Page 26 of Bred

Chapter Eight

Talon

“She’s planning something,” Shank says. He’s suspicious of Lyra, but I haven’t seen any signs that she’s getting into trouble right now. She was upset when she discovered that Luca is a cyborg, but between the fucking I gave her and the standard arguments against non-sentience, she seems to have accepted him.

It’s Shank’s job to pay attention to ship’s discipline, so I can’t fault him for keeping a close eye on her. It’s my job to captain this ship to the next breeding destination. In this case, a nebula.

“Is ‘she’s planning something’ your way of telling me that she hasn’t actually done anything wrong whatsoever?”

“Yes,” he admits. “But I don’t trust it, or her.”

“Trust is earned. She may be earning it.”

Every time I think about Lyra, I remember how it felt to have her wrapped around my cocks. I will have to call her back to my chambers soon and repeat the performance, just as soon as I get a moment away from the helm.

Shank falls silent, folding both pairs of arms over his chest. I wonder if he is missing her. She has been spending all her time with Luca lately, even knowing he is the equivalent of a human toy.

“Is there anything else? We’re coming into range now. And we know this lady isn’t going to be an easy date.”

“No, sir,” Shank admits.

“Dismissed.”

I proceed to the bridge, where my crew have a massive nebula on screen. It used to be that these were mistaken for clouds of gasses, but we detected signs of sentience, and thereafter, of physical form.

There’s an awed hush on the bridge as we look at what some consider to be the source of all existence. Light and life spews forth at a glacial pace. The work we do today will not be realized for millennia, but there is no doubt that what we send into the nebula will become part of a new star, and around that new star will form new worlds, worlds that the chimeric offspring of our current breeding programming will inhabit.

“Bring Lyra to me,” I say to a passing officer. “I want her to see this.”

Lyra arrives on the bridge, looking worried and more than a little guilty. Perhaps Shank is right. Maybe she is up to something. That will have to be a matter for another time. Right now, I want to show her our mission. If she understands her part in this greater plan, she may very well stop resisting it.

Her eyes widen as she sees the explosion of vivid color on screen. The nebula is stunning, a bright explosion of blue and gold covering the visible space, bordered by the deep darkness of emptiness.

“Is that a nebula?”

“Yes,” I say. “We’ve come to seed it.”

“Seed it, as in, breed it?” She looks at me with a wide-eyed half-smirk. “You want to... fuck a nebula.”

“Not personally,” I smile back. “That’s what the Virility is for.”

“Wha...” Her jaw drops and she stares at me and then the nebula, and then back at me. “The ship is going to fuck a nebula? That doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

“This particular nebula is capable of spawning planets.”

“You’re going to fuck a nebula and make baby planets.”

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