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The Prometheus

By: Jenny_Jackson



The hibernation tank lid slid back into the bulkhead with a hiss. Vapor rose from the tank like smoky fog and condensed to form frost around the opening. The figure in the tank stirred, stretched and sat upright.

Jenny Jackson, Captain of the freighter, Prometheus, shivered. After a moment she threw her leg over the edge of the tank and pulled herself out. Jenny wrapped her arms tightly around her shivering, naked body and padded quickly to the shower in the forward head.

The warm water felt good on her cold skin. Finally the shivering stopped. Captain Jackson turned the water off and stepped from the shower. She pulled on a pair of coveralls, boots and baseball cap to cover here shoulder length, blonde hair then went into the galley.

She pressed the selector for warm tomato soup and coffee. Shortly they arrived in cups, which she drank as she moved about the control room. The gauges told her she was near the cargo destination, Boyd's Planet. Jenny remembered that Boyd's Planet was a mining colony badly in need of the basic foodstuffs and medical supplies securely packed away in the Prometheus's massive hold. Some three-hundred-Sixty metric tons as she recalled. 

A couple of things did bother her though. Too much of the medical supplies were for Tendrasol. That seemed like a very strange thing for a mining planet. Tendrasol was used for certain alien parasites. For the life of her, she could not see what kind of parasites there could be on an airless, cold rock like Boyd's Planet.

From the command console, Captain Jackson ordered the computer to awaken the other members of the crew. She leaned forward to look through the hatch into the crew quarters and smiled when she saw the other four hibernation tanks had started cycling to wake mode. The steady red lights on the individual consoles were now blinking and had been joined with a steady yellow.

As she taped keys at the command console, she queried the computer on exact position, obstacles and distance to the planet. "Hmmm...," she thought," nearly a full day yet." The planet hung on the view screen as a rust brown globe in the black sky. "Not so different from a thousand other shitty colony planets," she thought as she scanned the auto pilot log and found nothing of interest.

Jenny heard a hiss coming from the crew quarters followed by several more. "Ah, the crew is waking up." One by one, the crewmembers crawled naked out of their hibernation tanks and to the warmth of the showers. The first was the Engineer, Richard Small, known affectionately by the crew as "Dick". Next was Samantha "Sam" Young the Communications Officer. Then Charlie "Chuck" Robinson the Navigator crawled out of his tank. Finally, Jane "JB" "O'Brian the first officer emerged.

"Meeting in the crew lounge in 20 minutes," Jenny announced over the ships PA system. Then back at the command console, she began plotting the ships landing trajectory. She needed to kill a lot of speed to swing around the planet without burning up her remaining fuel. She wondered if there was a fuel supply on the planet. The documentation on Boyd's Planet was pretty sketchy. There was no mention of fuel so she needed to conserve what fuel she had for lift off. That meant a single controlled burn to kill speed and let the "Prometheus" swing around the planet and reduce the ships kinetic energy by shooting past the planet, allowing the planet's gravity to slow the ship on the fly-by. This was a tricky maneuver but not one she had not done before. 

After some minutes work on her computer tablet, Captain Jackson spoke to the computer, "Computer. V equals 2,370K. S equals 5.943. Y equals 6,339.52. Compute burn start and duration for TVA at Boyd's Planet."

Immediately, the computer responded in a mechanical voice, "Time start 3209.2315.53.93515. Duration 239.24 seconds."

"Computer. Compute fuel usage for this burn."

"Fuel usage 358,500 DBS. Leaving 926,940 DBS.

"Computer. Compute lift off fuel requirements from Boyd's Planet."

"Fuel usage 793,866 DBS."

"Shit," thought Jenny. "That leaves less than 20% to get home and decelerate again."

As Captain Jackson went back to her computer tablet and worked in search of a more optimal place for the deceleration burn. Presently, the Navigator, Chuck Robinson, walked into the command center.

"How do the numbers look, Captain?"

"Not good, Chuck. We were overloaded on mass and burned too much fuel getting here. It would have been better taking the slow burn. But someone wanted this cargo fast." 

Robinson looked over the calculations. "It seems close to optimal, Captain."

"That's what I think too," Jenny said with pursed lips. "Not much we can do but hope we hit it good getting off the planet and save some fuel."

**********************************

Captain Jackson stepped off the extended loading ramp and said to the mine officer, "I'm Jackson. How long before we're unloaded and ready to leave?"

The officer stuck out his hand. "I'm Brian Stevens. We're glad you're here. We really need this stuff." Stevens thought a second then said, "Give us about three hours. And I hear you're low on fuel."

"Yes. We left Delta Station in a hurry. They didn't give us time to take on a full load of fuel. And we burned most of our load getting here. Can you help?"

"I can give you 100,000 DBS if that will help. That's all we can spare."

"Yes. Thank you. That will bring us up to more than 30%. We were looking pretty shaky on the back end of this trip."

"We'll take care of everything, Captain. Why don't you and the crew go to the lounge? I'll send a messenger when we finish unloading." As Jenny turned, Stevens caught her elbow. "And, um, Captain, don't let your crew wander around. There are... um dangers."

Jackson looked at Stevens wonderingly then turned and led her crew away from the ship.

The Captain and crew crossed the warehouse and down a stairway to the lounge. "Captain, I need to find a head," said Sam Young as she waved and headed down a side corridor. "I'll see you in a few," she called over her shoulder.

The Captain, First Officer and Navigator took seats around a table. Dick Small brought cups of coffee and sat also.

"Ok. Let's figure out how we get off this rock. Chuck, you have an extra 100K of DMS. Where does that leave us for deceleration at Delta?"

Chuck Robinson tapped keys on his tablet computer. "It looks like we will have about 19% fuel after lift off. We'll be dry, but we can drain enough velocity then get a tug to pull us into Delta Station."

"Engineering and Nav, we have a couple hours. Give me the optimum lift off time. I don't want to waste fuel in orbit. Let's figure a single spiral around the planet and burn for home.

The two officers tapped keys and spoke softly among themselves. JB O'Brian returned from the head and took her seat at the table.

Jenny looked at JB. "Are you alright? You look a little flushed."

"Uh. Yeah. I'm fine. Couldn't be better, Captain."

"Captain. Looking at the fuel we have the planetary rotation and station drift for Delta, it looks like just over 4 hours. We can give you a better time with the main computer back on the ship."

Jenny nodded, "That's close enough for now. Everyone, do what you want. Wander around the lounge if you want. But stay here. It's dangerous and no air outside the staging area. OK?"

******************************

Prometheus main computer shut down the acceleration burn exactly on time. The crew went about their duties as usual.

"Engineering. What's our fuel status?"

"Right on 19%, Captain. It'll be tight but we'll be fine."

"Nav. How's our course?"

"Within 1% of optimum, Captain."

"Ok, everyone. My board is green. I'm going to the galley."

Captain Jackson stepped into the galley, poured a cup of coffee and dialed a roast beef sandwich. She took a seat at the table just as Chuck Robinson and JB O'Brian entered, got coffee and seated around the table on either side of Jenny.

"A long four months back to Delta Station, Captain," Chuck said.

"Yeah. Four very long months," intoned JB.

"Yes. But most of it in hibernation. We won't see it."

"We have plenty of food and water. We don't have to hibernate, Jenny," JB said placing her hand on Jenny's knee.

"No. We don't," agreed Chuck. "We've spent some time for ourselves before on returns."

Jenny sighed. "Yes. We have." Then with a wry smile she asked, "And what did you have in mind?"

JB leaned over and kissed Jenny's lips while Chuck stood, moved behind her, bent and kissed her neck. Together the three rose and walked into the Captain's cabin. JB unzipped Jenny's coveralls and nibbled her nipples as Jenny wriggled her clothes over her shoulders to lie in a heap around her ankles. Chuck and JB lead Jenny to her bed and pushed her down to lie on her back. JB took one nipple in his mouth while Chuck spread Jenny's legs and began licking Jenny's outer lips.

JB kissed Jenny on the lips as Chuck sunk two fingers into her pussy. Jenny moaned deeply and thrust her hips forward to meet Chuck's fingers. Jenny's hands when to JB's firm, round breasts just as Chuck entered her. His cock thrust deep inside and Jenny screamed as her body shifted into automatic and met his thrusts.

Soon Chuck was bathed in sweat. But his stroke never slowed until he finally withdrew. Lying on his back panting Jenny mounted him squatting on his cock. JB straddled Chuck's face and the two women embraced and kissed; their hands held, touched and stroked each other's bodies. Jenny stiffened at the burning heat began to move upwards from her pussy. Then she screamed as her muscles contracted around Chuck's cock in an orgasmic spasm. She clung to the other woman and dug her fingernails into JB's back until her orgasm had passed. Jenny pulled herself off the cock and rolled away panting.

JB moved down and impaled herself on Chuck's cock and rode him next. Recovered somewhat, Jenny took JB's place on Chuck's face and the three of them continued on for hours.

Meanwhile in the Crew Quarters Sam Young rode Dick Small. Dick mumbled, "I'm cumming. I'm cummingggggg!" Sam moved off him and withdrew the cock. Taking it in her mouth she sucked it furiously. Dick's sperm welled in Sam's mouth but she continued to suck even harder. 

"God. Stop, Sam. That's starting to hurt," he said. But Sam continued on.

"Oh, shit! Awwwwkkkkkkkkk," Dick screamed as Sam's mouth filled with blood. She continued to suck even harder. Dick squirmed and tried to push Sam away, but her mouth held firmly to his bleeding cock...

Dick's entire blood supply was sucked through his cock. In the end there was nothing left but a dead empty shell. "Hmm. So much information. This ship will be easy for us to direct anywhere," she thought. When Dick was converted she would know the workings of the ship, how the propulsion system, life support and hibernation worked she was satisfied. With Chuck she would know how to program the ship's main computer for course and speed. As first officer, no one would question her movements about the ship. JB allowed herself a satisfied smile.

Sam got up and stood next to the bed and stared down at Dick Small's corpse. She smiled again and reached out a hand toward him. As the hand neared Dick's body the hand began to change. A long claw grew from her hand that plunged into Dick's abdomen. A loud hiss escaped from Sam's mouth, then the hook withdrew and the hand changed back to a normal looking hand.

Dick's body stirred. The wound on his abdomen closed and healed instantly. Dick opened his eyes and sat up. 

"Yes. I like this body, sister," Dick said with a hiss. "And there are three more." The two held hands and smiled. 

**********************************

Dick and JB walked into the crew lounge and found Jenny drinking coffee and studying a package of messages. "What's up, Captain," JB asked.

"Delta has another load for us when we get back. Looks like a milk run to the inner rings," Jenny said thoughtfully. "Ten days out and ten more back. Then we go in for refit at Star Base 6. That means paid time off for everyone."

"Star Base 6," Chuck said as he smiled at JB. "That's a break."

"Yes. It is," Jenny responded absently. "Don't you two have someplace to go? I'm busy here."

"Aye, Captain," both JB and Chuck chimed in together as they gave a comical military salute. Then they turned on their heels and left the crew lounge.

In the command center JB turned to Chuck. "Wait for me in the Crew Quarters. I'm going to take care of Sam." JB continued on to the Communication center while Chuck turned to the Crew Quarters.

"Sam, what are you doing working?" asked JB sweetly.

Sam was on her knees with her upper body in an open access panel. "Looking for a fault in the LRT Scanner, JB. What are you doing?"

"Just talking to you. Looking at you. Thinking."

"Oh? Thinking what, JB?"

"Things. Just things."

Sam stood and faced JB. Her hand brushed her bangs away from her eyes. "What did you have in mind, JB?" she said as she smiled sweetly.

JB took Sam in her arms and kissed her mouth. Their tongues explored each other's mouths. Sam's hand moved quickly to JB's breasts and crushed them. JB's mouth covered Sam's and she began to suck. After a moment, Sam's eye got wide and she began to struggle. Blood dripped from the corner of JB's mouth as Sam went limp and slumped lifelessly to the deck.

The claw/hand extended toward the corpse slashing easily into the abdomen then withdrew. Sam's corpse stirred and sat up. "Good job, sister."

Together, the two women left the Communications Center and entered the Crew Quarters. They found Chuck standing over the body of Dick Small. 

"What happened?" asked JB.

"He came on to me and I had to kill him. But I don't have the hook like you do. I couldn't convert him. Now he's dead and it's too late to inject him with our sister parasites," Chuck said with dismay.

"No matter. We will convert the Captain. Then we'll have the ship to ourselves. We can shove the body out the air lock and claim he was doing maintenance and died or something," JB said thoughtfully.

***************************

The ship was darkened for a sleep period when the three left the Crew Quarters headed for the Captain's Cabin. JB knocked on the door. 

"Come in," they heard the Captain's voice. The three entered the Captain's cabin and stood before Jenny.

Jenny Jackson looked up from her desk. "What can I do for you? I'm busy."

"Captain, we have something for you," announced JB.

Jenny set her computer plate down on her desk and sat back in her chair. "Well?"

Chuck Robinson went around Jenny's desk and took her arms. 

While Jenny watched, JB reached out her arm. As it came near the hand metamorphosed into a claw. Jenny didn't move.

"And you think this impresses me?" Jenny asked dryly.

"Oh yes. It will in a moment," said JB, smiling.

There was a quick movement. Nobody really saw what happened. At one instant Chuck stood at Jenny's sides holding her pinioned to her chair. The next moment he flew through the air, struck the bulkhead and fell to the floor.

JB took a step back. "Good idea," Jenny said with a grin. She stood and leaned over the desk. Don't mess with me. Do you hear?"

JB and Sam both charged Jenny, claws bared.

Jenny raised her hand and changed. In her place stood a seven foot... thing. Jenny had become a huge, hulking, brown, almost ape-like form with two legs and four arms. At the end of each arm was, not hands, but six inch claws. Jenny let out a blood curdling growl.

The two officers turned and ran for the door. Jenny sprang over her desk and with a single swipe of one hand took off both their heads. Their bodies crumpled to the floor. Blood spurted from their necks. Spasms of death wracked the two bodies for a moment, then they were still.

Jenny turned to see Chuck had begun to move. With a second swipe of her arm the man was disemboweled. He died slowly clutching his intestines. Jenny calmly walked back to her desk.

As she changed back into Captain Jenny Jackson, she smoothed her blond hare and took her seat behind her desk. With a shake of her head she muttered, "Inferior alien species". Then chuckling she resumed work.

The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 01



The telephone rang at 3:08 a.m.

The occupant of the house one mile from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., got up out of his bed and answered the telephone in the kitchen of his house.

Once he answered, the caller hung up.

The occupant of the house hung up the phone, sighed, and went back to bed in the darkness of the house.

Five minutes later, someone knocked at the door.

The man got up out of bed and started to the door. He then went back to put on a bathrobe, since he slept naked.

The man turned on the porch light and opened his front door.

Standing outside the house was a young man dressed in the uniform of the U.S. Air Force. He wore two stripes to indicate that he was a corporal. A nondescript gray sedan was parked in his driveway behind his Cadillac convertible, its engine running and its headlights on.

"Dr. Manville?" said the private.

The corporal greeted a tall 30-year-old man, his dark hair askew. His blue eyes were clouded from the way he was awakened.

"What does the Air Force want at ... quarter after 3 in the morning?"

"This is for you, sir," said the corporal.

The corporal handed Manville an envelope on which the words DR. LANCE MANVILLE and EYES ONLY were printed.

Manville took the envelope and regarded the corporal. "I hope you're not expecting a tip."

"No, sir. Good night, sir." The corporal started to salute, stopped, then turned and left.

Manville stared at the envelope for a moment, then shut off the outside light and went back into his house.

Manville sat at the couch in his living room and opened the envelope. Inside was a letter:

TO: Dr. Lance Manville

FROM: Lt. Gen. R.J. Grover, USAF

SUBJECT: Instructions – TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY

(1) You are instructed to fly immediately to 37o14'06" N 115o48'40" E. A map to your destination will be provided at the airstrip.

(2) You will fly Air Force 55-3937.

(3) Your callsign will be Air Force 3937.

(4) When you reach the assigned coordinates you will tune your transponder to 453.85 MHZ and signal Sage Control. ATC will give you landing instructions.

(5) You will be meeting with myself and a group of civilians regarding a special assignment immediately upon arrival.

Manville sighed and walked toward his bathroom, needing a shower to wake up.

He put on his Air Force-issue olive green flight suit and boots. He grabbed his flight bag, not knowing if he'd need extra equipment once he got to Edwards since he didn't know what he was flying, or how long he'd be at Nellis.

Manville gazed longingly at his coffee pot as he walked through the kitchen on the way to his car port. He didn't have time for coffee, and he suspected he could get some when he got to Nevada, which was going to take only slightly longer than brewing a pot.

Manville opened the passenger door of the Cadillac and threw his flight suit on the seat. He went around to the driver's-side door, got in, started the car, and dropped the top, figuring the drive in the cold night desert air would wake him up.

Air Force 3937 turned out to be a North American F-86 Sabre fighter jet. Manville figured that Grover, just one state over, wanted to see him in one hell of a hurry. The Sabre had neither drop tanks nor rockets mounted on the underside of its wings.

"Where should I put this?" asked Manville, holding up his flight bag.

"I'll put it in the bomb bay, sir," said the private. "As long as you don't open the bomb bay doors, you'll be fine."

"Hope I'm not going into combat with this."

"Sir?"

"You didn't give me any rockets."

"I wasn't told to load them, sir."

"You also didn't give me any drop tanks."

"I wasn't told to ..."

"... load them, sir," interrupted Manville. 

As he got into the Sabre, Manville noticed an envelope lying on the pilot's seat. He grabbed the envelope, got in, and then opened the envelope. It contained the map to where he was flying, with the location a red dot with a black circle in southern Nevada.

Manville went through the preflight checklist, then hit the starter switch. The whine of the starter gave way to the louder whine of the General Electric J73-GE-3 engine as its 9,250 pound-feet of thrust warmed up.

Manville's flight from California to Nevada was one of the more unusual flights he'd made. He got to the latitude and longitude, but from what he could see he appeared to be flying over nothing. Once he got past the lights of Las Vegas, the sky was as dark as the ground.

Nevertheless, he set the radio to the assigned frequency. "Sage Control, this is Air Force three-niner-three-seven. Sage Control, this is Air Force three-niner-three-seven. Request landing instructions."

Just before he was about to call again, the radio spoke. "Air Force three-niner-three-seven, turn left to three-six-zero and reduce altitude to five-zero-zero."

Manville turned to 360 degrees and dropped to 500 feet. Suddenly, below him the landing strip's lights lit up.

"Air Force three-seven, you are cleared to land."

Manville put the Sabre onto the tarmac at its maximum landing speed of 145 mph, having had seconds of notice of where the runway was. When his plane had nearly stopped, the landing lights went out again.

Ahead of him was two sets of orange beams, coming from the flashlights of a member of the ground crew. The crewman pointed Manville down a taxiway.

Another member of the ground crew directed Manville where to park the Sabre. When the ground crewman crossed his beacons, Manville killed the engine. From driving through the base gates in California to popping the canopy on the Sabre in Nevada had taken a half-hour.

Manville unhooked his air mask from his helmet as the canopy popped upward. Aside from one light coming from one building, the landing strip was completely dark.

Another member of the ground crew wheeled out a ladder on wheels. Manville got out of the Sabre and went down the stairs. A tractor appeared from the darkness to wheel the Sabre into a hangar.

"Dr. Manville?" A sergeant in military police uniform addressed him.

"That's me."

"This way, sir. General Grover is waiting to see you." The sergeant pointed with his hand toward a hangar.

Manville, still wearing his flight suit and carrying his helmet, followed the sergeant into the hangar. He swept his hair back with his free hand in a vain attempt to look presentable. As Manville and the sergeant walked toward the hangar, Manville could hear a twin-engine propeller plane landing on the runway behind them.

Manville and the sergeant walked into the hangar, which had only a few lights on. It was too dark to see what was in the hangar.

"Dr. Manville," said a loud, flat voice.

"General Grover," said Manville.

A short, bald, barrel-chested man wearing a blue Air Force dress uniform stepped into the light. Grover and Manville shook hands.

"You're late," said Grover.

Manville technically was a civilian. "Tied up in traffic. The L.A. freeways are terrible at 3 in the morning."

Grover gave him a look. "Follow me."

The two walked into a conference room filled with several men and cigarette smoke. Judging from the men's level of dishevelment, they had been in the room for quite a while. A film projector was set up on one table, pointing at a white screen on the wall.

"Gentlemen, Dr. Lance Manville, officially of North American Aviation," said Grover. He introduced the others.

"Excuse me a moment," said Grover, leaving the room.

Manville recognized none of the men. "Good to see you all at ... 4 in the morning."

"We've been here since mid-afternoon," said one of the men.

Grover returned to the room, followed by a woman.

"Dr. Dana Lindstrom of Johns Hopkins" was Grover's introduction to the group.

Dana Lindstrom was not who Manville expected to meet. Dr. Lindstrom was a woman with long blonde hair pulled back and bluish-green eyes.

Since Manville was standing closest to her, he put out his hand. Lindstrom shook it.

"I've brought all of you together to try to unravel this mystery we have," said Grover. "And I will tell you, Dr. Manville, Dr. Lindstrom, and remind the rest of you that everything that is discussed in here is top secret. This is a national security matter."

That might explain a meeting near 4 in the morning, Manville thought.

"The rest of you have seen what Dr. Manville is about to see, but I want his opinion of this," said Grover. "Dr. Manville has been involved in our lightweight metals project."

Grover held up a piece of metal that appeared to have been part of an airplane. "Two days ago, this metal washed up on the Florida shore near Homestead Air Force Base."

Manville looked at the metal. "Part of a plane. So?"

"Not quite," said Grover. "Take a look in the left microscope, please, Dr. Manville."

Manville walked over to one of two microscopes on a counter against one wall of the room. He bent down and took a look.

Grover had made an understatement. Manville's identification of the metal was "not quite" right.

"Tell us what you see, Dr. Manville," said Grover.

Manville stood up and turned to the group. "I'm not sure what your backgrounds are, but some of you may know about how airplanes are built. Engine parts are cast metal — they're poured into a mold, whether it's cast iron or, in some cases, aluminum. Plane fuselages are made from sheet metal ... that is, if the planes aren't made from fiberglass or fabric or some other sort of non-metallic material. Sheet metal is just metal that is cast and pressed to form sheets."

Manville saw that most people in the room appeared to not know what he was talking about.

"I'm not an expert on metals. But you look at it in a powerful-enough microscope, say, 50X, you see threads — the metal fibers. In a microscope, it looks somewhat like a chain-link fence. If the gaps in the fibers are too wide, those are weak spots. And if the metal is stressed, failure can occur in those weak spots."

"And what did you see, Dr. Manville?"

Manville paused. "Either this is the most perfect job of casting in the history of metalworking ... or this is a material I've never seen before. It's so dense that you'd have to have ... I don't know, a 2000X microscope or something like that."

He turned to Grover. "Where did this come from?"

"That is what most of this group is trying to figure out. Dr. von Hoffman here is a metallurgist."

A short man with gray hair stood up. "For not being a metallurgist, Dr. Manville has given a serviceable description of metallurgy as it applies to aeronautics. I concur that this is a metal that is unlike any metal that this country is capable of producing. And I would give 10 years of my career to see how this is produced."

"The obvious conclusion one could make is that this is something the Soviets are creating," said Grover. "The Red Chinese are not technologically advanced enough to do something like this. None of our allies are capable of this either."

Grover walked over to the microscope. "But we have reason to believe this is not Soviet work. And not merely because this washed up on the coast of Florida."

He turned to Dr. Lindstrom. "We found something else as part of this. It appears to be organic, but ... Dr. Lindstrom, could you take a look in the right-side microscope?"

Lindstrom walked over to the second microscope and looked in its eyepiece.

"It appears to me to be blood," she said. "Not human. Possibly some other mammal."

"Again, not quite. Sergeant, could you get the lights?"

The lights went off. Grover turned on the film projector. The green screen from the film leader darkened, and then an image showed on the screen.

"That's the blood I saw," said Lindstrom.

"Watch," said Grover.

What appeared to be blood suddenly changed, from a tannish-red color to a deep blue color. What appeared to be blood cells suddenly changed shapes. And then they changed again to a lime green color with still different shapes.

"What is this a film of?" said Lindstrom.

"What you looked at in the microscope. The same organic sample, which was found on another piece of metal similar to what we found at Homestead. It appears to have the ability to change itself."

After several seconds, Lindstrom said, "That's remarkable."

"We have a couple biologists in here who agree with you. This looks like nothing we know on earth. And it appears to be nothing that mankind is capable of doing. Sergeant ..."

The film stopped and the lights came up again. "There's something you need to see in the hangar."

The room's occupants walked into the hangar. A few more lights were turned on.

An irregularly shaped chunk of silvery metal, about 10 feet long and about four feet wide at its widest point, sat on the floor.

"This is the largest piece of what washed up at Homestead," said Grover. "It appears to be the same metal as in our microscope. But there's something else about this. Sergeant ..."

The sound of something being wheeled across a floor echoed in the hangar. It was a spotlight.

"You might want to get away from this light, gentlemen," said the sergeant. "And don't look directly at the light." He pointed the light at the far wall and turned it on. The room was instantly much brighter.

"OK, Sergeant, let's show them," said Grover.

The sergeant pointed the light at the piece of metal. And in the beam of light, the metal disappeared from sight.

Grover produced a pen from his pocket. He threw it where the light shined. The pen clattered on the floor, having gone through the invisible part of the metal.

Other than audible but not verbal reactions, the room was silent until Grover said, "You can turn it off, Sergeant."

The room returned to its previous level of dimness, although it took several moments for the occupants' eyesight to adjust.

Grover pulled another pen out of his coat. He threw it in the same place he had thrown the first pen. The second pen bounced off the wing.

"If the sun was out, and this chunk of metal were sitting outside, it would be invisible to you," said Grover. "This thing materialized out of nowhere when the sun went down. The next morning the sun came up, and by the time we got there it was gone. And then in the evening it reappeared. In fact, high tide went right through it during the day."

Grover put his hands on his hips. "Now you see why we don't think this is a Russian invention. Soviet design may be superior to ours," he said, looking at Manville, "but their technology is not. And as it is, this metal, or whatever it is, violates at least a couple of laws of physics. You might be able to make something invisible from view, but you cannot make it literally disappear ... or part of it disappear ... and then reappear. And it goes without saying that there is no possible way that we could begin to duplicate this."

Grover folded his arms. "Now you see what we're dealing with."

Other than mechanical sounds, the hangar was silent.

"We're bringing in additional analytical equipment this morning. I want you to go over this metal inch by inch. I want you to figure out how this might have been constructed, as well as what kind of flying craft it could be part of. We'll pick this up at ..." and he looked at his watch, "0800. There's a bus outside that will take you to our barracks so you can get a couple hours shut-eye. That's all."

Manville thought about what his contribution to the group could be when his thoughts were interrupted by Grover. "Dr. Manville, Dr. Lindstrom, follow me."

Grover led Manville and Lindstrom back into the smaller room. He closed the door.

"There is one additional piece of information. We think we may know where it came from."

From an attaché case, Grover got out paper.

"Do you like mysteries, Dr. Manville?"

"That depends," said Manville.

"I take it you've heard of the Bermuda Triangle."

"Sure. Miami to Bermuda to Puerto Rico. That's the narrowest geographic definition. Supposedly unexplained shipwrecks and plane crashes."

"There's one additional mystery," said Grover. "Homestead radar has been getting unusual radar contacts for some time at night coming from the east. Last fall, a hurricane hunter plane sighted an island that is not on the map about 400 miles east of Miami. We've sent planes and ships out there since then. None have seen this island.

"The radar says something's there, but only at night, and not every night, and we can't find the island by visual."

Grover gave Manville the latitude and longitude of the island as he handed Manville the map. "It's 231 miles east of Nassau and 154 miles north of San Juan."

Manville looked at the map. "I don't see an island 231 miles east of Nassau."

"Not only isn't there an island, there shouldn't be able to be an island there. That's one of the deeper trenches off our coast."

Manville looked at Lindstrom. "I assume you have something in mind for the two of us."

"I want you and Dr. Lindstrom to try to find this island, and, if you can find the island, get on the island."

"Why us?" asked Lindstrom.

"Your role is to see if you can find the source of that biological sample. That tissue was connected to the metal. We need to find out if they are connected to that island ... if there is an island. Dr. Manville, we need an engineering analysis of that island, if you can find that kind of metal there."

"This sounds like a wild goose chase," said Manville.

"Late last night, I put two and two together," said Grover. "We have metal that disappears in light, and we have an island that apparently isn't visible in daylight. It's thin, but it's the only connection there is at this point. We've sent several planes out there and seen nothing visual. We need to get closer than 1,000 feet in the air."

"Someone must think there's a threat there."

"There is a mystery. Whether a mystery is a threat to national security, we need to find out. Fast."

"And we're the detectives."

"So to speak. Two people are more nimble than an Air Force squadron. And you're expendable."

Lindstrom looked surprised at the word "expendable." Manville did not.

"Are you awake enough to fly some more?" asked Grover.

"I could use some breakfast, but yes, I am," answered Manville.

"I'm sending the two of you to Homestead," said Grover. "We're going to get you a flying boat to make the trip to the island. You can read our additional briefing materials while we get a plane ready for you. Soon as you're ready, you're leaving for Florida."



The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 02



The sky over the mountains to the east had turned from night to twilight as they walked on the flight line. Lindstrom was in a flight suit. Manville was still in the flight suit he'd put on in California.

Manville saw that the Sabre that had gotten him to Nellis had been replaced by an F-89 Scorpion, built by Northrop. It had two seats, one more than the Sabre.

"Ever flown in a fighter jet, Dr. Lindstrom?" asked Manville.

"No," she said.

"Well, now's your chance. Walk onto the wing. You're in the back seat."

Lindstrom hesitated before going up the ladder to the wing. "Can you fly one of these?"

"I was in California three hours ago. You can't drive from Mojave to Vegas in a half-hour." Lindstrom walked carefully on the wing. "Step onto the seat with your right foot. Then pull your left leg over the side and put it in the footwell. You can't get into one of these very ladylike."

Lindstrom followed Manville's directions. After a few moments, all that was visible was her blonde hair and her face.

"Just hope there's enough gas in this." Manville went up the ladder. "The distance to Homestead is about the same as the range on this plane."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Manville got into the pilot's seat. "Put the helmet on first. Put the mask on when I fire it up. That'll turn on the oxygen and the radio. We can ditch in the Gulf if we need to."

"You had better be joking." Lindstrom wasn't sure what Manville was referring to.

"Well, we are flying over the Gulf. But we could gas up at Chennault in Louisiana if we had to. But I think I'm going to try to push it."

"Why?"

"Because, doctor, you never know how a plane will respond until you push it to its limits. You never find out what a car will do by driving 35 miles an hour."

"I'm not interested in finding out what this plane will do. I think we're expected to get to Florida in one piece."

"Relax. Max throttle isn't conducive to efficient use of fuel. And knowing the Air Force, they'd probably make me reimburse them for the $800,000 this plane costs."

Manville set the clock on the plane. "We should be there around 1000 ... I mean ... 1300 ... 1 o'clock in Florida. Hope they're still serving lunch by then."

Manville started the Scorpion's two engines. He then carefully stood partway up on the seat and looked back to Lindstrom. He pointed to his mouth to signal her to put on the facemask, which was attached to the left side of the helmet.

He shut the canopy, and then radioed the control tower as "Air Force 1863" to get takeoff clearance. He then turned on the intercom.

"Air flow is the control knob on the right," she heard through her helmet. "The smaller one is for headset volume. The mike button is on the helmet cord. Push to talk."

"What are all these controls I'm sitting in front of?"

"You're sitting in the radar operator's seat. Don't touch anything unless I tell you to."

"Aye aye, sir."

Manville smirked as he taxied onto the runway, pointing southwest. He checked the instruments one final time, then pushed the throttles forward. The Scorpion inched forward, then started rolling progressively faster. He started whistling "The U.S. Air Force" as the plane rushed down the runway.

Halfway down the runway, the nose began to lift. Two-thirds of the way down the runway, the wheels left the ground. The plane gained altitude at a 15-degree angle while Manville turned the plane 120 degrees to the left, heading to the east, the wild blue yonder. As he steered into the sun, he put down his helmet's face shield.

"That's Lake Mead below us," said Manville. "Grand Canyon in about 15 minutes."

The ground below them still had long shadows from the sun at the early hour.

"Dr. Manville?" said the voice from within Manville's helmet.

"Just call me Lance," said Manville. "I'm a Ph.D. I only use 'doctor' when I'm trying to get reservations. I think Ph.D.s who call themselves 'doctor' are insufferable."

"We doctors thank you for that."

Silence. Then, she asked, "What was your dissertation?"

"My what?"

"Your dissertation. If you have a Ph.D., you have to have a dissertation." She had gotten the hang of pushing-to-talk quickly.

"That's classified."

"That's what someone who didn't have a dissertation would say."

Smart girl, he thought. "I know, but I'm not kidding. It is classified. Ask General Grover the next time you see him."

Manville's dissertation was about creating an airplane wing that was able to change shape depending on the stage of flight. Instead of merely movable flaps and slats, Manville suggested that a wing could be designed that could move forward or backward, or portions of the wing could be moved forward or backward, or even up or down.

Manville's MIT advisor called the dissertation "very interesting ... but impossible given current realities of aviation construction." And then as soon as his meeting with doctoral student Manville was done, he immediately called the Pentagon.

Manville's next meeting with his advisor included another man, an Air Force general who demanded to know where he had gotten the information for his dissertation.

"I designed it myself," said Manville.

"That's impossible," said the general. "Do you believe him?"

"He mentioned to me something about a new wing design," said the advisor. "This is the first time I've seen this on paper."

"You know what he's done?"

"That's why I called you."

"I'm going to have to take that, Mr. ..."

"Manville. Lance Manville."

"Is this the only copy, Mr. Manville?"

"Yes, it is. I didn't make another copy. I was waiting to get revisions for my next draft."

"Give him an A-plus, professor, and make sure no one else learns about this," said the general. "That includes you, Mr. Manville."

Shortly thereafter, Manville was notified that his draft status had been changed from 1S(C) to 2B — occupation in a war industry.

Manville's cover story was that he was working as a designer for North American Aviation. In truth he was working for the Air Force on advanced jet designs, working with North American, Bell, Convair, Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, McDonnell, Northrop, Vought and other aircraft manufacturers.

Manville's services were highly sought after because he had the ability to fly prototypes of the planes he was designing and make design changes based on his flight experience. He wasn't a test pilot, but he could provide a second opinion to corroborate, or challenge, the experience of test pilots. With the U.S. in the height of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and the additional threat of Red China, the Air Force sought every possible advantage.

"So what was yours?" asked Manville.

"My what?"

"Your dissertation."

"Oh. It was fiction."

"You wrote a novel for your doctorate?"

She laughed. "No. It was about the kinds of living environments other than Earth's atmosphere in which humans could live."

"So that's why you're on this UFO chase."

"Who said anything about UFOs?"

"Well, what else could it be? The Russians can't make metal appear and disappear. Shape-changing ... creatures?"

"I think you've been at too-high altitude too long. The air's thin up there."

"You may be right," Manville said. "How long were you at Nellis?"

"I got there a week ago. The Air Force flew me to Washington, and then back for this morning's meeting."

"Nellis is not the most exciting place to visit."

"I never left the base while I was there."

"I bet the jocks were drooling around you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The jocks. The test pilots. Not many civilian women on an Air Force base."

He flew close enough over the Grand Canyon to be able to see it, then increased altitude to comfortably clear the Rocky Mountains.

"How high are we?" asked Lindstrom.

"Angels 34," answered Manville. "Thirty-four thousand feet. So how do you feel about being classified 'expendable'?"

After a short silence, Lindstrom answered, "Nobody's ever called me 'expendable' before now."

"Welcome to the service. Everyone's cannon fodder. Including, apparently, people who just work for the military and aren't actually in it."

"Did you serve?"

"I was in high school when World War II ended. I was still at MIT when Korea broke out. So I never got drafted."

The terrain below flattened as the jet flew past New Mexico over Texas. 

"What do you think this is?" asked Lindstrom.

"This is Texas below us."

"Not that. I mean, where we're going."

"I think we're not supposed to jump to conclusions."

"But you have to have some kind of idea."

There was silence for several seconds. "I certainly want to meet the guy who developed that metal. That's a feat that doesn't seem possible."

After a while, he said, "Gulf of Mexico on your right."

"Are you stopping in Louisiana?"

"No, I have plenty of gas left. This plane's max speed is 550 knots. We're only going about 400. Why? Do you need to stop?"

"I'm fine. I am getting a little stiff back here."

"You can't get out and stretch in one of these things. Flights like these are really not what these planes are designed to do. The Air Force usually flies people on transports — a C-54 or something like that, or they just throw you on a civilian plane. So they must really want to see us today."

There was silence for about a minute. "By this time tomorrow, we might be flying in the Caribbean. You should have married your boyfriend while you had the chance."

"What?"

"Your boyfriend."

"Is that all you think women are good for? Being wives and mothers?"

There was silence while Manville tried to extricate himself out of the mess his mouth had gotten himself into. "No, of course not. I just thought ... I can't believe you haven't had to ward off men with a baseball bat."

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel complimented or not." The tone of her voice switched abruptly from hostility to as if she was enjoying Manville's verbal predicament.

"Obviously you know what you're doing, or else Grover wouldn't have brought you in on this ... whatever 'this' is."

"In my experience, male doctors look at women as someone to have dinner ready when they're done at the golf course."

"I think my mother would agree with you. She's a nurse. I've heard stories."

"Is your father a pilot?"

"No. My grandfather was. I used to visit him summers, and that's where I kind of got the flying bug. Dad never thought flying as a career was very practical. Grandpa had a couple of flying businesses. One of them went under, and then he died in a plane crash."

"I'm sorry."

"He always said he wanted to die doing what he loved to do. I guess he did. Anyway, Dad suggested designing planes might be a way to get into aviation without the risk of being a pilot. I don't think he thought I'd be flying the planes I was designing."

For a couple minutes, there was silence from the back seat. "I don't know why you'd want to bring children into this world anyway."

"What?"

"Isn't it obvious? We just killed millions of people 10 years ago, and now we have nuclear missiles pointed at a country that was our ally in that war. And they have nuclear missiles pointed back at us."

If you only knew, Manville thought to himself. "Some things are worth dying for, because some things are worth fighting for. If our parents had thought that way because of World War I, neither of us would be here right now."

"I guess I understand how you might feel that way. You're part of it."

"Part of defending our country, yes. I admit that building weapons with the idea of not having to use them doesn't seem to make sense. Hell, it doesn't make sense. Having a country be your ally in one war and then your enemy in the next one doesn't make sense either."

"But you believe better dead then red?"

A pause came from the front seat. "I guess."

"Do engineers usually wax philosophical?"

"Not usually." He paused. "Of course, they don't usually fly either."



The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 03



The rest of that day, and all of the next day, were spent preparing for their reconnaissance mission. Manville took several flights in the plane they'd be flying, a Grumman SA-16 Albatross flying boat.

Manville spent time at a shooting range with the .45 automatic he'd be carrying. He took the gun, while suspecting it would be inadequate for whatever they'd find on the island. 

Dana's day was spent learning to use the measuring equipment the plane would have onboard. She suspected it would be thoroughly inadequate as well, in addition to its not being portable.

At the end of a long day, Manville and Lindstrom sat in Homestead's commissary eating a late dinner.

Manville and Lindstrom were eating steaks. "Food in the military usually only qualifies as 'food' by the loosest possible definition," he said. "But this isn't too bad by military standards."

"The condemned man's last meal?" asked Lindstrom.

Manville smiled. "You're catching on," he said. "Although I assume they'll be feeding us breakfast before we go tomorrow."

"Do you believe in the Bermuda Triangle?"

Manville looked at Lindstrom. She didn't appear fearful, only curious.

"I believe that there have been a lot of plane accidents and shipwrecks in the Bermuda Triangle," he said slowly. "Back in October there was a Navy R7V-1 flight out of Maryland heading to the Azores. Forty-two passengers and crew. Disappeared without a trace. 

"I saw the Navy's report: 'a sudden and violent force, that rendered the aircraft no longer airworthy ... beyond the scope of human endeavor to control. The force that rendered the aircraft uncontrollable is unknown.'"

"Were you involved in investigating that?"

Manville smiled. "That's classified."

Manville ate an onion ring. "U.S.S. Cyclops. Navy ship, went down right after leaving Barbados in 1918. Three hundred nineteen on board. Down without a trace. Biggest single loss of life in Navy history to date.

"Navy flight of Avenger bombers, training flight out of Fort Lauderdale in 1945. Not only did all five disappear, but one of the rescue planes the Navy sent out to find them also disappeared.

"DC-3 flight from San Juan to Miami. Disappeared 20 minutes before it was supposed to land. Twenty-eight passengers."

"How do you know all that?"

"Classified, remember?" Manville paused. "But that's some of the heaviest traveled airspace and ocean on the planet. There are all kinds of other potential explanations that you can't investigate if you can't find the wreck — mechanical failure, overloading, inaccurate compass readings. Pilot error. And if you study plane crashes, usually you find there was more than one cause anyway. Usually, there's a chain of cascading events that leads to the crash.

"Anyway, the Atlantic is a big ocean, and that's a half-million square miles out there."

Manville finished his coffee. "I'd offer to buy you an after-dinner drink, but I have to fly tomorrow, and I don't think we're allowed off the base anyway."

"I suspect you're right."

"So what about you?"

"Me?"

"What do you think this is?"

"The Bermuda Triangle?"

"No, whatever it is you're supposed to be investigating as part of this little expedition of ours."

"I think my explanation of what the blood does is similar to your explanation about what the metal does."

"Which is to say, there isn't one."

"Unless you believe in life beyond Earth."

Manville laughed.

"You don't?" she asked.

"Not until they show up here."

"You don't think life on other planets is at least possible?"

"There isn't any evidence that there is."

"You mean, there isn't any evidence that we've found."

"Well, of course."

The next morning, Manville and Lindstrom walked onto the flight line, where their Albatross was parked. They were back in flight suits. Manville was wearing sunglasses. Manville wore a gun belt with a .45-caliber automatic.

Manville yawned. He looked at his watch.

"I think my body still thinks it's 6 in the morning," he said. "If nothing else, I'm getting very varied flying experience in the past 24 hours."

Manville put his and Lindstrom's bags in the back. "Ever flown a plane before?"

"You flew me in one yesterday," she said.

"That isn't what I meant — have you ever flown a plane before?"

"No, I haven't. Why do you ask?"

"Well, technically you're the copilot. This plane is supposed to have a crew of five, including a pilot and copilot."

The Albatross indeed had yokes for a pilot and copilot. The throttles were mounted on the ceiling of the cockpit between the two.

"Nobody said anything about flying a plane," said Lindstrom.

"Then you better hope nothing happens to me," said Manville. "Or that you're a fast learner."

Manville sat in the pilot's seat. He pointed out the instruments in front of the wheel — airspeed, radio compass and artificial horizon on the top row, rate of climb and altimeter on either side of the yoke. 

"You find it unusual that here's this big top secret operation, involving just two people?" asked Manville.

"I don't have the experience with top secret things you seem to have," said Lindstrom.

Manville smiled. "Ever read Ben Franklin? 'Three can keep a secret ...'"

"'... if two of them are dead,'" finished Lindstrom. 

"Uh huh. I'm not even sure what the hell we're supposed to do once we find this island, if we do find it. This plane isn't armed. Are we supposed to land and knock on the door? Radio back so they can send out a B-52?"

"What are we going to do?"

Manville shrugged. "I guess we'll figure it out when we get there ... assuming we do find it. If this thing only shows up at night ... well, this isn't night. But we're not equipped to do a night search anyway." He sighed. "You can't do your biology thing from the air anyway."

Manville flipped a switch. A high-pitched whine came from their right, and then the right-side engine coughed to life.

Manville reached over to the headphones draped around the copilot's yoke and handed them to Lindstrom. He flipped the switch next to it, and another high-pitched whine was followed by the left-side engine coming to life.

He put on the pilot's headphones.

"Put your hands on the wheel, but don't do anything," said Manville. "Just let the wheel move your hands. Same thing with your feet on the pedals."

Manville got clearance from the Homestead tower.

"You'll notice this is not a jet," Manville said as he pulled the throttles forward. 

Compared in Lindstrom's mind with the Scorpion, everything seemed to be in slow motion.

Manville stopped at the entrance to the runway. He held his hand out parallel to the floor of the plane.

"Principles of flight," he said. "Pitch," and he moved his hand from his wrist as if it were a teeter-totter, "roll," and he twisted his hand and wrist, "yaw is left and right.

"Push the yoke, pitch goes down; pull back, it goes up. The pedals and the yoke turn the plane left and right. The yoke controls roll, left or right."

Once in the air, Manville executed a leisurely turn eastward. 

"You'll be able to see Grand Bahama to the right," said Manville. "This is going to take us a good 2½ hours, and that's pushing it."

Flying at nearly full throttle the entire time, they arrived at the map coordinates in 2 hours and 20 minutes, having traveled 400 miles east and slightly southeast.

Manville dropped the Albatross to 2,000 feet and slowed to usual cruising speed. He handed the binoculars to Lindstrom while he took a wide circle around where the island was supposed to be.

"Do you see anything?" he asked after the orbit was completed.

"There's nothing but ocean down there that I can see."

Manville took the binoculars and held them to his eyes with one hand while he steered the yoke with the other to roll the plane at a nearly 45-degree angle to be able to see the ocean. He duplicated the circle he had flown before.

"I don't see anything either," he said. "I'm going to go out farther."

Manville dropped the plane to 1,500 feet and took three orbits consecutively wider. He saw nothing but open water — no bodies of land, and no ships.

For the next hour, Manville flew over the map coordinates in a search pattern, flying out 25 miles, turning 180 degrees, flying back another 25 miles, and turning back. Lindstrom kept looking, even getting out of the copilot's seat to watch from midplane.

Lindstrom came back, shaking her head.

"Getting time to go," said Manville. The plane was reaching the point where it had to return to Homestead or risk running out of fuel. He assumed if needed he could land in the Bahamas or San Juan or Havana, but he was familiar with no airfields in Puerto Rico, and heading into an unfamiliar airfield while running out of fuel was generally not recommended. Nor was flying a military plane into an unfamiliar airfield in a foreign country while running out of fuel.

Manville was about to hit the transmit button to radio Homestead when he noticed his instruments. The heading indicator and artificial horizon were spinning around, and the altimeter and vertical speed indicator needles were oscillating wildly. Only the airspeed indicator and turn coordinator appeared to be working normally.

"What the hell," said Manville.

"What's wrong?" said Lindstrom.

"The instruments are acting strange," he said. He was startled, but not panicking. The plane appeared to his eyes to be flying straight and level. His watch said it was noon, so he could look at the plane's shadow on the ocean to determine north, and flying 90 degrees to the left of north would be west, back toward Florida.

He hit the transmit button. "Air Force 2121 to Homestead tower. Air Force 2121 to Homestead tower. Come in. Over."

The radio was silent. He repeated the hail twice. Nothing.

"And now the radio isn't working," he said. "Having a radioman on this plane would be helpful right now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I can still get us back." At least back in the right general direction, he thought to himself.

He started wondering if he had spoken too soon when his right engine began sputtering.

Manville was flying south into the sun. He decided to try to turn right to head west.

"I thought you said we had enough gas," said Lindstrom. Her voice was slightly higher than it usually was.

"We do. Or we should." He pointed at the fuel gauges, which were below half, but too far to not get back safely.

His airspeed was down to 75 knots. He knew that was close to the Albatross' stall speed. He pushed the left engine's throttle to the firewall to try to gain speed. 

Instead of gaining rpm, the left engine began stumbling like the right engine.

"Get your seatbelt on," said Manville. "We may be landing before we get back to Homestead."

The right engine shuddered and stopped running.

Manville hit the transmit button. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Air Force 2121. We are ... about 220 miles east of Nassau. We have lost power and are losing altitude. Air Force 2121."

Nothing answered back.

Then the left engine died. The plane began to dive as it slowed past stall speed.

Manville pushed on the yoke trying to gain airspeed. Diving made the plane sink faster, but going faster might allow him to control the rate of descent better so he could land on the water instead of crashing into the water. Even a flying boat would break up if it hit the water at too steep an angle.

"Hang on," said Manville grimly. 

The plane dropped through 400 feet. At 200 feet, the rate of descent started to slow. At 100 feet, the rate of descent allowed Manville to think he might be able to land on the water.

At 50 feet, he saw an island in front of him. He tried to pull up so the plane would fly over the island. The plane didn't respond. He tried to turn left to miss the island. The plane didn't respond.

"Get your head down!" he yelled to Lindstrom.

A wing of the plane hit a tree on the island. The plane sank to the water and hit it hard. And that was the last moment of consciousness for Manville and Lindstrom.



The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 04



Manville and Lindstrom lay on two lab tables inside a laboratory. Both were nude. Neither was restrained because they were unconscious.

A large bald man in a lab coat looked pleased with himself. 

The man called himself Socrates Prometheus, after the Greek philosopher and the Greek god who supposedly created man from clay.

Prometheus had observed the seaplane crash-land. The electromagnetic beam on his island had scrambled the plane's instrumentation, disabled the radio, and caused fuel starvation in the engines.

The first stages of his plan had worked nearly perfectly.

He was pleased to find the two occupants were unconscious, but alive, and actually not seriously injured. Nevertheless, just in case, he injected sedatives to make sure they remained unconscious when he got them to his lab.

Besides the electromagnetic beam, Prometheus' island had technology no place on Earth had. A small nuclear generator provided electric power for the island, including the ventilation and filtering system for the germ-free lab. A computer half the size of American supercomputers controlled most of the island's mechanical functions.

A similar-sized computer powered the laboratory. Had Lindstrom been conscious, she would have stood in awe at the analytical capabilities of the laboratory. The 10 largest hospitals and the 10 largest universities in the U.S. didn't possess as much combined diagnostic and analytical abilities as Prometheus' laboratory. And no one on the planet possessed any of Prometheus's genetic modification abilities.

Instead of being an observer, Lindstrom, along with Manville, was the object of Prometheus' work.

Prometheus admired the two nude bodies. Dana was a model of classic Nordic beauty, with her curves narrowing from her hips to her waist, then widening again past her breasts to her shoulders. Her large breasts rose and fell with her even breathing. 

Lance looked like a runner or swimmer, not muscle-bound, but physically built more for endurance than for power, with long arms and legs. His penis lay below his stomach, pointing toward his navel.

Standing next to Prometheus was a female assistant, wearing a lab coat as did Prometheus. She was more curvy and had larger breasts than Dana. 

"This is how the human body reproduces, Athena. The male produces sperm," he said, holding up Lance's testicles, "which is delivered through the penis," and he held up Lance's penis, "into the woman's uterus."

He reached to the other table, pointing at Dana's vagina, then above it to where her uterus would be. "One of his sperm penetrates one of her eggs, and fertilization occurs. The fertilized egg is implanted into the uterine wall, cell division occurs, and in approximately nine of your months is the birth. Elementary biology."

Prometheus turned to Athena. "But there is more to human reproduction than that. Much more. And this is key to what we are trying to do."

Prometheus walked over to Dana's nude body. He put his hand inside Dana between her legs.

"She is a virgin," said Prometheus. "We can conclude that she has little in the way of sexual experience. But ... come here."

Athena stood in front of the table.

"Examine her body, Athena. Note how and where it is similar to yours."

Athena opened her lab coat. Prometheus had told her to wear nothing underneath it.

Athena noticed that Dana had smaller breasts than hers. Dana was also taller, and her hips were not as wide as Athena's. Dana's blonde hair ran to her shoulders, while Athena's black hair ran past the middle of her back. Athena also noticed her pubic hair was thicker than Dana's.

Athena touched Dana's left breast, first gently, than more firmly. Dana's nipples began to grow and harden, though Dana remained unconscious.

Athena reached inside her lab coat and held her own left breast. She tweaked her nipple, then Dana's. She noticed her own nipples hardening in the same way Dana's were hardening.

"You see the nature of attraction," said Prometheus. "Reproduction occurs only between the male and the female of the species. But in some cases, females can be attracted to their own sex. As can males.

"Reproduction is far more than a biological process. In order to reproduce, humans must be attracted to each other. This involves biochemical responses that humans do not know exist. Those are imperative for our efforts."

Prometheus took a syringe, held it above Dana's abdomen, then plunged it in two inches above her genitalia. He pulled the plunger upward, extracted fluid, and then pulled it out.

"We're going to extract from each of them these biochemicals, and transfer them into each other's bodies," said Prometheus. "I believe this will make them biochemically attracted to each other. 

"To begin, we need a sample of her genital secretions. The best way to get them is to stimulate her."

Athena moved to the end of the table. She took Dana's ankles in her hands and moved them to the corners of the table to open her legs.

"I think you'll find you can stimulate another woman in the same way you can stimulate yourself," said Prometheus.

Athena took her hand and pushed her fingers inside Dana. She probed, then found the spot inside her. She started stroking it.

She noticed Dana's nipples harden further. Her finger inside Dana was becoming wet. Athena also noticed almost imperceptible movement of Dana's hips. Dana's legs slightly widened.

Athena suddenly noticed that Dana wasn't the only woman becoming wet between her legs in the lab. She licked her own lips and reached between her own legs. She stroked her own clitoris in the same way and at the same time she stroked Dana's. She wondered if Dana was feeling the way she herself was feeling now.

Prometheus watched with more than a trace of amusement. He felt almost sorry that in this body he was unable to engage in sexual activity, let alone reproduce. His species' inability to reproduce was the point of this entire latest experiment.

Athena withdrew her finger from inside Dana. She grabbed a glass slide with one hand, and with the other she ran her finger over the glass, depositing Dana's vaginal secretions onto the slide.

At the other lab table, Prometheus examined Lance's genitals. 

"They appear adequate," said Prometheus. "More than adequate, in fact."

Prometheus took a syringe and stuck it into one of Lance's testicles. He withdrew some fluid, then set it aside. He took another syringe and stuck it into the other testicle, repeating the process.

"Come here, Athena," said Prometheus, putting the syringes aside.

Athena, her lab coat open, came over.

"Stimulate him," he said.

Athena put one hand on Lance's penis. She cupped her hand around the shaft and then began pulling away from his body. She felt his testicles with the other.

"Even when unconscious, the male can be stimulated," said Prometheus. "Open his legs."

Athena pushed one foot toward one corner of the table, and pushed the other foot toward the other end.

Athena resumed with Lance's genitals.

"You found what is called a clitoris," said Prometheus. "It is a gland that appears to have a role in a female's arousal. Men have what is called a prostate gland. It is actively involved in a male's arousal."

Prometheus reached between Lance's legs and pushed his hand inside Lance's anus. He found Lance's prostate and started massaging it. Athena continued caressing Lance's genitals.

"There is a nerve behind his testicles," said Prometheus.

Athena probed behind Lance's testicles. She was rewarded by his erection lifting when she touched it.

"Notice that my stimulating his prostate is increasing his arousal," said Prometheus. 

Prometheus grabbed a glass tube and placed it on the table.

A drop of white liquid formed on the head of Lance's penis. Prometheus put the tube over the end of Lance's penis. 

"Now, do not touch the head, but continue with the shaft and the testicles," Prometheus told Athena. 

Lance's penis grew to fill the open end of the tube. Prometheus let go of Lance's penis, which had grown large enough to hold the tube in place by itself. The weight of the tube stretched Lance's penis, and the tube itself added two inches to his penis' length, now pointing toward his head. The tube moved slightly with Lance's heartbeat.

"A probe, Athena — an inch and a half," said Prometheus.

Athena brought over a stainless steel cylinder, 1½ inches in diameter. One end was flat, the other hemispherical.

"We had better lubricate this," said Prometheus, looking at Dana. "But be careful."

Athena took the probe over to Dana and pushed it slowly inside her, stopping when she felt resistance. She then pulled it back slowly and rotated it inside Dana.

She then pulled the probe out of Dana, walked over to Prometheus, and gave it to him. Prometheus pulled his hand out of Lance, then held up the probe, examined the moisture on it, and then slowly inserted it into Lance's anus. He pushed the probe in until it touched Lance's prostate, then pulled it out, then reinserted it, back and forth as though the probe were having sex with Lance.

A minute later, thick white fluid began streaming from Lance's penis into the tube. The penis and the tube bounced as Lance's genitals ejaculated semen.

Prometheus pulled the tube off Lance's penis before it fell off. Lance's penis was red and wet and still semi-erect.

Prometheus took the tube of Lance's semen to a microscope. "Bring over the syringes and the slides," he told Athena.

Prometheus first put the slides under a microscope one at a time. He took a clipboard and wrote some notes as he examined each. Then he took the syringes and squirted some of their contents onto clean slides, using the edge of a slide to spread the fluids over the entire surface of the slide, then examining each under the microscope.

Finally, he took the vial with Lance's semen over to a larger microscope. He poured some of its contents onto a slide, spread it with the edge of another slide, and put the sample under the microscope.

"Excellent," said Prometheus. "This could not possibly be better. They are ideal candidates, Athena."

Prometheus grabbed four additional syringes. He walked over to Dana and felt around the inside of her legs. Finding what he was looking for, he stuck in the syringe and pulled out more fluid. He went to an armpit, again found what he sought, and pulled out more fluid.

With the other syringes he went to Lance and repeated the process, drawing fluid from a spot inside Lance's groin and an armpit.

Prometheus took the eight syringes — Dana's three in one hand, Lance's four in the other — to a machine about four feet high and four feet wide. He took Dana's three syringes and emptied their contents into a beaker. He took the four syringes from Lance and emptied them into another beaker. Despite having contents from three syringes instead of four, the beaker with Dana's fluids had more fluid.

"We're going to isolate those unique biochemicals and then introduce them to each other," he said. "First, the female."

Prometheus put the beaker into the machine and shut the door. He touched four buttons and then twisted two dials. A series of lights flashed, and then two green lights lit up.

About 10 feet away, another machine suddenly began operating. After several seconds, a single punchcard appeared at one end of the machine.

Prometheus then put the beaker with Lance's fluids into the machine and repeated the process. A second punchcard followed the first with the other machine.

Prometheus took the second punchcard and inserted it into the first machine. After 30 seconds, the two green lights went out. He took the beaker out. Its contents had been distilled into fluid one-fourth inch deep in the bottom of the beaker.

He then repeated the process with the first punchcard and the first beaker. The fluid in that beaker was slightly higher.

During the sampling process, Athena had sterilized the syringes. He took one and filled it with fluid from Dana's beaker. He injected fluid into two spots in Dana's groin and one in each armpit.

"Her body now will produce more reproductive biochemicals," said Prometheus. 

He took the beaker and an eyedropper. He drew fluid with the eyedropper, and put two drops into each of Lance's eyes. He drew more fluid and put two drops into each of Lance's nostrils. He drew more fluid, opened Lance's mouth, and deposited it onto his tongue.

"The human brain responds to sensory signals," said Prometheus. "When she sees him ... when he inhales her unique odor ... their brains will remind them of their attraction to each other."

Prometheus took the beaker and filled another syringe. He reached between Lance's legs, and between his testicles and anus he stuck the needle in at a 45-degree upward angle and pushed in the plunger.

He poured the rest of the beaker's contents onto Lance's penis. It dripped down the head and shaft.

"And his body will now react more actively to what her body produces," he said. "They should be able to be bred a theoretically infinite number of times."

He repeated the process with the beaker with Lance's fluids, injecting fluid into Lance's testicles and both of his armpits. He then used another eyedropper to put more of Lance's fluids into Dana's eyes, nostrils and tongue.

He concluded the process by drawing the rest of Lance's fluids into a syringe. He reached between Dana's legs, and injected the contents of the syringe into Dana's clitoris.

Prometheus walked over to Lance's table and pushed it closer to Dana's.

"If our process works, the results should be evident soon," said Prometheus. "We have genetically programmed them to respond to each other whenever they are near each other."

"How long will they be attracted to each other?" asked Athena.

Prometheus thought. "They are now genetically programmed to respond to each other," he said. "The only way that could be reversed is by reprogramming ... or deprogramming. Without that ... their attraction should be permanent. You should check her body as you did before."

Athena looked down at Dana's body. Dana's nipples were rock hard on top of breasts that actually appeared to have grown in size. Her face was flushed, and her lips appeared more full.

Athena reached inside Dana. She was wet without Athena having to do anything to her.

"Look at our male," said Prometheus.

Athena turned to look at Lance. His penis was red and pointed straight to the ceiling at a 20-degree angle from vertical.



The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 05



Lance opened his eyes. He didn't recognize the room he saw as his vision cleared.

He looked down and saw he was naked. That fact didn't startle him. The size and stiffness of his erection did startle him.

Lance had awakened with erections before, usually because he had to urinate. This was more like having your girlfriend give you a blow job just before you blew your load.

Lance sat up and looked around the room. It had two doors on either end of one wall, but no windows. The bed he was laying on was the only item in the room.

Some kind of ventilation system seemed to be running, given the fact that the air in the room seemed fresh. Despite his lack of clothing, the temperature of the room felt, to quote Goldilocks, not too hot or too cold — just right.

Lance stood up. Not only did he have an erection, but his testicles felt bigger and heavier. Or at least they seemed that way, although he wasn't used to sitting around naked determining how his genitals felt. He had spent even less time examining his chest, but his nipples looked hard. Indeed, his skin felt flushed, as though he had been in a gym.

Lance went to the door in one corner. It was locked. He then went to the door on the other side of the wall. It opened into a small room that had a large can-shaped container on the floor, a bowl-shaped container on one side next to it with a tube coming out of the wall, and a square platform with another tube coming out of the wall on the opposite side. When he walked into the room, the ceiling became brighter.

A bathroom? It didn't look like any bathroom he'd ever seen, but that could be a toilet, and a sink, and a shower, he supposed.

Lance looked down on the floor, but his penis — bigger, redder and stiffer than he'd ever seen it before — blocked his view.

What should I do about this? he wondered. The last thing captives usually think about is getting their rocks off, he thought. He also wondered what the consequences of masturbating to orgasm might be from whoever was holding him captive.

Lance didn't know it, but not far from him Dana had awakened in an identical room.

She had a similar physical reaction after she noticed her own nudity. The first thing she felt upon standing is that her breasts felt heavier and larger. She had never seen her nipples as large or as hard as they were. Her skin seemed hot and felt moist.

She turned her head and felt her hair. She had pulled it back that morning. (This morning? What day is this? she thought.) Her hair was now down on her shoulders. 

Between her legs she felt different too. Slowly, she touched herself between her legs. Tentatively, she probed inside her vagina. It was wet. When she brushed past her clitoris, she felt a sensual jolt that almost buckled her knees.

She sat back onto the bed. What was this? She tried to be clinical and remember how her sexual organs were supposed to feel. She felt different — everything felt more sensitive and achy — when she had her period every month, but that's not how this felt, she thought to herself. Sensitive, yes, but no pain or ache.

How she felt wasn't the only mystery. She tried to recall the last thing that she could remember. She remembered the plane going down after flying over an island that suddenly appeared in front of them.

But that wasn't the last thing she remembered, she realized. She had a vague memory of being prodded and poked ... and of its feeling good, almost sexual.

Not almost sexual, she realized. That was how it felt ... as though someone was playing with her body to sexually arouse her.

Well, if that's what happened, it worked to perfection, she thought. Her right hand went down to her groin. She touched herself again, just once, to see if she got a repeat of the lightning bolt she got the first time. She did.

Suddenly, her door opened. The woman who came through the door was wearing something that looked like a kimono that stopped short of her knees. Her body was almost outrageously curvy, from wide hips to narrow waist to breasts larger than hers. Her hair was dark and went halfway down her back.

"Welcome," said the woman, who had a voice that could almost be described as musical. "Please follow me."

"Where are we going?"

"To dinner."

"But ... I'm not dressed."

"Yes, you are."

Athena then went into the room across the hallway from Dana. Moments later Lance emerged, as naked as Dana and, based on the more visual evidence between his legs, every bit as aroused as Dana.

Dana looked at Lance's groin, then looked into his eyes, embarrassed. She caught Lance ogling her body. She thought to be offended, then decided against it since she was doing the same thing.

Athena took one of Dana's hands and one of Lance's. The three walked down the hallway to a large room with what looked like a dining table.

"Welcome to my island," said the other man. "I am Socrates Prometheus. You have already met Athena. Dr. Lindstrom, Dr. Manville."

Prometheus waved them to two chairs on the same side of the table.

"I find it interesting that when people are abducted they don't more often have their clothing removed from them," said Prometheus. "Your conventions about clothing and nudity being what they are, one would think removing clothing would make an escape attempt less likely. Of course, you have nowhere to which to escape. Nevertheless, you were born in this skin of yours, so that should be adequate for you, particularly here."

Out of the corner of his eye Lance had full view of Dana's breasts rising and falling as she breathed, along with her pubic hair, which didn't help reduce his erection at all. Out of the corner of her eye Dana had full view of Lance's erection. She had to resist the urge to reach out and touch it, to see what would happen.

Prometheus and Athena brought out plates for each of them. Their two captors sat on opposite ends of the table. Prometheus was dressed in a floor-length robe, like Athena's only all the way to his feet. Both were barefoot.

The meal was mahi-mahi and shrimp, with sweet potatoes, okra, avocados, and a fruit salad featuring bananas, breadfruit, mango, papaya and pineapple. A fruit punch accompanied dinner.

Lance hadn't eaten since breakfast, so he would have eaten a mahi mahi live from the ocean.

Dana thought she tasted ginger and nutmeg seasoning the food.

"This is incredible," said Lance.

"It's delicious," said Dana.

"All grown on this island," said Prometheus. "Except for the seafood, of course."

After eating a chunk of pineapple, Lance said, "I have to ask ..."

"I am sure you have a thousand questions," said Prometheus. 

"Beginning with this island."

"Of course. I am aware your Air Force has been looking for this island without success. Let us just say I have a desire for privacy."

"Socrates Prometheus?" Dana asked. "Are you Greek?"

Prometheus laughed. "I have studied your ancient Greeks. They had an admirable society, though somewhat naïve."

"So who are you?"

"I am ... a traveler. A colonist, if you will. I have come here to establish a colony."

"A colony of ...?"

"I will tell you when you are ready to know."

"If you know something about the Greeks, you must know about the Sphinx," said Lance.

That elicited a hearty laugh. "Very good, Doctor. Not only are you an expert in aviation, you appear to be well read as well."

Prometheus leaned back in his chair. "I have been observing your society for quite some time. You have societies that are quite different from each other."

"If you've been observing us, you know that humans exercise free will," said Dana.

"That's what makes human beings human beings," said Lance. He wondered if Prometheus had had a listening device back at Homestead.

"What would you call your Second World War? 'Free will'?"

"Our country was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor," said Lance. "America's allies were being attacked by Germany. War is a bad thing, but it is not the worst thing."

"Dr. Lindstrom, do you believe mankind is perfectible? Or improvable?"

As Dana's breasts rose as she began to speak, Lance thought she may not be perfect, but he wasn't interested in changing a thing about her.

"That depends on what you mean by 'improve,'" Dana said. "Physically? Certainly. We have vaccinations to prevent diseases. We have treatments to cure diseases. We know how to eat better to improve our health."

"Are you one of those healing your fellow man?"

"In a manner of speaking. I am trained as a physician, but my work is in research. That is one of the ways we improve health."

"What about improving human nature?"

Dana thought this was turning into a philosophy debate from freshman year in college. She also found concentrating difficult because of the itch between her legs. 

"I don't know," she finally said. "As long as we have free will, some people will make wrong decisions. Some believe people do certain things — commit crimes — because of their environment. How they were raised. Others believe that some people are just ... evil, or at least some people will do wrong things."

"Dr. Manville, what do you think? You create machines of war, after all. You now have weapons that could destroy your world."

Lance was not used to philosophy debates while sitting naked with a huge erection during a dinner. He watched Dana squirming on her seat and thought that he would be happy to help Dana relieve whatever was making her squirm.

"Weapons that we have no intention of using unless our enemy uses them first," he said.

"If you use those weapons, your world is destroyed, regardless of who uses them first."

"That could happen, yes. My country's belief is the presence of these weapons — our ability to destroy the enemy — prevents our enemy from using weapons that could destroy us. If our enemy attacks us, we may be destroyed, but so will they. Assuming they are rational, and they realize we can destroy them as they can destroy us, that prevents war."

"Do you realize how illogical that sounds?"

"No one ever said humans were logical."

Prometheus laughed. "It is a shame that humans are so, as you put it, illogical. Perhaps we should find a way to improve the thought process of the species.

"But that is a subject for another day. I would be delighted to give you a tour of our facilities here ... tomorrow. Athena, I think our guests need some rest."

Athena got up to lead Lance and Dana back to her rooms.

Prometheus gave Athena a look. Athena smiled.

Athena led the two to their rooms across from each other, Lance first.

Dana walked into her room. The door closed behind Athena.

Dana walked back to the door and tried to open it. It was immovable. There was no door knob or handle of any sort on the door. How did Athena open and close it? Dana wondered.

Well, it was worth a try, she thought. She felt full and sleepy. And still uncomfortably aroused.

She lay on her back on the bed. No sheets or blankets or pillows were on the bed. And yet because of the room temperature, she didn't feel cold; in fact, she felt warm. She opened her legs slightly hoping she might cool off.

She was nearly asleep when the door to her room opened.

Through the darkness she saw someone closing the door. It was Athena.

Dana sat up in the bed, but before she could say anything Athena put her finger to Dana's lips as if to stop her from speaking. 

And then Athena kissed Dana. Dana stiffened at the unexpected, seemingly unnatural, act. And then suddenly her resistance disappeared as Athena kissed Dana more deeply.

Athena continued kissing Dana as she slowly but firmly pushed Dana to lay down on the bed. As she lay back on the bed, Dana realized Athena was as nude as she was.

Athena broke off the kiss to lick and suck on Dana's throat. Dana's heartbeat sped up and her breathing increased. Athena caressed her belly, sides, back and hips while kissing her.

Athena's lips traveled lower, down Dana's chest until she reached Dana's cleavage. Athena licked between Dana's breasts, then sucked on Dana's nipples, first one, then the other. Dana gasped when Athena's lips touched her nipples.

Athena continued fondling Dana's breasts while her mouth traveled downward. She rolled her tongue around Dana's navel, causing Dana to arch her body toward Athena.

Athena returned her lips to Dana's. Their tongues caressed each other's. With one hand, Athena caressed Dana's left breast; with her other hand, she reached between Dana's legs and traced around Dana's vaginal lips.

Athena could feel Dana's increased breathing through her mouth. She felt the sharp intake of breath when she reached inside Dana to touch her clitoris. She started stroking Dana's clitoris slowly and gently, first along its length, then circling it.

With a flick of Dana's clitoris, Athena caused Dana to orgasm for the first time in her life by someone other than herself. She covered Dana's mouth with hers as Dana gave a long, drawn-out cry.

Athena waited until Dana's breathing slowed to near normal. She then moved down to Dana's legs and opened them. She took Dana's hips in her hands and moved her head between her legs. She nibbled around Dana's genitals before licking her vaginal lips.

Athena pushed her tongue inside Dana and started licking her clitoris. Dana's hips bucked when Athena's tongue touched her sweet spot. It took only 30 seconds of licking before Dana came for the second time, her head tilted back, her back arched.

Athena kissed Dana deeply again, her lips and chin soaked from Dana's orgasms. Athena then ran her tongue from her lips down Dana's chin and throat, between her breasts and down her stomach all the way back to her vagina to resume making Dana come again. She picked up Dana's legs and put them around her shoulders to allow her tongue to penetrate more deeply. Athena's fingers played with Dana's backside and in between while her tongue worked toward Dana's third orgasm.

Athena pushed two of her fingers inside Dana while licking her clitoris. Dana came again, now drenching Athena's hand in her sexual juices.

In the dim light, Athena looked at Dana, her blonde hair sprayed around her head, her legs open, her chest heaving, her nipples as hard as pebbles. Athena had given Dana a sexual experience unlike any she had ever had in her life.

Athena took her by the hand and pulled her off the bed to stand in front of her. Their bodies touched as they kissed, their nipples touching each other. 

Athena led her by the hand out of the room. Dana followed, her mind too inundated with pheromones to resist. Athena stopped in front of Lance's room, and again put her finger on Dana's lips to quiet her, before kissing her again.

Athena opened the door to Lance's room. She led Dana inside.

Lance was asleep, but woke up to find Athena and Dana, both as nude as he was, standing in front of him.

Athena gave Lance an open-mouth kiss, and then gently pulled Dana down to Lance's face. Dana kissed Lance, who put his arms around her as their kiss deepened.

Athena caressed Dana's back and ass. She arranged Dana's legs so they were outside of Lance's. With one hand she toyed with Lance's genitals, which were growing harder; with the other she ran a finger around Dana's vagina to make her wet again and make sure she was ready for her deflowering.

Athena went down on Lance's penis, licking its head while caressing his testicles. She tasted his pre-ejaculate and stopped. Lance was for Dana, not for her.

Athena grabbed Lance's penis and put it at the entrance to Dana's vagina. Lance grabbed Dana by the hips as Athena pushed Dana down onto Lance's erection.

Lance's penis broke through Dana's hymen, and she cried out in pain. Athena cut off Dana's cry by kissing her again as Dana's virginal blood trickled onto Lance's penis.

Lance thrusted upward. Dana rode him, her head lolling back, her breasts bouncing with every thrust, her body tightening around Lance, the pain of her deflowering quickly forgotten. Neither could see the other well, but they could feel what was going on between their legs perfectly. Dana's body, already wet from her three orgasms at the hands and mouth of Athena, drove Lance toward his own release.

Suddenly, Lance stiffened, arched and cried out, his semen flowing into Dana. His last thrust pushed Dana over the edge once again.

Dana arched from her own orgasm, and she lowered her body onto Lance's.

Athena waited for a few moments, and then pushed Dana onto her back. He took Lance by the hand and guided him on top of Dana. She took Lance into her mouth, tasting his semen and Dana's vaginal juices and virginal blood mixed together. She tongued his testicles to get him hard again.

Within a minute, she pushed Lance's penis back into Dana's vagina. While they were kissing each other again, she pulled Dana's legs open farther so that Lance would penetrate deeper. Athena pushed Dana's legs upward so that her legs wrapped around Lance's shoulders.

Lance thrusted into Dana again. Athena moved to where they were joined, alternating between tonguing Lance's testicles and Dana's vagina. She put her tongue behind Lance's testicles while fingering the nerve between Dana's vagina and anus, then switched.

Lance and Dana were now nothing but instinct, sensation, lust and sexual need — the most elemental urges in mankind to procreate expressed in two people coupled together. Dana's hips thrusted every time Lance pulled back.

For the first time, Athena reached between her own legs and found her own hot button. She had introduced Dana to sex for two, and she had sexually introduced them to each other. Her own body glistened from her work to make Dana orgasm and to make Lance hard. And though this wasn't her goal, she spread her legs and pushed her hand inside her to make herself come as Lance ejaculated into Dana and Dana orgasmed once again.

Athena quietly left the room as Dana settled on top of Lance, their two bodies awash with their sexual fluids. She had achieved what she had been instructed to do — to sexually introduce themselves to each other and to encourage them into sex. That would make what would happen next much easier to accomplish.