much better to not be afraid. To just let this all happen anyway, since there was no way to stop it anyway.

Immediately, the male obliged, pressing the flexible appendage between her lips. Her mouth filled with the sweet taste. Her vision blurred out of focus and she began to suckle on the tail, which made slow, rhythmic thrusts, the smooth blue flesh gliding between her lips.  It tasted so good, that stuff drooling from the tip of the male’s tail. She suddenly felt a few more pairs of legs resting on her other breast, the soft underbelly rubbing up against her nipple, causing it to stiffen. Seconds later, a second tail was pressing at her lips, joining the first.

A number of the males had begun to settle on Aleria’s belly and thighs, their bodies heavy, claws digging into her unprotected flesh. When one of the smooth tails pushed between her puffy labia and into her passage, the pangolin knew what they were doing. She understood what was happening, and, she realized with a thrill of excitement, she didn’t care. She just wanted more of that sweetness on her tongue, the sweetness that overwhelmed everything else. A third tail pressed in between her lips and she suckled greedily, running her tongue between the lengths in her mouth as they rhythmically thrust between her lips.

Two, then three, then four of the males’ tails pressed into her vagina. One alone was fine, but each one made the stretch that much more intense, and within moments she had a fifth trying to shove its way into her, the ache of the stretching returning.  This time, though, she didn’t care.  All she could think of now was to taste more of the sweetness that was smearing her lips, her face, staining her cheeks with streaks of amber.

Foiled by the sheer mass of the tails already pressing into Aleria’s passage, one of the males found the tight ring of muscle a bit farther back. She felt a dull aching sort of sting at the intimate invasion, but it quickly faded, the slick amber substance seeping into her skin and making it pulse with pleasure. Seconds later, two more of the males, these ones holding her lower legs pinned, joined in with the first one that had pressed under her tail, seemingly happy to put their tails wherever they felt flesh and tightness.

The moment stretched out into infinity, and Aleria closed her eyes, letting the males fuck her face with their tails.  The weight of the gravid mass in her womb and the efforts of the males held her completely still, able only to groan and whimper. When the first full climax came, she all but screamed as it hit with an intensity she’d never imagined possible, and her inner walls spasmed and clenched around the invading tails.

Suddenly, one of the males on her leg tensed and shivered all of a sudden, then picked up the pace of that tail-fucking.  It let out a tiny little chittering squeak and there was a new source of heat in the pangolin as it deposited a small torrent of alien seed into her. The part of Aleria’s brain that was fully cognizant of what happened understood what was happening, why they were doing this.  Eggs had to be fertilized, after all, and this undulating mass was made up entirely of males.

One of the males perched on her breasts suddenly tensed, and picked up the pace of his fucking, and Aleria was rewarded with a solid, thick mass of alien semen. She greedily swallowed it down, knowing there was nothing she could do anymore. In truth, there was nothing she really wanted to do. It all felt wonderful, it felt incredible. She could focus on the horror of what she was becoming, but what purpose would it serve?  As the cum warmed her stomach, her arousal, her desire for more grew.  It’s addicting you, Aleria. Think!

Aleria shook her head to dispel the errant thought, and rubbed her tongue around the invasive mass of tavor tails (cocks?  is that what they were, really?) When the first had drained every drop of its seed, it hopped off of her breast and then flitted away.  Two more came in rapid succession, flooding her senses with that sweetness. She wanted more, she needed it, it was impossible to get enough. She knew it was altering her mind, but she no longer cared.  If this uncomfortable gravid mass in her womb was the price to get this kind of pleasure and fulfillment she’d pay it a hundred fold.

When a new male hopped onto Aleria’s chest and presented its tail, she didn’t even protest.  It just meant more sweetness, more thickness.  The mass of five tails within her vagina, wriggling and writhing and pushing, fighting for a spot to lay their seed, drew one climax after another.  Even the accompaniment of another two tails thrusting rapidly under her tail felt wonderful.

One or two of the males was unable to reach her, but the stimulation of that writhing mass of tavor bodies stimulated them enough that the gooey amber seed soon streaked her thighs, her face, her chest.  As soon as one finished, a new one took its place, flooding every single part of her system with the addictive chemicals and hormones that came with the alien spark of life.

Aleria knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that before the day was done, she’d serve as a warm hole for the hundreds of males that crowded around her.  As the light of her flashlight flickered out, the pangolin lost all sense of time and soon fell completely to the unnatural pleasures offered by the nest, no longer worried about where she was or even who she was… and between one moment and the next, consciousness fled, exhaustion she’d never been aware of overwhelming the pangolin.  And still the males kept vying for a spot, for their chance to breed this new incubator.

Aleria didn’t wake slowly from the unconsciousness that had overcome her. She woke with a powerful climax, screaming in pure, primal ecstasy. As her eyes came into focus, she realized she’d been moved to a small alcove in the tavor nursery. The source of her climax was resting atop her, its tail rhythmically shoving in between her aching labia and into her vagina. Despite herself, she smiled. Another would be along to feed her, to give her more of its cum for her belly, she knew that.

It was somehow unsurprising to her that she wasn’t pinned down at all.  She wasn’t restrained in any way, in fact. Where would she go, though? The mass of eggs in her womb was heavier than it looked, and it kept her off balance. Not only that, she couldn’t see anything at all in the pitch blackness of the nest, so she would have no idea where to go from the admittedly comfortable little alcove she was in.

She felt sticky and wet all over, and her nose wrinkled in disgust as she realized that the stickiness was likely more of the tavor semen that had been spattered all over her. She felt it permeating her scales on her back, all but coating her front. She had been left reclined on an angle, obviously positioned so that the males would have access to everything. She could close her legs, but to what avail? She could feel the throbbing, desperate need that kept her inner walls relaxed and receptive. The male on her right thigh tensed, and she felt a gush of warmth deep in her.

Every part of the pangolin ached, from her clawed toes to the tip of her nose. She understood the gravity of what had happened quite clearly, but it didn’t seem to matter to her as much as it should. She had a womb full of life, waiting to be born. “No… NO…” she croaked, and she felt a sudden panic rising in her, a horrified dread she understood she should have been feeling the whole time. She had no idea how this mass of alien eggs was going to be born! They could grow and hatch and burst her open and leave her to rot, she had no idea. This wasn’t life waiting to be born, this was a monster’s brood forced into her!

She tried to get up, but before she knew what was happening, three males had skittered toward her, the only warning the rapid skittering of legs against the floor. Two came to rest on her shoulders, beside her head, the other on her chest. In moments, slick tails coated with their amber lubrication were pressing at her lips. She didn’t even think about it, she opened her mouth and let them start rutting with her blunt muzzle. As the stuff hit her tongue, all her fear just dissipated and was replaced by the burning desire for more of the sweetness.

She knew, deep inside she knew what they were doing to her, what was happening. There was no need for restraints. They knew she’d want what they could give her, the only thing that she’d ever need. It was a strangely unsettling understanding, but she didn’t care. It was alright. She could get all she needed from the males, she’d be kept safe in the nest. In the back of her mind, she screamed at herself, but the voice was tiny and weak. She knew they wanted her safe and secure, and that was what really mattered. That and every drop of that wonderful, sweet alien seed sliding down her throat.

There was no way to track time in the darkness of the nursery, other than the cycles of panic and calm that came with each feeding.  Occasionally there would be too many of the males, and Aleria would find them looking for any hole to fill that they could. The pleasure of being fed compared not at all to the mind-searing ecstasy of having their tails vying for a spot pressing up into her vagina, and every time it happened she felt a little of her self slip away.

The pangolin, the princess so far from home, wondered how she looked.  Covered in the remnants of alien cum, eyes glazed with her need for more, belly huge and swollen with her unnatural brood. She was aroused almost constantly now, and she could feel a pool of her own pleasure collecting at the small depression where her ass was resting.

With the overwhelming need and the near-madness of her addiction to what she was being fed every day, it was no surprise when she realized there was a new sensation that she could feel.  Her breasts were itchy and aching, and felt very wrong.  When she reached up to touch them, they were tender and sore. Try as she might though, she couldn’t seem to figure out what that might mean. Not that she really wanted to or cared, especially when the males came for her feeding and she could stop worrying about everything else.  When she heard the skittering of a multitude of them, she grinned; she’d get fucked silly today. That was good, she cared about where she was so much less then.

Days later, or at least a number of sleeps later, though such concerns were far beyond Aleria, she realized something. The ache in her belly was deepening, it felt so much more pronounced. But, she dimly realized, that wasn’t what she’d noticed. This was something new, something even stranger. Her breasts had grown swollen, too, painfully so, and every time she had explored them with her hands they’d been tender, and larger. Today though… there was a faint glow. If she had not been in pitch darkness for all this time, she wouldn’t have been able to see it, but it was a strange soft amber glow, like one would find from a bio-luminescent mushroom. As her eyes strained to see the source, she reached up to her breasts and touched the nipples. Her blood turned to ice when she felt a strange, thick substance drooling from each. As it smeared on her fingers, the glow spread to her fingers. With horror that cut through the fog in her mind, she manipulated and tugged at her nipples, and the glow intensified as more of the jelly-like substance seeped from what should be her milk ducts.

Royal jelly…. they were leaking royal jelly!  As she squeezed and twisted her nipples, they grew stiff, and more of the thick substance seeped out. She’d seen the stuff only a few times, and this seemed muted, faint, but she knew as things progressed, it would be that warm and almost comforting glow she remembered. The thought that her body, and presumably the bodies of others, was the source of one of the most sought-after substances in the sector turned her stomach. There was no way her family hadn’t known. For all their talk about benevolent leadership and responsibility, they had to be using some poor helpless women to produce it. 

There was a skittering sound, and with that sound all fear and disgust fled from the pangolin’s mind. The males had come to feed her, and that was all that mattered. In the dim light given off by the jelly, she could see them for the first time in what was likely weeks. They didn’t look quite so frightening as before, she thought, but then the first of their tails slipped between her lips and she didn’t even have to think about anything but that.

Aleria’s breasts ached, a deep, pulsing ache that was unrelenting.  All around her was a soft, warm glow; the glow of the jelly that collected in the little pits and crevices in her little alcove, surrounding her and solidifying into the substance that she had known it would become. That ache was nothing at all compared to that in her belly, now huge and slightly misshapen, stretched beyond anything she’d imagined possible.  She felt like everything below her ribcage was squashed, and a glow from behind the obscene swell of her belly told her that other parts of her had begun to produce the jelly as well. Over the last while, the feedings had grown less frequent, seeming to come only when she felt her greatest distress.

Weak arms lifted up to stroke the massive bulge that had become her abdomen. Her brood was in there, the gift that had been given to her by the queen. She didn’t know when she’d stopped hating it, but now she knew that she was safe and secure, that she would never have to worry. It was her purpose now, one that she’d have to deal with and embrace. There was still hope that somehow, some way, this would end, but she couldn’t stop what was happening anyway, so why worry?

In the last few days -she couldn’t really see them as anything but days, but really, they were cycles of full conscious thought that were interspersed between longer and longer periods where she was nothing but a thoughtless, blissed out incubator for the queen’s brood- the queen had come to the nursery, seeming to want to check on the progress. It was as if she knew that the first of her young were about to be born.

It felt like she’d been like this forever, bathed in the soft glow of the jelly, resting in her alcove.  Waiting, feeding, conditioned to utter calm and anticipation. All of that changed in an instant with one huge, searing pain as muscles long left dormant suddenly spasmed and her aching belly visibly contracted half an inch. Her eyes went wide and she let out a low, ragged gurgling scream. It felt to her like her insides were tearing apart. Fear, so long fled from the pangolin’s mind, returned, but this was a deeper, more visceral sort of fear.  The fear that this obscene pregnancy, this unnatural corruption of her body, was a fatal thing.  That she would endure one terrible brood, and then become simple food for her young.

The contraction came again, and again, wracking her whole body with its intensity.  Her tail jerked and splashed in the pool of congealed jelly that it had lain in for what was likely weeks. No, it couldn’t end this way, it wouldn’t.  “Mukki… Neiva…” she croaked, feeling her eyes welling up with tears. Her hope for rescue wasn’t going to come true, and she was going to die here.  But then, with the next wracking spasm, she felt something new.  Something horrifying and yet at the same time somehow hopeful.  After so long with the males’ tails rutting her, satisfying her and bringing climax after climax, she felt something in her passage again.  But it was thick, and it was squirming, and it was moving the wrong way.

Relief flooded through Aleria. She wasn’t going to die. She wasn’t!  She was giving birth to the brood.  She felt herself stretching from within, squirming and wriggling.  Suddenly, there were males all around her, crowding her.  They watched with their unreadable eyes.  Each contraction brought another searing pain, but when that undulating and squirming sensation filled her entire sex, she cried out something new.  Ecstatic pleasure, a climax like nothing she’d ever felt in her life.  With one violent push and a rush of ichorous fluid, the first grub splashed into the jelly.  One of the males scuttled in and grabbed the first larval tavor, and Aleria caught a glimpse of it as it was carried away.  Long and fat and covered in translucent amber skin with a black head.  Another contraction wracked Aleria’s body, and thought fled from her. This wasn’t over by a long shot; she had so many more to birth before the day was done.

The pangolin had no idea how long it had been. Everything was a perpetual haze, and she was jerking and twitching randomly. The birthing had been arduous, but it was over. Uncounted grubs had come from her, more than she had ever thought possible, but now it was done. She had survived her ordeal, and she was left more clear-headed than she’d been since the day she’d snuck into the old mine, hoping to steal some jelly. Well, here it was. Enough all around her to pay for an entire solar system.  The source of her family’s fortune, made on the suffering of innocent women. “Well…” she croaked, then stopped as another spasm made her body jerk involuntarily. “Guess one of their princesses gets to learn…”

The heavy clicking of legs much larger than the males was all the warning that Aleria got before the massive bulk of the queen appeared.  She regarded her incubator with those maddeningly unreadable eyes and began to croon in a way that seemed almost loving. The pangolin watched her with tired eyes, wondering what was to come and dreading that she knew the answer.

When the soft blue glow began to emit from the queen’s antennae, Aleria found herself completely unable to look away…

A voice, familiar, “How much time do we have?”

-Wha?-

Another, this one also familiar. “The field should last maybe another five minutes!”

-Wha fuck?-

A third voice, familiar but somehow not heard for a very long time.  “I insist that you are taking far too many precautions. They will not assault you in my presence.”

-Wha FUCK?-

“Yeah, well, princess, I think these tavor might not care much, especially the queen, if you’re taking away her only incubator.”

-I’m the only princess here!-

“She will be replaced. We never intended a nest here, but it will have to suffice. I daresay that the town here will thank my sister here for her sacrifice.”

-SISTER? MY SISTER IS HERE?-

There was a tearing, a yanking sensation, and Aleria was quickly aware of some of the scales on her back tearing away.  The first voice came again, “Alright, Allie. Let’s get you out of here. Fucking hell, is she even in there? God dammit, Alorina, I don’t give a shit if you are royalty, I’ll kill you if her mind is gone!”

As two pairs of arms lifted her out of her alcove, Aleria managed to croak out, “Mukki?  That you?”

“Shhh, shh… we got you.  Neiva’s here too.”

“She will be fine after some recovery.  Take your reward, mercenary, and take care of my sister.”

A sudden screech of utter, incomprehensible rage. “Mukki, she sounds pissed.  Okay, everyone, close your eyes. Alorina, what the fuck?  Put your fucking clothes back on!”

“Go!  Now!”

Aleria lost her grip on consciousness.

The next time that Aleria was aware of anything, it was warmth and comfort.  There was a familiar and quite welcome sound of electronics whirring and beeping all around her. Soft linen enveloped her, and it felt as if she had been asleep for weeks. For all she knew, she had.  As she opened her eyes, she managed to gasp out, “too bright!”

Almost immediately, the lights in the room dimmed, and the pangolin tried to open her eyes again. This time, it was tolerable, and she was greeted by the welcome sight of a med-bay.  Not just any med-bay, her med bay on Mukki and Neiva’s ship!  She turned her head to see Neiva sitting on the stool next to her bed. The mouse wore an expression that was a mixture of relief and worry.  “You okay,” the white-furred mouse asked softly. “That… was quite a thing for you to have to go through.  What were you thinking?”  

“I mean, right?  If you were gonna get some weird-ass bug to fuck you, you could have asked me for help,” came a comment from the other side of the bed. Aleria turned her head to see the grinning visage of the other part of the ship’s crew, Femukki.  “You’re okay now. I think I would have rather done what you ended up doing rather than sit in that jail for a month.  Then spend three more figuring out what happened to you.  Then another two asking anyone in your family for help. It took mentioning the tavor to get a response. Literally next morning, a whole fucking royal armada shows up in the skies over Hadron Prime and your sister Alorina is demanding, at gunpoint, to know what had happened.  I haven’t known a government to move that fast in securing a colony.”

“Yeah,” Neiva piped up.  When Aleria looked back to the mouse, she looked vaguely amused and maybe even impressed. “The United Free Colonies all but shit a brick.  Hadron Prime isn’t anywhere near your family’s holdings.  From what I understand, your mother and father gave up three star systems to the colonies, ones that they’d been squabbling with the Colonies about for almost fifty years.  Just like that.  In return for a backwater colony.  The two governments are calling it a ‘mutually planned exchange of territory’. I’m calling BS on that.”

Aleria sat up in her bed all of a sudden. When her sheets fell down she realized she wasn’t wearing anything underneath them.  She tried not to flush with embarrassment, but she was more concerned with the state of her body. Small breasts and a flat stomach covered in tan skin. The only indication that anything had ever happened were residual stretch marks.  She reached down to her belly and ran her hands across the almost completely unblemished flesh. “It’s like it never happened…” she whispered.

“Huh?” Neiva asked, then facepalmed. “That. Yeah. You spent about two weeks on the Arbogast, your sister’s ship. They wouldn’t let us see you. You were transferred here about two days ago. Listen… seriously, I… I should have asked how you’re feeling.”

Aleria looked to the mouse, then to Mukki, then back down at her belly. Something had changed in their demeanor, the way they were looking at her. It was almost as if they cared more now about her than they had before her ordeal. “I… I’m okay. It’s strange. I feel like I should be screaming. Like I should be haunted. Like I should never be able to recover from something like that. It was horrible. But… I… I’m okay.”

“Just like I said she would be,” came a new voice. This one was deep, resonant, and carried a sound of absolute certainty and serenity. It was a voice she had not heard in almost a year, since she’d run off from her so called ‘family responsibilities’. Aleria looked up, heart beating rapidly, faster than when she’d first encountered the tavor queen.  Because, standing in the doorway to the med bay was another queen. And this one was one that the pangolin feared more than any other.  Her own mother.

Not forgetting the formality that had been drilled into her from the first days she could actually remember of her life, she touched three shaking fingers to her forehead and then to her lips, then held them in her mother’s direction. The woman smiled regally and stepped in, a small sad smile on her lips. She was dressed in a simple white dress and a silver circlet, having never been one to give into flamboyance.  For the first time Aleria realized that this woman before her looked so much like her, though the queen’s eyes were an amber as vibrant as the royal jelly that Aleria had gone seeking in the first place.

“These two. They showed remarkable insolence and bravado in their demands that I let them see you. They will be… suitable protectors for you. On this day I appoint them official positions as personal bodyguards to the seventh Blackscale princess.”  The queen inclined her head to Mukki and Neiva, then turned her gaze to Aleria. “For better or worse, you know the secret our family has kept for almost two centuries. How we make our fortune, able to harvest something that no other government has learned the secret of doing.”

Aleria felt a sudden wave of rage wash through her at her mother’s words. Her whole ordeal, everything that had happened, was fresh in her memory, clearer than any other recollection. She was, herself, surprisingly unaffected by what had happened.  But what she couldn’t forgive was that her family, her mother, had known and subjected others to what she had been forced to endure. “Yeah.  I know.  And I would rather fucking die than be part of a family that lives on that suffering! After all your platitudes, all your teaching about how it was our duty to protect and care for the lowest of our subjects, great great great grandmother Alania built her kingdom on the rape and suffering of innocent women. Fuck. You.”

The slap came completely and absolutely out of nowhere, leaving her cheek stinging. Femukki reacted immediately, her fist flashing out and connecting with the queen’s jaw with a dull thwack. Out of nowhere, Neiva had produced a knife and was standing mere inches from Aleria’s mother, eyes blazing. The sound of the crown tink-ing on the floor of the med-bay resounded through the room. Everything went completely and deathly silent in the room.

Her eyebrow arched, the queen looked down at the knife that was at her throat. Aside from a moment of shocked surprise, the queen looked utterly unperturbed. In a dry tone, she commented, “Neiva Hiiri.  Pilot and engineer. And surprisingly quick with a knife, I see. Femukki, captain. Vat-born. Mercenary. That was… quite the blow. You know, you could kill me now. I truly have no defense.”

“Don’t try me, your highness,” Mukki all but snarled. “Nobody hits one of my crew and gets away with it.”  The queen fixed the bat with a glare that gave Aleria chills. The knife at her throat actually touched her skin, raising a little bead of blood there. Slowly, Neiva lowered the knife, and the queen wiped away the trickle of blood that had welled up from a split lip.

“Aleria, my dear. For all your intelligence, you seem to have gotten one important thing wrong,” The queen spoke calmly, as if she hadn’t just been in mortal danger. “Perhaps you should look in a mirror?”
Confused, wondering how all of this could go even more pear-shaped, Aleria did as her mother asked, or as close as she could. She gestured to Mukki, who turned on her wrist computer and trained the camera on Aleria’s face. A surprised look in the bat’s expression told Aleria that something was definitely strange, moments before her face showed on one of the monitors.
“What… the fuck…” Aleria said, her voice barely a whisper. The change was unmistakable. “My eyes. My fucking eyes.”  Once azure pools, they had changed to the vibrant amber colour that her mother and sisters all shared. In that single moment, her entire understanding of the truth changed. What had happened was re-contextualized once more.
“I leave you with this, my dear daughter. A woman captured by wild tavor would either die or have her mind shattered by the experience. I struck you for impugning the memory of our kingdom’s founder, and the choice she made to secure a future for her bloodline. Your royal duty is discharged now, though in a way none of us expected.”
Aleria shook her head, not quite able to believe what she was hearing, but knowing it to be true nonetheless as her mother continued, “Alania was a scientist. A geneticist. She altered her body to be able to endure the ordeal herself. The tavor themselves were changed. None of the Blackscale line fears anything from tavor. We, her scions, all take it on ourselves to endure this. Our minds and bodies are conditioned to come back from the experience. Which is why your sister now carries the brood intended for you in her womb, back on Hadron Prime. You know, it’s been a subject of debate for a decade, where to put a new nest and facility.”

The queen fixed Mukki and Neiva with her regal stare. Before either of them knew what had happened, the queen had two knives out and had thrown them… handle first, where they thumped against their chests. “Take care of my daughter. And hold the secret, or I will have you hunted down and killed.” Without another word, she picked up her crown, rested it on her head, tapped a communicator… and vanished.

The room was quiet for an eternity before Mukki murmured, “Well. That was… certainly a thing that happened. Are you okay, Allie?”

“Yeah.  Yeah.  I am.  You punched my mom.  You punched the queen of seventy six… no, um, seventy four star systems now.  Neiva just… and… and you called me your crew.  You’ve never… I’ve never…
Neiva stepped up beside the bed and leaned forward to give Aleria a tight hug, soon followed by Mukki and the blanket of her wings.  “Shh, honey. You risked your safety for us. And… to be honest? Getting fucked silly by some alien monster just makes you one of us even more.  You have no idea how many times that’s happened to us.  Let me tell you about something called a mummerfly….”