Nothing ever happens in Koda XI. Not since the lights were blasted from the stratosphere a month ago in the final push back, ending the decade-long war between our planet Xendri and The Outsiders. But us soldiers lucky enough to survive have remained abandoned, awaiting orders from our rusted outposts to return home.

"We ate better as grunts," Niko says, sighing as he rests his weary head against the wall. "I haven't seen a fucking supply truck for weeks."

"Do you think about anything other than your stomach? Have faith in Xendri, for it shall prevail and provide," I reply, laughing heartily. But his fear isn't unfounded, and in this desolate wasteland of dust, overshadowed by the towering Dome, our efforts to rebuild have been for naught. Already the others have been overcome by wanderlust and deserted, preferring their chances elsewhere, likely wraith-chow by now. I'll be damned if I lose Niko to the wilderness, too, after swearing to my sister I'd keep her boyfriend safely tucked under my wing. "I'll take over this watch, so get some rest. And be careful. I shot two wraith-wolves within the perimeter on the way here."

Niko zips on his opalescent skin-tight, neural suit, then pulling on a solar helmet over his red hair, he blends into the surroundings at a touch of a button. Designed to be a second skin, the fibres mesh with our nervous system, enhancing our senses and shielding us from the sun's heat and radiation. But we have little physical defence against the native creatures roaming outside the security of our buildings other than the invisibility and our swift Ion-bikes. We need more weaponry soon to have any hope of surviving.

"Thanks, Jax," he says, thumping me hard on my shoulder. "Don't forget to buzz me if anything comes up."

The door barrier fades off as he exits, zinging back on with his departure, leaving me to operate the security gates alone. There should be a team of at least two at the entrance. Still, we'd long lost the numbers, so we take shifts in sleeping, doing little else other than dreaming of a hero's welcome back to our beautiful, utopian, neon city high in the sky.

I strip from my suit, the nano-fibres stinging like static as I peel it from my nude skin, then pass through decontamination to shower. My fist rests on the tiles as my palm glides over my cock, pumping with vigour as I seize my first chance to satiate my hunger for sex. I promised myself to someone once, vowing to return dome-side when the war ended, but it dragged out too long. There was little chance she hadn't moved on, but vivid holo-visions of her black hair and grey eyes float before me, replaying from my memory chip.

On my first trip to the pleasure district, barely twenty years old, she'd tamed me with ease and taught me how to love. So I transport, once again, to beneath the aspen trees, where my trembling fingers unbuttoned her blouse, and we kissed for the first time before she laid me. My mouth brushes over the image of her parted, plump lips, recalling the warmth of her tongue thrusting and flicking over my gums and teeth. I remember how her moans filled my lungs as I gasped for air, sprawled upon the lush, dewed grass of spring. None of it was real other than her; the scenery was little more than a projection from our home planet, but my feelings were sincere, and I adore her now, just as I did back then. Fighting for her and the safety of our great nation was the grandest of privileges. "Rosa... Please, don't forget about me."

The memory abruptly disperses as I'm hurled to my knees by a shockwave, and a wailing, high-pitched siren screeches through my skull. Without a chance to re-dress, I sprint to the monitor room and scan through the footage to assess the situation. 

What the fuck is that?

My hand hovers over the alarm button as I try to make sense of the smoking, sphere-like pod that's breached our defences, blowing a two-meter hole through the force-gate. Nothing unidentified had blipped up on the security system in advance until the impact. Still, I hadn't been warned of the arrival of an envoy either. As the highest-ranking officer alive, I'll have to take a chance that this is the hope we've been waiting for.

"Jax, what the hell is going on down there? We've got hundreds of wolves invading down in residential," my audio transmitter speaks directly into my brain from Niko. "I don't know if I'll be able to hold them off for long."

"I-I don't know, but there's something weird I need to check out," I mentally reply, tugging on my clothing. "Switch on the auto-turrets and get loaded up with whatever we've got. Maintain your position, and don't come down here until I say so, okay? That's an order."

I activate my suit and helmet, my vision switching to a laser pointer crosshair at the raise of my weapon. The enhancements embedded in my brain power up to the max as I launch myself into the fray with wraith-wolves swarming through holes left, right, and centre. The scent of dirt and beast flesh fills my nostrils as the autocannons blast craters around me, but the time to feel afraid is a luxury I cannot afford. 

With a running leap, I weave through the fearsome mandibles charging toward my scent and fire back a beam, disintegrating several at once. It was unlikely they felt anything past the instant the flash of light burned them away. My off-hand materialises pulse blades from my palm, which effortlessly find their mark in the back of several pups' heads, spewing crimson blood towards the sky. For the sake of my last comrade, I fight alone, carving through my numerous adversaries to repair the damaged gate. But, these ten-foot wolves are the least of my concerns, even at numbers as large as this. Enormous void worms with rows of serrated teeth lurk beneath the surface, and if one of those gets in, the outpost is done for. We must prevail, whatever the cost, even if that price is my life.

Steaming piles of dead creatures surround me as I finally lower my weapon, the invisibility suit rendered useless by the gore drenching me head to toe. I've expended more energy than I'd liked. Punching open the control panel, I key the re-activation code back in and then turn my attention to the bizarre object that caused this mess.

"I've cleared up the situation and reactivated the barrier, but I'm gonna need to patch up the gate after checking something," I tell Niko through our synced-up auditory system. "Stay safe, and standby for further instructions." 

Clouds of vapour hiss from the ball as I cautiously approach it with my weapon ready. I expect it to be blistering hot with the power it'd burst through, and my hand hovers before it, testing for residual heat with my sensors. But the surface is cool and unlike any alloy, I've ever known in my lifetime. Instead, it feels organic, almost alive in the way it pulses and ripples to the gentle poke of my fingertip.

I flinch and continue to observe, unnerved by what is increasingly likely to be alien, when it suddenly cracks like an egg and oozes clear mucus over my boots. My surprised gaze locks with the steely glare of a half-naked young woman within. By all appearances, she's Xendrian like myself, but the technology is too unusual to be our own.  

With unexpected, awe-inspiring strength, she smashes through the roof of the vehicle cocooning her, then steps out, almost regale in posture. In the haze of vapour, her irises fixated upon me appeared blackened like her pupils but now shine in a brilliant, sapphire blue, like the undercut mohawk on her head. "Who are you? State your name and business."

Her hand, slender and uncalloused, presses against the barrel without fear. "Lower that weapon. I'm here to see the Commander."

I point my phaser towards her chest suspiciously, switching to stun as I run the small details of her clothing, hair, and facial expressions through my memory bank. It might have been ten years since I last stepped foot in the city, but she's far too advanced for the typical worker. "You're speaking to him. And nobody steps foot in here unless I know who they are."

A flicker of light flashes from her eyes, scanning over my face and body, then over my weapon. My ears become hot like she's seen straight through my clothes with X-ray vision. "Then I suppose my name is Physalia, Commander Jax Doan. I came here as an ambassador."

A hundred questions sail through my mind, trying to figure out where to start. "Then, you are from the Dome? Why didn't you say earlier-" I begin, as my eyes divert towards the hungry growls of more wraith wolves sniffing at the opening in the wall. "It's not safe. Quickly, get inside while I hold them off, and we'll talk after."

With unnatural speed, she sprints towards the entrance while I blast the beasts snapping their teeth at our heels. Auto-locking sight and incredible dexterity are the only edge I have over them. Still, my power has drained to the point of uselessness. I'll need to recharge before I stand up to another horde.

"What are those things?" Physalia asks as I stagger inside, and the door slams shut behind me. "I thought all other life had been extinguished on the main planet."

"Wraith-wolves, but they're only the pups," I reply, beginning to disrobe on autopilot before reality hits that I'm alone with a woman. "You should go through decontamination first. I'll wait."

"Why? Are you nervous around me?" A smile teases across the strange woman's lips, and her hand reaches towards my bare chest, hovering within millimetres of my skin. "I can feel your heartbeat thumping from here... Ba bump... Ba bump... Ba bump..."

"Look, lady... I don't know what you're playing at, but-" I could have sworn that her eyes had been blue earlier, but at this distance, they appear slate grey, then paler as she presses a light kiss on my mouth. Stunned, I step backward until my spine presses against the concrete wall. "Who are you?"

"Physalia," she repeats, shimmying her pearl-white skirt to her ankles. "I was sent to save us."

At that moment, she places her hand against my forehead, and a tremendous shock of electricity passes through me, overloading my brain with a cache of information. I can barely make sense of the data and fall at her feet in despair. "All this time... But, I thought we'd won?"

"Your government has forsaken you because your nation can no longer sustain its population. Those of you on the outside were deemed expendable, but it's still not enough, so the ecosystem in the Dome is in collapse, and sacrificial deaths have begun-"

"My people are dying? So you're telling me we've been fighting for nothing all this time? I don't want to believe it," I say, looking at her with hope, but she shakes her head, confirming my worse fears. "Can we not leave this planet and start anew?"

"No. Worlds capable of sustaining life are few, and your nation has destroyed numerous before, so we cannot allow it. If your leaders had accepted our knowledge and guidance early, we might have been able to slow the process. But the resources are almost depleted, and they foolishly refuse our help, choosing to die in their edifices rather than join us."

"But, what about Rosa? I promised I'll go back to her!" I yell at this cruel harbinger of doom, hot tears burning at my eyes. And after everything we've been through, I'd be damned if I allowed Niko to die after fighting beside me all these years. "So you're here to tell me it's all over? That I need to bend over with defeat? I can't accept that... I have a good, honest man here who has faithfully done nothing but what's been asked of him. Tell me what I can do-"

"The Rosa you knew never existed. It was a fake memory implanted in your brain to give you something to fight for," she says, rubbing her chilled, lithe hands over my broad chest to my shoulders. "But, I can offer you what I offered your leaders. Become one with my hive. Unfortunately, your weaponry destroyed my consort, so I'm also in need of a new one. I know you're the man who made that order which ended his life."

I laugh sardonically. "That enormous glowing vessel in the sky? I was following directions from my Captain-"

My brain suddenly screams with Physalia's memories and agonising loss unfathomable from her mask-like facade and droning, mechanical way of speaking. "Those lights you saw were bursts of bioluminescence from a living, breathing organism communicating back the negotiations to me across the galaxy. Your leaders knew that and had him killed to insult me."

I sense hostility as her hand squeezes at the front of my throat, forcing me to stare into her cold, silvery-grey eyes as she chokes me of air. I buzz with the knowledge that it wasn't only her consort she lost. But everyone in our nation was assigned a position at birth, and as soldiers, we only knew how to obey, like those in the pleasure district only knew how to fuck. Insubordination was dealt swiftly with instant death, so you did your job without question. However, the data churning through my cerebral cortex heaves with errors and inconsistencies as she raises me to my feet. How could it be that we are the enemy and not the innocent? "I'm sorry. We never knew what we were fighting against... What do you want from me?"

"Commander... I'm still awaiting your orders," Niko interrupts through our link. "I can also sense a corruption in your system-"

My eyes blink in confusion at his voice. "I'm severing this connection right now, Lieutenant."

The lips before me morph to the full, rouged bee-stung pout of Rosa's from my dreams. "We need to merge with you to further our species. Then you'll become one of us, living in a harmonious, symbiotic future like the others we've saved." 

Against everything I have been taught, I know our only hope is to put my trust in her. Closing the gap, her tongue zaps over mine as we kiss, weakening my allegiance to the cause. The information freely surging through my brain from her to my neural chip tells me she isn't what she seems. That this appearance is nothing more than a beautiful lie, but I'm not afraid of the truth and instead lift her into my arms, bringing her beneath the water with me. 

Everything I've wanted to know about the world, our ancestors who escaped their planet Earth thousands of years ago, and the planets scattered throughout the universe invades my system. That we've destroyed all we've touched out of incessant greed and vanity. However, I also learn that this misunderstood Queen of her colony has been known by many names over the years. 'The Negotiator,' 'The Conqueror,' 'The Siphonophorae,' and 'The Lover.' Able to tolerate extreme environmental conditions, she seeks civilisations on the brink of collapse and saves them in a mutual exchange. 

"Close your eyes. I don't want you to be afraid of me," she whispers directly into my violated brain.

"But I'm not scared," I reply, growing infatuated as she lowers the zip on my bodysuit. "Let me see the real you."

Physalia's hair, an illusion conjured for my benefit, grows longer, swirling into frilled, ethereal vapours. It drapes around my naked body, soft as the wisps of clouds I've only seen in the sky projections of the Dome. My heart rate elevates, triggering system warnings, but I'm still unafraid, even as her eyes become huge, black orbs, and her body glistens in an ocean of blues.

I fall back onto the tiled floor, cushioned by her hair. Then with her thighs spread over my stomach, countless pulsating purple tendrils shoot from her limbs and ensnare my body. I gasp as I become prey, tingling with the electrifying energy snaking around my wrists and ankles, which tighten as they slither upward. More of her gorgeously muscular tentacles stroke my dark chest hair, flicking at my hardened nipples and pinching at my skin. 

"You're beautiful," I murmur, transfixed by her unearthly appearance. 

Through our connection, I know she's reading me through tactile telepathy, evading my memories and feelings for my preferences. Adapting on a personal level to what is more appetising will ensure procreation and the survivability of her species. Still, from the thoughts communicating back to me, I'm the first of my kind she's attempted to mate with.

My body burns as the clear, lubricating, liquid pheromones seep from her nematocysts. Every brief contact sets off a jolt through me. But, her touch is playful and teasing as she explores me all over until she eventually reaches back with her slickened appendages which circle my puckered hole with curiosity. 

Probing my orifice, the first of her slimy tentacles extends within me, delivering its faintly stinging venom over my walls and curling over my prostate. It's warming, and I groan, spreading my hips open as another pushes inside, then oscillates, driving me close to release. "Show me what you like. I want to learn more about your species' methods of sex." 

My face glows shyly as she spreads my arse cheeks open and watches me slowly gyrate my hips around her. The prominent bumps feel like I'm being screwed by endless lengths of beads coiling through my sphincters as I take her deeper inside. I don't know exactly what she's doing to me, but desire ignites through my body, absorbed from the juices dripping from her thrashing limbs.

"I need more," I groan, urging her to burrow harder into my arsehole like a bitch in heat as a dirty thought passes through my mind. Within seconds, the appendages begin to thicken as they thrust harder, pummelling my wet, squelching tunnel with passionate ferocity until my eyes roll to the back of my head. If I'd known sex could feel this good, I'd have spent far more time in the pleasure houses. "Fuck... Uhh."

My mind can barely process the assault, red blinking error notifications, and alarms flashing behind my half-closed eyes. The other tentacles, looped over my limbs, continue to bind and prickle my skin, leaving light welts wherever they touch and sting. My encircled nipples are already swollen to the size of red cherries. Bruises like love bites wrapped around my cock. Another coils around my neck, gently squeezing, then slips inside my mouth like her tongue when she kissed me. "I can be anything you want me to be." 

I suckle at the appendage plugging my mouth and become light-headed as she digs into my psyche and partially suffocates me with a tight constriction around my neck. Then, licking over the frills, I brush over puffy, bud-like ridges that fill my mouth with sweet, syrupy secretions. "You seem to like this, my Queen."

I almost choke on the gushing tenta-juice as I continue to tongue the sensitive nodule on the tip of her limb, which flails around my mouth in a pulsing, orgasmic ecstasy. Then, raising me into the air with her strong appendages, she brings my cock to her mouth, which she seals a vacuum around. Her tongue elongates, splitting into several tendrils which tangle around the base of my cock, pulling back my foreskin and constricting blood flow at the head. Others lap along my shaft, lightly whipping to a frenzy as she alternates her spongy flicks and drenches me with her bizarre, tingly jizz. "And you seem to like this too, my peculiar new mate."

My body stiffens as she rubs over my cumhole, then investigates the tip of my opening. "I don't think you'll fit..." I think to her, but the slim self-lubricating tendril invades my urethra easily, slipping further down near my prostate. She spreads me open as she sucks, passing more of her thin, leaking sex probes into my most intimate area until I'm stretched to my limit. Each of them caresses me with gentleness while the others squirm around my cock to the verge of climax. A thicker limb knots around my throbbing testicles like a lasso and tugs in sync with my orgasm, milking every drop of cum from me. "Ah... I'm gonna... Oh, fuck."

My spent cock flops from her mouth as she slithers over my body, then fucks my face with her moist, gelatinous gape. Wet sap floods my mouth, and drips down my chin while I twirl around her entrance with my tongue, then push inside, fuelled by her psychic moans, crying out for more. I become aroused again as I almost drown in the aphrodisiac slime smothering me as she climaxes. "Mm... We are more compatible than I expected us to be."

Cradling my gooed body, she draws me closer for inspection, then suctions my erect cock inside the pink squishy substance of her cunt. Through her translucent skin, I can see my member growing thicker, reddening with engorgement as she mates with me. Globs of silicone-like swellings massage around my length, pumping in time with her appendages fucking my mouth and arse until I'm vibrating.

With lustful thrusts, her limbs squelch and squirt in every crevice of my body as I'm experimentally examined and probed, then manipulated into different positions. Clitorial-like structures adorn several of her inner tentacles, and it becomes clear from her sighs while we copulate that she fucks for pleasure just as much as Xendrians do. But I wasn't built for this, and my mind literally melts as she fucks my brains out, exceeding the capacity of my components.

A bright luminance blinds me as she orgasms. Then, immediately, I fall still as I'm fertilised by gonophores, squirting electrified, paralytic seeds deep inside my orifices, corrupting my DNA.

I pant as energy surges throughout my augmented body, deactivating my enhancements and security system as I'm colonised. Fasciculations ripple beneath my epidermis, and with a roar, I violently spasm, leaking fuck-milk from my gaping hole and mouth. "What was that? Fuck... What have you done to me?"

White noise hums in my mind as my system attempts a restart as I look to her for answers, but a vast area of my core memory is missing, and my connection to the backup is severed. "I've removed their control and merged with you. Now cum for me, my love," she whispers into my ear. "I'm having great fun with this peculiar method of sex your kind enjoys so much."

Dragging me onto my knees, she whips her tendrils around my limbs and then around my cock as she dominates me again, fucking me into oblivion. Drool dribbles from my mouth, and my legs become weak like jellified mush until I can no longer tell where my body ends and hers begins. She tells me that the stinging slime coating me is an aphrodisiac that keeps me going longer. Still at this concentration, I entirely lose my mind to the pleasure and grind my buttocks into her while she relentlessly rams me with each tentacle in turn. However, the oddest thing happens, and the numbness in my legs gives way to coldness as I begin mutating to the rapidly increasing colony, merging with my cells. 

I've never known pain like it, and a guttural roar erupts from me as my lower limbs extend, diverging into eight muscular tentacles that unfurl around her. But she continues to make love to me as I transform, and now pumped full, abdomen swollen with her alien reproduction fusion magic, my cum-heavy sacks pulsate again. "I'm gonna explode... Uhh..." 

I thrash orgasmically, moans muffled as I'm spit-roasted on several writhing tentacles holding me beneath her. Others play curiously with my sticky ropes of cum, which she brings to her mouth to taste, then slips into mine for me to suck. "You're beautiful. I think I will take you as my own."

My reborn body is uncoordinated, but my weak tentacles entwine with hers as she passionately kisses me. From the waist up, I remain Xendrian. However, a thick protrusion now replaces my penis, and much more sensitive than the original, it instantly lengthens in arousal to snake inside her thirsty cunt. "So, what else does a consort do other than please you?"

"Other than fuck me for pleasure? Males gestate the young," she says, smiling as she strokes over my cheek. "It's a complicated process because our species can only produce drone females by budding. So we must bring in males with favourable attributes to reproduce strong, evolved offspring."

"I'm gonna what? But from where?"

"From where they get in. Isn't that what happens in Xendrian's?" she responds sarcastically before erupting into shrill laughter that echoes around the concrete room. "Or have I confused your kind with seahorses?"

"Actually, I think you have. And I'm surprised a being with a comprehensive knowledge of the universe would make such a mistake," I respond, dipping my head to suckle at her voluptuous breasts as we continue to copulate, and her concealed ovipositor penetrates my organ to imbue her precious cargo.

We're a tangled nest of knotted limbs and tentacles when her potent aphrodisiac wears off. And she strokes over my hybrid athletic body with fascination, tracing over my battle scars while we snuggle in drowsiness. None of my technology functions, but I'm no longer enslaved by false memories of a nation that abandoned me, thanks to her. 

"We need to make preparations to leave," she says, nuzzling against my neck. "How many of your men will come with us?"

"Well, I only have one left, but I don't know if I'll be able to convince him," I respond, understanding the burden I'm putting on her by delaying our departure. According to her calculations, civilisation, as I know it, will fall on this planet in a matter of days. "I'll try to speak to-"

The hairs along my arms raise as my discarded phaser whirrs to life and pushes against the back of my head. I automatically know who it is before he speaks. "Don't move, or I will kill you where you are, Commander."

"Can we talk about this face to face?" I shift slightly to look at him, but he clocks it to my temple instead, switching the trigger to kill without hesitance. "She's here to help."

"You think I'm going to listen to a monstrosity like you? What did you do with Jax?" he yells, flinching as his boot treads upon the sticky globs of residue spewed over the tiles. However, in his distraction, he overlooks one of Physalia's tendrils curling around his foot, which then pierces through the thin membrane of his clothing.

Niko's thoughts jolt through me like a live wire as she makes skin contact, bringing him immediately to a standstill. Through his eyes, I see Physalia as the sister implanted into my fake memories and the love falsely instilled in him. "Stand down, Lieutenant. I am Jax. Now, can you please listen to reason for a second?"

His distressed voice is in my head as information pours into him, and he discovers our entire life has been a lie. "But how can that be? I saw those ships explode with my own eyes!"

"Those ships were my people, sent here to help your planet," she repeats calmly, embracing him in the form of the one he loves. "But, I can give you the option I gave your Commander. Become one with my people, and serve my cause, or I can return you to the place you came from to await the inevitable. Unfortunately, there is little I can do to prevent the ecological disaster heading for you."

Unlike myself, Nico remains conflicted, and with fondness, he transports us back to his holo-memory of our city that never sleeps, with its neon-bright signage and sirens. The constant buzz of drones and cars flies above our heads. Even the relentless rain, dampening our skin, feels welcoming after ten years stationed in this godforsaken hellscape. 

"Come with us," I plead, his homesickness striking my soul keenly with fear. "Nothing awaits us but death here. I know you feel it too."

A half-smile flickers across his face momentarily, and then he dredges up his recent memories of the final expressions from our missing comrades. Each one slaughtered at his hands secretly while I slept to enable us to survive longer. "I don't deserve it after what I've done, Jax. I was desperate to see home again, no matter what. You should leave without me."

I'm shell-shocked by his admission, but he is still one of my men. "You can't be serious? This world is ending!" But he shakes his head, declining the offer once again. 

I want to argue with him, but from his mind, I know it's pointless. So instead, I glance at Physalia as she begins to restore his old memories, allowing him to live his final days without fearing the end or being guilt-ridden with the lives he'd taken.

"All done," she says, gently laying him on the ground as he sleeps. "But it won't take long until he awakens, so we need to go."

With a final sad glance at Niko, peacefully sleeping, with my weapon beside him, I take Physalia's manifested hand in mine and run to the gelatinous sphere, which powers up the moment she touches it. Then with her limbs wrapped around me, we glide over the city and into an exciting future as one.