Project RE:GENESIS — Sol 1067

Captain Chris Hansen staggered out of the cryostasis pod into the med bay of the TESS Proteus. It was only a short walk from there to the cockpit of the small one-man craft. As he entered the main body of the ship he saw the comfortingly-familiar main-sequence G-Class parent star of the Medea system, shining in the distance through the aft window.

Chris braced himself against the left hand wall as he made his way to the cockpit. The pilot’s chair felt a bit stiff and uncomfortable as he sat in it to look over the ship’s diagnostics log over the last two and a half years he had been in stasis for.

Everything seemed to be nominal, though Chris was having a bit of a hard time processing the readouts. He rubbed his temple, struggling to ward off the pain that was throbbing between his eyes.

The important thing, the life support systems, seemed to be in better shape than the manufacturers had projected. It was an interesting piece of information, but one that Chris just didn’t have the time or the brainpower to get to the bottom off.

In the more recent logs, Chris saw that the Proteus had performed the Slip-Real transition just two hours before his reanimation procedure, exactly according to plan. The only issue was that the maneuver seemed to have taken 134 nanoseconds longer than it should have, theoretically. It was significant, and well outside the margins of error.

It indicated, to Chris, that there were aspects of the Slipspace-Realspace interface, or, for that matter, Slipspace itself, that hadn’t been taken into account in the original calculations for the Bernhart-Petrovsky drive. Regardless, it seemed that despite the anomalously-long maneuver-completion time, everything was in tip-top shape.

Satisfied that the ship wasn’t going to blow up in the next few hours, Chris leaned his head on the back rest of the pilot chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath befroe mumbling, "Computer, could you please make me a coffee?" Coffee was a bit of a luxury, but it was apparently one of the best ways to mitigate the effects of reanimation sickness.

Chris heard a chime and a soft male voice answering in the affirmative, but he quickly slipped into a dreamless sleep right after.

Project RE:GENESIS — Sol 1127

The Proteus had exited Slipspace at pretty much its maximum safe interstellar velocity and it had taken nearly two months to decelerate to a safe velocity on approach to Medea. For the first week or so, Chris had had a lot to do onboard. The diagnostics were useful, but he had needed to make sure everything that he could get his hands on was functioning as intended.

One thing that Chris had not been prepared for was how horny he would get as a result of exiting cryostasis. For all intents and purposes, he had been dead for two and a half years. There was no reasonable explanation for why he was suddenly feeling so fucking randy. In fact, he had read the cryostasis manual front to back twice, while sitting on the toilet, and it said nothing about post-reanimation libido.

Whatever the case, Chris had had a major problem over the last two months. Fortunately, the ship was stocked with pretty much anything that he could need to take care of it, even if it did feel cold and impersonal at times. Still, that fucking machine built into the wall of his bunkspace was amazing. A true marvel, and one that made him chub up whenever he thought of it.

As it was, Chris was sitting idly in the pilot seat, stroking his cock, as he looked out at the unexpectedly-inviting surface of the planet EHCC (Extrasolar Human Colonization Candidate) Circe. He was taking care of his arousal, but his mind was elsewhere.

The planet, which was slightly larger in diameter than the Earth, dominated the view out of the starboard window. If not for the foreign shapes and arrangement of the landmasses down below, Chris was pretty sure Circe could be mistaken for the Earth.

It seemed almost too good to be true, but all the scans that Chris had performed over the last two months while decelerating, confirmed what his eyes had at first refused to believe: that the atmosphere was breathable, though slightly differnt in composition; that the large patches of blue on the planet’s surface was likely liquid water, and; that the splotches of green on Circe’s landmasses meant life.

Chris had tried to explain away the green with some sort of green mineral that dominated the crust of Circe, but that had seemed ridiculous to him the moment he thought about it. The case was open-and-shut. It was obvious. There was life down there.

There were plants on the surface of Circe, or, as was more likely the case, the green was some similar form of autotrophic organism that relied on sunlight for food. Chris hadn’t even been planetside yet, and he had already discovered a staggering example of convergent evolution.

Chris quickly finished himself off. Some cum sailed right over his head and landed on the floor of the Proteus’ hull behind him, but he didn’t care. He immediately got back to work, hardly even giving the cum he’d spewed all over his chest and stomach time to dry.

Now that he was finally in stable circular orbit, Chris needed to finish certain preparations to take the Proteus down to the surface. It would require a few days of measurements and calculations with respect to the planet’s atmospheric composition and density to eliminate any uncertainty that could have been introduced by the long-distance scans.

After that, Chris knew that he would need to do a few EVA’s to make sure that the heat shields were still properly in place, as well as to install the supplemental heat shields in case that their use bore out in the calculations.

Thinking about what needed to be done, a stray thought crossed Chris’ mind. It was filthy, and it was probably stupid, but he wondered if it would be possible to jerk off during an EVA. Space suits had come a long way, and he did remember being able to scratch his balls through one of the earlier models during an EVA on the Circum-Equatorial Coalition Space Station (CECSS).

Circe Expedition — Sol 1

Even though the atmosphere of Circe was, ostensibly, breathable, Chris remained in his isolation suit the first time he disembarked from the Proteus. There was still the risk that the local microbiota might cause catastrophic infection or disease, and until he was sure that it was safe to walk around freely, he didn’t want to take any chances.

The Proteus itself was currently as isolated as it could be from the environment. It was sealed from any outside intrusion and was currently suspended a good two feet off the ground. Power was not an issue as the skies above the rolling plain that Chris had chosen to land in were relatively clear and the sunlight was more than adequate to power the Proteus’ contragrav systems. It would take at least a day to gather enough samples, and then a little bit more than that to test them.

Chris was excited to get around to exploring Circe, but he didn’t want to rush things and risk his own health in so doing. He was here on a mission, after all, to determine whether the planet was a suitable colonization candidate.

The flurry of activity between preparing for atmospheric entry and choosing a suitable landing location, had distracted Chris from his libido, but now that he was facing the prospect of a couple of days of tedious work, testing and re-testing microbes, he was beginning to feel the urge to whack off again.

The horniness was starting to become a problem and Chris didn’t really understand what was happening to him. He figured that he could run a few diagnostics on himself, but he was sure that he would just get the same answer as each of those other times: that he was in perfect health.

Circe Expedition — Sol 32

It took Chris another month before he was satisfied with his evaluation of his local microbiota. They microorganisms that populated the plains seemed rather harmless. Their DNA was remarkably similar in structure to earth life, though they seemed to reproduce at a much higher rate. The cell membranes were noticeably thicker, too, but Chris just attributed both situations to a different evolutionary path.

Just a few minutes ago Chris had disabled the contragrav field generator and had set the Proteus down on the relatively flat stretch of ground he had been using as a mini base of operations. He exited the ship for the first time in only his flight suit.

Chris brought a chair out with him and set it down. He sat on it and stretched, basking in the balmy air and bright sunlight. His cock twitched against his thigh, and he couldn’t help but reach down and rub it.

For the most part, it had taken Chris a month to get through the evaluations because he was just so horny. At one point, he had edged himself for a good three Earth hours before finally coming to an earth-shattering orgasm. He just kept getting distracted.

Right now, though, Chris wasn’t quite that horny, yet. He was taking a moment to sit back and breathe. One thing that stood out, something that he had noticed as the days ticked by, there was a discernible lack of fauna in the area.

There were a hundred different possible reasons, and any one of them could be the right one. Chris couldn’t be sure. He figured the most likely explanation was that he was just in the wrong place. He was on a large, open field after all. It offered very little cover from potential predators other than an ankle-high covering of grass-like vegetation, which meant that prey, and by extension, their predators, likely avoided the area.

Whatever the case was, Chris knew that he would need to explore further. Life was abundant here, plant life, at least. There had to be some sort of fauna, somewhere. And he had every intention to find it.

Chris climbed up on top of the Proteus and looked around for potential sites for further exploration. He remembered seeing a wetland on the way down from orbit, and he could just see it in the distance. It seemed promising, but he couldn’t see any motion from his current location.

Another area that seemed like it might contain a decent amount of biodiversity was the nearby forest. Well, it looked like a forest, at least. Since it was closer, Chris figured that the forest would be a better place to start his exploration.

It wasn’t like Chris was in any hurry, anyway. He had enough food and water onboard the Proteus that he wouldn’t have to worry about his own sustenance for the next six months. Given the similarity of the local biosphere to Earth’s, he had no doubt that in that time he would find a source of food before his stock ran out.

Water was going to be a bit more challenging out here in the middle of the plains, but with the wetland nearby it was only going to be a matter of relocating the Proteus.

With his early plans set in place, Chris dismounted from the Proteus and rubbed his erection. He unzipped his flight suit and let it spring free. The balmy air of the open plain felt so good against his cock that he could scarcely wait to wrap his fingers around it.

Chris threw back his head and moaned as he stroked himself off. He had no idea how far the other explorers had gotten on their own journeys, but he liked to think that he was the first human to masturbate out in the open on an extrasolar planet. That thought was enough to make him come.

Hot white shots of jism shot out of the tip of Chris’ cock, splattering on the dirt and grass in front of him. His seed soaked into the soil and Chris grinned. It felt a bit perverted, but he also felt a strange sort of pride at having planted his own personal flag, so to speak, on Circe.

Circe Expedition — Sol 35

The high-altitude weather balloon had taken a bit longer than Chris would have liked to get set up. Once again, his increasing libido contributed to the increasing delays in his mission. Although, that being said, he didn’t really have a deadline for his mission.

The locator beacon on the Proteus had taken less time to set up, though properly configuring the wayfinder to pick up on its signal had been a headache and a half. Still, the precautions were necessary because the last thing that Chris wanted was to get lost on an alien planet.

Right now, Chris was exploring the forest. He had landed the Proteus relatively close to the treeline, though it had still taken a half hour of walking to get there. He hadn’t taken the liberty of naming the place yet, even though he had every right, but it was truly remarkable.

There was a spectacular diversity of plant life. There were vines draped across the tree branches, hardy shrubs that stubbornly kept to the forest floor. There were bioluminescent fungi that clung to the sides of the trees and patches of moss that grew on old, rotten timber.

Chris did finally manage to finally spot a few creatures. They were mostly insects, small reptiles, and small mammals, or at least analogs of those things. He couldn’t really classify taxonomically without capturing them and he just didn’t have the tools at the moment. But the fact that he never once saw anything bigger than a rat was a concern.

The forest was too thick to get any proper scanning going, but even the fuzzy images that Chris got didn’t show any promise. There was something about surface life that exerted pressure on fauna to remain small, at least as far as he could see. It made him uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to stick around to find out what, exactly, that pressure was.

Taking off on a light jog and ignoring the way that his cock rubbed against his thigh as he did so, Chris made his way back to the Proteus. He set about scanning the area again to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything major.

Chris soon got an answer with regard his question about surface fauna. It didn’t come from the scans, but rather, it came from the high-altitude weather balloon, which pinged the Proteus and informed it that its EM shielding had been tripped.

Moments later, the instruments onboard the Proteus went haywire as the surface was cooked by intense ionizing radiation. The EM pulse sensors were triggered right after. Luckily, the Proteus was shielded against both occurrences, but Chris shuddered to think about what would have happened if he had been on the surface at the time.

Whatever the hell had just happened, the most likely culprit was the star. Chris was certain of it. But he just didn’t know how. He had been too focused on scanning the planet on the way into the system that he had neglected the star, and now he was beginning to regret his choices.

Chris suspected that the phenomenon was at least periodic. It would explain why surface fauna tended to be small and sheltered. He would not have been surprised to find that the plants were somehow resistant to ionizing radiation.

What Chris needed to do was send up probes to examine the star to figure out what the fuck was going on. It wasn’t difficult to do, but it was more work than he had anticipated doing. It would delay further exploration of the forest by at least a few more days.

However, Chris didn’t even have the time to ponder his options as the Proteus’ ground motion alarms started going off, followed by its proximity sensors. Shaken by the sudden turn of events, Chris activated the contragrav and raised the Proteus into the air. He watched with amazement as large clods of earth rose from the plains, revealing burrows and the major fauna that he had been looking for the entire time.

Circe Expedition — Sol 42

The radiation event from a week ago hadn’t occurred again, and the probes had picked up no anomalous activity from Medea. Chris had no doubt that the event was periodic. Somehow, the larger animals knew just how to dive for cover before it arrived. They had been in their burrows for a month, at least, before the radiation hit.

The last thing that Chris wanted was to get caught out during one of those radiation storms, but he figured that as long as he paid attention, he wouldn’t have too much trouble. It was hard to miss those large beasts walking around with blocks of dirt on their heads.

Over the last week, in addition to sending up the probes, Chris had moved the Proteus over to the wetland. He didn’t want to risk a large animal becoming threatened by the Proteus and attacking. The wetland, for the most part, was quite peaceful in comparison to the plain.

Chris had also finally set up a more permanent camp. The wetland animals seemed reluctant to come near the ship to begin with. When he installed the supersonic deterrents around the perimeter, they stopped trying altogether. He still kept his food safely locked away in the back of the ship, though, just in case.

After breakfast, Chris finally finished putting the rover together. He had been looking forward to this for a few days, once again, no thanks to his steadily growing libido.

Chris looked off in the distance toward the forest. He was intrigued by what he had already found and was ready to return there already. He wanted to gather some samples of the plants because he was really curious to see how they survived the extreme radiation events.

Fortunately, the trip across the plains in the rover was largely uneventful. Even the bigger, more predatory animals that stalked the grasslands steered clear of Chris. He himself took care not to go too close to them, though.

With the rover at top speed, Chris reached the edge of the forest about three hours later. He dismounted and retrieved his wayfinder. The vegetation was too thick. Taking the rover would be unreasonably difficult, even if it was safer. He also made sure that his stun gun was at his side. Just in case.

After a few hours of going around and gathering samples of the many different plants that he could see around him, Chris heard his wayfinder beep. He took it out and saw that there was a second signal, a non-standard signal, pinging from relatively nearby.

Curious, Chris followed the signal and found, much to his surprise, the overgrown hull of a ship. It was clearly space-faring. The basics of the architecture made that abundantly obvious. But the design and decoration of the ship was utterly foreign.

The ship carcass obviously belonged to a different race. It certainly didn’t look like a human ship. It was a profound moment, for Chris. The question had been answered. Humanity was not the only species capable of thought in the universe.

Eager to find out more, as well as to find the actual source of the signal, Chris walked around the remains of the ship. He found it, eventually. It was a radio beacon, in the shape of a bluish metal cylinder. It had an indicator light on it that pulsed softly in time with the wayfinder pings.

The only strange thing about the beacon was that it looked new. The ship was weathered and broken, but the beacon looked like it had just been set out. Chris looked around, knowing that whoever had placed it must be somewhere nearby.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. He turned back toward the ruined ship and saw the alien hiding in the shade under one of the ship’s broken wings.

It was a strange thing to see. It had blue skin. Its face had four eyes but no nostrils. It appeared to have something like ears, but Chris couldn’t tell. And two pairs of slits on either side of its neck opened and closed as its chest rose and fell.

The alien had a roughly humanoid profile, though it had four arms instead of two, and it had a slender tail that hung between its legs. Its arms and legs were rather lean, but its stomach was swollen, distended past what Chris would have thought possible.

Chris’ first thought was that it was a pregnant female, but then he saw the phallic organ dangling between its legs. He figured that the males of its species must carry the young, like seahorses back on Earth.

Even though he was well aware that the gesture might not translate, Chris walked closer to the alien and held out a hand to assist it.

As the alien reached out to grasp his fingers, Chris heard a rustle from behind him. Halfway through turning around to face the noise, he felt a stinging sensation at the base of his neck.

Chris swayed, unsteadily, for a few moments before he fell on his back onto the forest floor. He struggled to move his arms and legs but they refused to work. The last thing he saw before the world went dark was the blue-skinned alien leaning over him with glassy eyes and a broad grin on its face.

Circe Expedition — Sol ???

When Chris regained consciousness, his body refused to respond to his commands. He was numb all over, and only the faint, muted sensation of his back sliding across dirt and small stones told him that he was being dragged across the forest floor.

The only thing that Chris could do in his state was weakly turn his head and blink. Worse still, he was naked. He could tell because he was hard, and he could feel the cool air on his cock. It was about the only sensation that he felt fully, along with the arousal that came along with it.

Chris had no idea what was going on, though he could guess at what had happened. The radio beacon and the blue-skinned pregnant alien had been a trap. Humans, in general, tended to be more altruistic towards those that were with young. He had lowered his defenses. It was likely that the alien’s accomplice, likely another member of the same race, had taken advantage of him then.

But one thing that Chris didn’t understand was the rather smooth, angular digits that were wrapped around his ankle. From what he remembered, the alien had been fleshy, like him. The alien’s digits, though different in number, had been similar to his.

It quickly made sense as Chris’ captors dragged him toward what appeared to be an enormous tree. Curls and spirals of glowing fungus swept across its branches high above in the canopy, and the same was true for the trunk and the massive roots that spread out across the ground.

Chris watched as those roots went past. His mind was fuzzy. It was hard to think. There was a pleasant buzz in the back of his head, making his cock twitch and leak between his legs. But he wasn’t so stupid that he wasn’t able to figure out what was going on.

There was likely a house of some sort inside the tree and Chris was being taken into a hollow at the base of the trunk, likely between two large roots. His prediction bore out as he saw the somewhat jagged mouth of an opening in the tree bark.

The other assumption, that he had been captured by members of the blue-skinned alien’s species, was proven dead wrong. As they passed through the threshold of the tree, Chris caught a glimpse of the true nature of his captors in the form of two guards standing on either side of the entrance.

Suddenly, the smooth, angular graspers around his ankle made sense. The creatures that had captured him were insectoid. They looked like large, anthropomorphized ants. They stood on two legs, had a thorax, and a head, and a modest abdomen that was suspended behind their legs. They had two sets of arms, one which appeared to be the primary, larger pair, and a smaller pair that Chris couldn’t quite figure out the purpose for.

The creatures’ abdomens were held at an angle toward the ground rather than directly horizontal, most likely so as not to fatigue the muscles as well as to make sure that the center of gravity was not too far to the rear. They were fascinating creatures, with clacking mandibles, large compound eyes, and twitching antennae.

The only thing that Chris couldn’t tell was how they felt about him. They seemed indifferent, but then again they didn’t seem to have any facial expressions of particular note. Still, one thing was made abundantly clear by the crude spears that they held in their primary pair of graspers: these creatures were intelligent.

In the back of his mind, Chris realized that he was very likely in major danger, but at the same time he recognized that there was nothing he could do about his current situation. It was painfully obvious that without his equipment, he was ill-matched against creatures that obviously had weapons.

More than that, there was a small part of Chris that was more than a little bit curious to see what was going to happen. Well, that and a much larger part of him that was just suddenly too horny to care. Filthy thoughts of being railed by an ant occurred to him, and despite himself he couldn’t help but groan a little bit as pre-cum dripped from the tip of his cock.

What he saw inside the tree only served to convince Chris that the insectoid creatures were indeed quite intelligent. Despite being primitive, there was something to be said about the numerous wooden platforms that spiraled up along the inside of the tree, filled with insectoid creatures and suffused with the bright blue glow of luminescent fungus.

As he helplessly stared up at the insectoid community up there, he realized two things. First, that he wished he would get taken up to the top of the tree to see how the insectoid creatures lived. Second, that insectoid creatures was a bad way of describing them and that he should probably give them a temporary name in his mind.

Chris settled on "Formican" just as he felt the gradient of the floor under his back slope down. He felt a pang of disappointment as his captors dragged him along, knowing that he was going to be headed down into the depths of the nest. He held on to hope, though, that he was just being taken to some primitive sort of elevator.

That hope quickly faded, just like the faint blue glow of the upper levels, as Chris was dragged further down into the nest. The light dimmed as they went, eventually turning to pitch black darkness.

Circe Expedition — Sol ???

Either Chris blacked out at some point during the long trip down into the depths of the nest, or he had been administered another dose of whatever paralytic these Formicans clearly produced, but whatever the case was, he certainly didn’t remember being dumped into a Circus production.

The walls and ceiling of the corridor that Chris was being dragged across seemed to flow and shimmer and ripple with many different colors. It was like staring into a living opal.

Chris stared at the shifting, shimmering patterns. They were enthralling. But he was curious as to how they were being produced. He looked closer and realized that the light was being produced by a carpet of fine hairs that were growing out of the walls.

They seemed to respond somewhat to air movement as there was always a ripple of color in Chris’ wake, but they also seemed to move on their own. He wondered what they were, but as he was being dragged along, Chris noticed that the walls and the ceiling were in fact made of wood. He could see the grain.

It occurred to Chris that he might well be in one of the great tree’s roots, and that the Formicans had hollowed the tree’s roots out to accommodate the underground complex of their nest. It was mind-boggling. It was amazing. It left no doubt in his mind that if the Formicans weren’t hive-minded, that they were at least social insects.

Chris couldn’t even begin to think of the implications. Not so much because he didn’t have the imagination or expertise to consider them, but because as he stared at the rippling pattern of colors of the walls, he gradually lost interest in doing so.

It was fine to just stare at the walls, watching the swirls of blue and green and orange. The walls were so fascinating. Chris could study them for hours and get lost in them. But he didn’t want to look away, anyway. The patterns were so nice. They made him feel nice and calm and docile. Watching them made him relax and just stop thinking and worrying so much. It was much better that way.

Chris hardly noticed as his captors stopped, though he certainly did notice when one of them picked him up and slung him over a hard, chitinous shoulder. The edge of the shoulder plate bit somewhat into his stomach, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable.

For the first time since getting captured, he saw the blue, four-armed alien that he had seen on the surface beforehand. It didn’t seem concerned at all, as one of its hands was clasped in one of the Formican’s graspers, and the other hand on the same side was wrapped around the Formican’s arm. It did look at him and grin before skipping away down the corridor.

As soon as the alien was gone, Chris turned his attention back to the shimmering patterns on the wall. He felt his thoughts just melt away, dripping out through his ears. He relaxed and let go. It felt so good to just relax.

Eventually, the Formican that was carrying Chris lowered him into what felt like a pool of liquid. He felt something warm and slightly sticky at his ankles as those were lowered in first. The fluid tingled against his skin, making him feel good. His face flushed with heat as his breath suddenly felt hot in his throat and lungs.

Slowly, gradually, Chris was lowered into the pool. It was viscous. Thick. Its effects only intensified as it covered more and more of his body. His arms and legs were floating almost horizontally on the surface of the water, his cock sticking right up, covered in a glimmering film of the stuff.

The only part of Chris that hadn’t been lowered yet was his head, and he already couldn’t imagine how much better the bath would feel once it was.

A quiet sigh of pleasure escaped Chris’ lips as the Formican finally let go of the back of his neck and his head plopped into the pool. The liquid around him shimmered and pulsed in much the same way as the walls. It was so entrancing, enchanting. He just couldn’t stop staring at all the pretty patterns.

Chris didn’t care that his thoughts had ground to a halt, that he wasn’t trying to figure a way out of his situation. That didn’t matter. What he needed to do was watch the shimmering, rippling patterns and relax. Just relax and let go. Of all thoughts. Of all worries. Of himself.

As the tingling heat worked its way into Chris’ muscles, which were sore from being frozen in place for so long, he felt the paralytic agent wear off. He wriggled his fingers, and then his toes. They created ripples on the surface that made Chris’ mind even fuzzier and foggier.

Chris leaned his head back, letting the liquid soak through his hair. He could feel it in his ears, warm and tingling. It felt like the insides of his skull were beginning to heat up, too. It felt good. So good. Like his brain was melting.

A glob of pre-cum slipped out of the tip of Chris’ cock as he sank little by little into the liquid. He closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth, feeling the tingling heat work its way deeper into his body. It surrounded him, embraced him.

It was like a fuzzy warm blanket, except a hundred times more comfortable. It made Chris’ muscles relax. Every single one. The last few thoughts in his head evaporated completely as he sank, leaving only his nose outside of the liquid.

Eventually, the liquid closed over Chris’ face. He felt his cock was fully submerged, too. He held his breath, but he felt good. So good. A strange knot of tension in his stomach seemed to loosen, and at that moment his bowels evacuated themselves, and his cock voided his bladder.

It didn’t even occur to Chris to think about where the waste went. The only thing he could do was moan in his head, unable to think of anything other than relaxing even more.

The liquid prickled at Chris’ skin. It was hot. Tingly. Over time he felt the line between himself and the bath blur. He couldn’t tell where his skin ended and where the pool began. He just felt like a vaguely amorphous blob adrift in a sea of warm fuzziness.

Chris stopped holding his breath. Bubbles erupted from his mouth as he let out every ounce of air in his lungs. He felt no fear, could feel no fear, as he inhaled the fluid. There was a brief twinge of pain. Then, there was nothing.

Circe Expedition — Sol ???

When Chris came to, he felt something fuzzy and ticklish massaging his stomach. He giggled as he opened his eyes, looking straight at the Formican that was rubbing his abs with its antennae. He briefly thought that he should have been alarmed at the sight, but the thought dissolved almost as quickly as it formed.

Chris tried to move his arms and legs but he couldn’t. He realized why when he looked over to the side and saw that his shoulder was buried in what felt like hardened resin. He tried to move his hand, but he couldn’t. Not even an inch. He could tell it was at his side, but it was clear that it was embedded in the wall like his shoulder.

Chris’ legs were in a similar predicament, although they were spread apart in such a way that he could feel cool air against his asshole. More than that, he could tell that he was angled slightly into the wall so as to expose his ass even more.

Struggling against his confinement was less an attempt at escape and more testing how much freedom he actually had. The most he could do was move his hips, and that didn’t help him any.

Not that Chris minded. Really. He felt that he should have been concerned about being trapped in the Formican’s nest, naked and exposed like this, but the notion slipped away from him like water trickling between his fingers. Strangely enough he felt that this was his place. That this was where he belonged. That he was precisely where he should be.

As he slowly became aware of the steady, insistent pulsing arousal between his legs, Chris looked down at the Formican that was grooming him. It was strange that he knew what the creature was doing, but he didn’t think too much about it. He didn’t ask too many questions. It wasn’t his place to think too much.

A small part of Chris found issue with that thought. He was intelligent, a scientist. How could his place be not to think too much? But really, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that his instinctual objections didn’t really make any sense.

Chris knew that he belonged to the Formicans now. The notions he had about his old role didn’t matter. If the Formicans determined that it wasn’t his place to think, it wasn’t his place to think.

It was simple. It was basic. It was the kind of thing that a nymph should have known. But still that small part of Chris rebelled against the idea. At least, until he looked up at the ceiling, trying to clear his mind, and ended up staring right at the shimmering, shifting patterns of color.

The turmoil inside Chris dissipated, replaced by a pleasant buzz of static in his head. It wasn’t his place to think too much. It wasn’t his place to think at all. He was here to serve at the pleasure of the Formicans, and to serve at the pleasure of their King.

As the haze of arousal took over Chris’ thoughts, he sorely wished that the Formican tending to him would move those antennae down just a little bit. His swollen, aching cock was in desperate need of attention, but it remained painfully neglected.

Chris looked past the Formican and realized that his cock had changed since the last time he saw it. It had grown to near comical proportions. He was hard and leaking, his balls the size of grapefruits, his cock a good foot and a half in length and twice as thick his forearms.

Pre-cum dripped liberally from the tip of his cock into a receptacle on the floor that resembled a bowl with a pouring lip. The bowl was slightly raised relative to the floor around it and was already full. As more pre-cum dribbled from Chris’ cock, the excess flowed out of the lip and into a groove cut into the floor which led to a central reservoir that was filling with the clear fluid.

Looking around the room, Chris noticed that there was at least a dozen other humanoid creatures pinned to the walls like he was. Each one had at least one penis, so it was safe to assume that all of them were male, or some reasonable approximation thereof. None of them appeared to be of the same species. All of them had large, bloated bellies.

All of them were moaning deliriously as they weakly thrust their hips into the air, their rigid cocks leaking profusely into their respective receptacles.

Chris felt a wave of arousal wash over him as he realized what the other men were. They were brood fathers. Their swollen stomachs were likely filled to the brim with eggs for the next generation of the colony, being incubated by their strong, virile bodies. Each one was a specimen of masculinity, perfect for creating strong young.

There was a strange stirring of pride in Chris’ chest as he realized that he would soon be one of them.

Just then, a Formican covered in chitinous armor that seemed to gleam with golden plates in the shifting, shimmering light of the walls, walked into the room. He was significantly larger than the others, and the other Formicans in the room bowed the moment that it entered.

Chris immediately knew that this was the king. His first instinct was to call it a queen, but he quickly realized that he was wrong. The knowledge asserted itself in his mind. This creature was no queen. This creature was a King. Virile. Male. Strong. Stronger than the rest of the Formicans. King.

The King’s attention was wholly on Chris as it walked in. He had a hundred questions, but there was something in his mind, a presence in there with him, that was answering each one. It was the King. The Formicans were telepathic. Not Formicans. Trakka.

Chris’ eyes widened with understanding. The Trakka, they were the stewards of the planet, which they called Yora. In their religion, they believed that the Great Tree had chosen them as the guardians of Yora. They communicated in a manner much more complex than Chris’ limited notion of telepathy.

The Trakka were joined in the Mind-Song, through which they could communicate in more than just words, but also emotions, sensations, and concepts. And Chris had been chosen by the Great Tree to take part in it. It was astonishing. Amazing. The King found his awe… adorable.

Chris felt a flush of arousal and pride at the thought that the Great Tree had chosen him for such an honor. His cock dribbled pre-cum. The King took note of it. It seemed that he produced a lot, and that was a good thing. The King liked him. The King thought that he was going to make a good brood father.

For a moment, Chris wondered if there was a queen, but the King corrected him. There wasn’t. All the Trakka were male, at least insofar as other species were concerned. The Trakka had no notion of sex. There was simply the Kings and their subjects. The Kings could inject eggs, while the subjects could incubate and lay them.

As the King stepped up to Chris’ niche in the wall, his antennae brushed against Chris’ stomach. He had another question. This one was answered before he could even put it together formally in his mind.

In the days before the Great Tree, the Trakka did not use fleshy brood fathers like Chris. But their rigid chitinous bodies made carrying brood dangerous, and giving birth meant certain death for the brood fathers.

The first Sky People, likely a "progenitor race," the King told Chris, came and planted the Great Trees all over the surface of Yora. When the Great Trees joined the Trakka to the Mind-Song, the Trakka discovered that the Sky People were refugees from a broken world, likely the last of their people.

The Trakka took pity on the Sky People and found that their fleshy bodies were much better for brooding than Trakkan bodies, especially once they had been bathed in the mystical sap of the Great Trees. Like Chris, the Sky People had objected and fought against the Trakka at first, but the Great Trees had put out their mystical coats of colors, and the Sky People had accepted their place, like Chris had.

Chris shivered in anticipation. He loved the lesson in history, and appreciated that his King didn’t mind him asking questions. He had forgotten that it wasn’t his place to think, but the King had had no objections. If anything, the King had been pleasantly surprised by his relative independence, if the shared Song between them was anything to go by.

The King’s mind stroked Chris’ in preparation for his breeding. Chris shivered as the King swung his abdomen from behind his body to in front. The softer plates underneath seemed to pulse and throb with life, and the sight of it made Chris’ hole twitch and tingle.

From the tip of the King’s abdomen, something long, fleshy, and tapered, began to protrude. Chris knew what it was. It was an ovipositor. The sight of it elicited a quiet moan that he bit back, only to find that the King was disappointed that he found it necessary to hold back his noises.

Something hot and wet gushed from Chris’ asshole. He quickly realized that he had suddenly becomes self-lubricating, no doubt thanks to the mystical properties of the Great Tree’s sap. He chewed on his lower lip, letting out a loud moan when he finally felt the tip of the King’s ovipositor at his hole.

The tip entered Chris with ease. He squirmed and writhed, at least as much as he could, as the fleshy appendage entered him. It slid deep into his channel, deeper than any cock he had taken before, deeper than he thought possible.

The King seemed to take great pleasure in Chris’ little sounds. In his mind, Chris knew that the King saw his moans as quiet raw and guttural, animalistic, primal. The King thought they were adorable.

After a moment, Chris felt the base of the King’s ovipositor nestled between his cheeks. He had been fully impaled, and he could scarcely control himself. His insides were moving in a way that he could never have expected. His chute, the entire section of his insides that the King’s ovipositor was nestled in, was contracting and relaxing rhythmically around the column of flesh.

Chris bucked his hips, as much as he could, fucking himself on the King’s ovipositor. The King was pleased by his enthusiasm, especially when he was informed that the King needed stimulation before he could inject his eggs.

For his efforts, Chris was rewarded with a gush of fluid inside of him. A large lump pressed up against his sphincter and he cried out as he felt it. This was it. This was the moment the King baptized him in his new purpose.

The King massaged Chris’ stomach with his antennae. The King’s mind soothed Chris’, telling him that he was a good brood mate, helping him relax as the first egg, which was long and oval, stretched out his hole around it.

It was long. Longer than Chris had anticipated. And when it finally popped inside of him, he gasped at the pleasure that it elicited as his insides pulled the egg up, deeper into his body.

The second egg was right on the heels of the first. Chris whimpered and grunted, straining against his bondage as it squeezed its way past his hole. His cock bobbed up and down between his legs, leaking profusely as he felt the third egg stretch him out.

A fourth egg followed. Each one was easier than the last as his asshole stretched to accommodate them. It felt good. So good. Chris lost track of how many there were as the pressure against his prostate continued to build.

Chris was full. So full. And yet there were still more eggs. When the King finally told him that there was only one more egg, he didn’t know how much time had passed.

Chris opened his eyes and looked at his King. He could scarcely see the royal Trakka past the swollen, distended lump of his belly. He was full of eggs, of future children. The sight filled him with such profound joy and arousal that when the final egg finally slipped past his loose hole and forced another egg right up against his prostate, his cock exploded.

Thick, hot ropes of cum spurted out of the tip of Chris’ cock. He didn’t think he had ever cum so much before. He covered the King from head to foot and briefly felt a pang of panic at the defilement. He worried that the King would be angry, but instead, the King seemed amused, if not outright pleased.

The King reassured Chris that he would make a wonderful brood father. The thought filled him with warmth as he slipped into a dreamless sleep, exhausted from the ordeal of his first breeding.

Trakka Brooding — Sol ???

It was easy to lose track of time in the depths of the Trakka nest. There was no surface light to speak of, and the only thing that Chris had for companionship was the moans of his fellow brood fathers and the constantly-shifting and shimmering lights of the walls around them.

Chris’ days passed by in a haze of intense arousal and overwhelming joy as he watched and felt the eggs shift inside him. It felt good. So good to be fulfilling his purpose as a brood father. His cock felt like it was permanently erect, leaking pre-cum profusely, the reward for using his body for the sake of the colony.

Despite the relative atrophy of Chris’ cognitive facilities, spending most of his days just basking in the pleasure of being a brood father, he immediately snapped into perfect clarity when he felt the King’s thinly-veiled alarm in his mind.

Chris was afraid that something had happened to his babies, but the King sensed his distress and immediately tempered his own emotions. The King’s presence in Chris’ mind became firmer, more comforting. It helped to still the fluttering in Chris’ chest.

The panic trickled away from Chris’ mind like it had never been there in the first place.

A few minutes later, the King swept into the room. Chris learned then that his brood had grown faster than the stewards had anticipated and that he was, for lack of a better term, ready to pop. The King himself took over the customary duty of massaging the brood father’s abdomen, and as he did so, he regaled Chris with stories about the Trakka and their brood fathers.

Chris moaned a little as he felt his King’s chitinous graspers on his distended belly, and giggled as the King’s antennae brushed up against his ticklish sides.

The King told him of the Trakka’s origins as a warrior people, of the way that the colonies used to fight amongst themselves for territory and resources. How they once lived in burrows under the plains, where the angry light in the sky would roast their warriors every now and again, with no mercy.

The King told him of the first Sky People that became brood fathers. Of how they had withered away and died. Of how the Great Tree had answered the Trakkan prayer and made all the fleshling brood fathers from that point practically immortal, like the golden Kings.

Chris felt a flush of arousal as he felt movement inside of him. But more than that, he felt profound happiness at the notion that he would live forever, serving as a brood father for the colony for the rest of his days.

Then the King told Chris of the Mind-Song and the way that it stretched beyond the surface of Yora, into the heavens above and past them. The King told Chris that he had known Chris was coming from the moment he exited the cryostasis pod, and that it was his influence, worked over that unfathomable distance, that had made Chris crave sexual satisfaction so badly.

Perhaps the old Chris would have found all of it highly objectionable. The old Chris would have been enraged at the violation of his personal sovereignty. But now, he didn’t care. Now, he was grateful that the King had ensnared him. He had never felt so fulfilled as he did as a brood father for the colony.

And then Chris felt it. Movement. Stronger than anything he’d felt before. The King looked up. He was pleased. Very pleased. At that moment, Chris heard the Mind-Song of the other brood fathers. He had finally been accepted fully into the fold.

Moments later, Chris felt the tears trickling down his face. The first one, the strongest one, had already ripped through its egg. How he knew that, he would never understand. The King’s antennae brushed against his hole, coaxing it open, making him wet with slick.

Chris moaned as the eggs hatched one by one. His precious children were hatching. They were moving around inside him, wriggling, squirming. It tickled, but it was also intensely pleasurable. They milled about inside him chaotically. He felt one creep up his throat, but the King guided it away from that direction.

The children, the brood, eventually learned which way to go. Their wriggling aligned and Chris nearly cried from how good it felt. it wasn’t long before the first one emerged from him, stretching his hole around its tube-like body.

The King’s graspers gently cradled the youngling, and brought it up to show Chris. It was a grub, translucent white, about as long as his forearm and nearly twice as thick. The King only stayed there for a moment before he moved away to set the grub down by the receptacle that had been gathering Chris’ pre-cum this whole time.

In the King’s absence, the other brood attendants rushed to Chris’ side. Their antennae brushing all over his body sent him into a state of overstimulation. His cock pulsed and throbbed. The second grub was pushed out of him as the third grub practically shot out of his ass as his chute contracted around it.

The second grub was caught by a pair of Trakka hands, while the third one landed gracefully on a bed of moss that had been prepared, just in case, according to the King.

The fourth grub slid out with minimal effort, Chris’ hole stretching around its soft body as he cried out and shook from the pleasure of it. The fifth grub had a lot more trouble as Chris’ arousal grew and his passage rhythmically pulsed.

Chris’ entire body felt like an erogenous zone, and the feeling of the attendants’ antennae all over him only stoked the fire of his libido. His young didn’t help matters one bit. Their constant movement brushed up against his prostate again and again and again, making him clench, making his cock twitch and leak even more.

But the grubs didn’t stop. They kept coming. Each one was a lesson in how much pleasure Chris could feel. Chris lost track at the seventh. If not for the King, he would have lost his mind to the pleasure. The sensation of his broodlings slipping out of his sensitive, stretched out hole was simply too overwhelming.

It felt like hours had passed before only one grub was left inside of Chris. As it squeezed through his entrance, the orgasm that he had been begging for hit him. It was so intense that it shattered his mind. Not even the King’s presence could keep it together.

Thick, hot cum shot from the tip of Chris’ cock. He moaned and groaned, waves of pleasure washing over him as the orgasm continued. Instead of waning with each shot, the sensations just intensified with each and every spurt.

Chris’ now-enormous cock was a veritable geyser of cum, absolutely drenching the attendants that were unable to get out of the way fast enough. Cum filled up the receptacle on the floor, overflowed it, and began dribbling into the reservoir in the center of the room.

Stronger and stronger. Harder and harder. Every shot made Chris more aroused rather than less. His balls churned between his legs as cum rocketed out of the tip of his cock. He was powerless to resist the rapturous pleasure as it tore through him, obliterating him.

The orgasm never tailed off, but it did reach a plateau. After a few minutes, Chris got used to the intensity, somewhat. It still made thinking almost impossible, but with the King’s help, he could watch his broodlings as they gulped down his emission.

Chris felt the stirrings of pride in his heart. The broodlings were so strong. He could already tell. They would grow up to be elite soldiers in his King’s army. They were going to become even stronger, a new breed of Trakka to make the colony proud.

As he watched the grubs, the only thing that Chris could think of was how good it would feel for his King to fill him up with eggs right away. He wanted to have another brood. He wanted to have more children. As many as his King would give him.

Chris wanted to raise an army for his King.

Chris wanted to incubate and give birth to his King’s brood for the rest of his days.

Yora Expedition — Sol 339

Chris sat patiently in the driver seat of the rover as two of his sons pushed the vehicle across the plains toward the Proteus. Chris had wanted to drive it back, but the King had been strongly against it. Chris agreed once he realized just how fragile the brood currently incubating in his swollen belly was.

Two more of Chris’ sons served as his escort, flying to either side of the rover with majestic wings. He still couldn’t believe it. These were his sons. From his first brood. They had grown up to be so beautiful. They made him proud. They made their father, the King, proud.

The colony was prosperous, but it needed to grow. The answer was in Chris’ mind. It wasn’t his place to think, or at least it wouldn’t have been if he were just another brood father. But he had proven remarkably resilient, retaining much of his natural intelligence and self-determination despite the hypnotic effects of the Great Tree. Apparently that was something that the King desired very much.

After a few hours, Chris and his sons finally arrived at the Proteus. It still looked good despite its abandonment. It had sunk into the wetland soil by about half a foot, but the damage was minimal. The important thing was that all the systems seemed to still be operational, as was proven when the supersonic deterrents triggered at the approach of the Trakka.

Fortunately, the Trakka weren’t much affected by it, though Chris’ sons complained about the grating sound. To his surprise, Chris could also faintly hear it. He quickly encoded the Trakka as an exception for the deterrents, and they immediately stopped broadcasting.

Together, the four Trakka warriors that Chris had brought with him pulled the Proteus out of the soil. Then, one of his sons helped him waddle up the boarding ramp into the Proteus.

The Trakka were very impressed by the technology that surrounded them, and although they seemed eager to explore, they stayed close to Chris like their father had told them to. Chris wasn’t about to complain. He loved the way that his sons coddled him and cared for their soon-to-be-born brothers.

Sitting in the pilot seat was surreal, for Chris. It reminded him of his old life, a life that he felt not a single shred of desire to go back to, but a life that he was nevertheless grateful for. If not for that old life he would have never known the joy of being a brood father for the colony.

Chris accessed the console and activated the beacon. He sent a message to the Terran Coalition that he had found a perfectly habitable world to settle. It would take almost seventy years for the message to reach Earth, even along the Slipspace relays that the Proteus had automatically strung along behind it during its two and a half-year jump.

The colony ships themselves were probably going to arrive in three years or less, depending on the degree to which technology had advanced on Earth, but it still left enough time for Chris to help the colony prepare for the arrival of the new colonists at Yora.

Chris had every intention to help the King capture every single virile male that would come aboard those colony ships. He not only desired the growth of the colony, he also wanted those men to know the profound joy of giving up their minds, bodies, and souls in the service of the colony.

Chris wanted to see fellow human men waddling around in the tunnels beneath the Trakka nest, fucked full of the King’s eggs. He wanted them to feel the intense pleasure of being bred. He wanted them to experience the weeks-long orgasm that followed birth.

Even though he hadn’t really even thought twice about the women, the King still reassured Chris that they wouldn’t be mistreated. The King said that even though the Trakka didn’t have any direct use for them, they would be taken into the fold. They would be brought into the Mind-Song, but would not officially become part of the colony.

The women would be able to go back and build their human settlement. As far as Chris understood it, occasionally, brood fathers would be sent back, in between broods, to breed the women to produce more potential brood fathers.

But that was a story for the future. For now, Chris needed some rest after the long journey out to the Proteus. His sons were only too eager to help him outside to lie under the stars. They laid beside him and rubbed his stomach with their antennae, cooing at their unhatched brothers.

It wasn’t the future that Chris had originally had in mind. Not for himself, much less for mankind as a whole. But now, it was the only future that he wanted for humanity. It was the only future that he knew was in store, if everything went according to plan.