[Preview]Renegade Ravager Vol. 3 -- Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – 01738.106 AA

I felt uneasy in the days following our success on Valeur Mineure. We had retrieved the logbooks, discovered clues to Josefine’s missing crew, and destroyed an invaluable resource for the Republic. People were finally starting to hear the truth, to learn they were ruled by monsters and liars.

But I felt agitated. I wanted to act, to strike, but there was no clear path forward. We had to decipher our findings and carefully plot our next steps.

All I wanted to do was burn the galaxy down, to purge the lies and the madness.

I turned my rage inward, focusing even harder on my training. I sparred with Iuno and Elspeth, then worked on my meditation with Josfine. We sat in seemingly serene silence while murder boiled through my veins.

I felt like a pot that was about to boil over.

After a few days, I found myself pacing about my stateroom. I was unable to rest or focus on any constructive task, like servicing my weapons or armor.

Aggy had forced us to move out of the cabins we had occupied in her AI core, claiming she needed the space. I wasn’t bothered, I was used to moving into quarters, enjoying a few good memories, and then moving out as my posting changed.

At first, the AI had tried to move us to the executive quarters, just off the bridge, but I refused. They were far too luxurious, meant for high-ranking VIPs. I felt like I’d just bounce around in the oversized cabins.

We came to a compromise, and I moved into quarters not too far from her AI core. They had originally been meant for guests and passengers, so they were spacious and comfortable without being too outrageous. I had to admit, I did enjoy the larger bed and fancy shower, though Elspeth grumbled she’d have to modify it to suit our needs again.

My harem had moved in around me. Elspeth took the cabin to my left while Josefine claimed the one to my right. The Yord woman rarely stayed there, she preferred her greenhouse, but it made things easier when she came to spend the night in my quarters.

That evening, I just couldn't seem to settle my thoughts. I paced the length of my rooms. Even though I had picked them for their modest size, they still felt far too large for me. It was a relief when Elspeth came by, letting herself in unannounced, which was her habit.

Elspeth paused my pacing and pushed me down onto my bed. She crawled onto my chest and sat here, her knees tucked hard against my sides.

“You know you’re not the only one going stir crazy and feeling frustrated,” she said without preamble as she stared down at me. “We’re all going crazy.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to settle the churning flames that filled my heart.

“I’m sorry,” I finally admitted.

I had been so focused on my anger and agitation, that I had missed signs of the same amongst my harem. Josefine was running herself ragged while training and cultivating even more aggressive, evolved war forms for her herd, while Aggy was obsessed with the entombed corpse.

Elspeth regarded me hard for a moment, then smiled. “It’s not too late. I’m going to take up your evening, I could use some relief. Go see Aggy and Josefine tomorrow. You should give them the same opportunity.”

She gave me a small smile and leaned down, leaving a delicate kiss on my lips.

“Now strip,” she whispered.

She rolled off me, and I was out of my clothes in seconds.

Elspeth took her time, unsealing her skinsuit, revealing the majestic, pale flesh underneath. She had utterly transformed over the previous months. No longer was she a thin, malnourished waif. Long effort and cybernetic augmentation had made her into a légionnaire. Hard muscle ran along her arms and legs and coiled across her torso. It was she was a sculpture of warlike beauty carved from pure, white marble.

As I stared at her, I realized something. “Your pendant, you haven’t worn it in a while, have you?”

Elspeth gave me a sad smile. “I keep it in my cabin.”

When I had first met her, Elspeth had worn a red pendant, a bit of carnival glass. It was the last memento of her parents. Thinking about it, I realized she hadn’t worn it in months, even before the fall of the Diaspora Circus.

She rubbed her bare neck. “It felt weird, wearing it. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t forgotten my mom or everything we went through – but I’m not the same woman anymore. I’ve grown stronger and found my place in this galaxy. I keep it by my bedside, to remind me who I was, but I won’t let it define me.”

It was a wonderful sentiment.

“Trust me, I’ll always love my mom for what she did for me, but I’m determined to look forward – and enjoy the benefits of all my hard work.” Elspeth ran her hands down her breasts before cupping them. “Damn, these augments really have some nice upgrades. Who knew building muscles could have such rewarding results.”

Her enhanced physique and increased muscle mass had pushed up her moderate bust, granting them more prominence.

Reaching for her, I tugged her close as I sat on the edge of the bed. Tenderly, I began to kiss her skin, my tongue playing lightly against her nipples. They were light pink, only a shade darker than her milky skin.

Elspeth cooed as I brought one, then the other nipple, to full attention. Her chest grew flush as blood rushed beneath the skin.

“James,” she wrapped her hands around my head.

I began to flick her nipples harder, my tongue rasping against her teats. She moaned, arching her chest, and pressing her breasts against my lips. My hands roamed lower, cupping and gripping her ass, loving the feel of her muscles tensing and constricting under my touch.

My cock jabbed hard between us, leaving a trail of precum across her stomach.

Stepping back, Elspeth ran a finger across the glistening trail, before bringing it to her lips. Her eyes sparkled with lascivious mirth as I watched her with rapt attention.

“Delicious,” she murmured. “But I think I need more.”

I tugged Elsepth onto the mattress and rolled on top of her. Nectar slicked along her netherlips, and I was straining to plunge into her velvet depths.

Elspeth positioned herself, gripping her thighs and spreading her legs wide.

Gripping my base, I lodged my crown in her entrance. She huffed and shuffled closer, pressing me into her depths.

“James, please,” she begged.

I gave it to her.

Angling my hips, I impaled her in a single stroke. Her every wrinkle and contour gripped me tightly, lovingly embracing my cock as it reached her depths.

Elspeth's eyes went wide, her mouth gasping in shock and pleasure.

But I wasn’t done yet. Gripping her legs, just above her hands, I braced her in place as I set a hammering pace.

For a moment I was worried I had gone too rough too fast. When we had first become lovers, I had been afraid of hurting Elspeth, that she was too fragile. She had quickly stripped me of that notion, making it clear she wasn’t some delicate flower that needed me to hold back.

Once again, she reminded me she was a woman who could keep pace with me.

“Fuck yes!” she moaned. “Give it to me, fuck me hard!”

Her sodden passage made it clear her words weren’t for show. My cabin filled with a reverberating, wet smack as I railed into her, burying myself to my hilt with each stroke.

Shifting positions, I spun her on her side and lifted her leg over my shoulder. Elspeth cried out wordlessly as I continued to pound her, using every bit of my considerable bulk to fuck her as hard as possible.

But she was a légionnaire too, and she gave as good as she got. I could feel her muscles clinging hard against me, coiling and uncoiling, determined to hold me prisoner each time I tried to stroke free.

The sensations were overwhelming. Iuno always joked if you wanted a good fuck, you went to a légionnaire – she wasn’t wrong.

Elspeth ended up on all fours as I fucked her from behind. She moaned and cried as she came, a full-body climax that tore through her augmented muscles and strained her reinforced bones. I could feel the overwhelming bliss as I strained to hold on. Gripping her hips, I slammed into her, thrusting to the depths of her writhing pussy.

“Oh, please, oh please!” she begged.

I gave it to her. My body clenched, then released in a single movement as I doused her insides with my seed. My hips continued to slam into her behind even as I slipped loose, spent and exhilarated.

“See, I feel much better now,” she huffed after a moment, her face still buried in the pillows, her ass in the air.

I could only agree.

======================

“We need to talk.”

Balan didn’t look surprised as I essentially ambushed her outside of the Lien Lumineux’s hospital deck two days later. The cyborg had been avoiding me since our escape from Valeur Mineure, and I had been preoccupied with more pressing matters.

Aggy and Josefine had greatly appreciated my attention. As Elspeth had warned me, they were tense as well. I helped them spend their nervous energy the best way I knew how.

I had barely managed to untangle myself from the sleeping Yord woman that morning. It had been difficult to sneak out of my quarters without waking her up, especially with a distraught Zoto prowling the halls looking for his master.

Balan had been hiding on the hospital deck since our return from Valeur Mineure. She had been ungoing further treatments according to Aggy.

I could see fresh suture marks along Balan’s chest and shoulders, the skin still pink and raw where it butted up against her cybernetics.

She looked up at me with her crystal blue, artificial eyes. “Can you follow me to my quarters? Some things are best discussed in private.”

I gestured with my arm, indicating she should lead the way.

Balan’s cabin was just off the hospital deck since Aggy wanted her close to emergency services if her condition suddenly deteriorated.

From what the AI had explained, Balan’s health was a delicate, troublesome balancing act. She had managed to undo a great deal of harm and trauma Last Wasp had endured during her captivity, but much of the xeno tech that had been spliced into her body was beyond mortal keen.

Balan’s respiratory system was a mess. Even freshly cloned organs eventually failed, requiring regular transplants. Aggy had tried to replace them with artificial cybernetics, but they had clashed violently with the xeno tech still wrapped around her heart, almost killing Balan.

Aggy hoped to eventually find a solution and restore Balan’s humanity, but I had my doubts.

Following Last Wasp, she escorted me to a small airlock positioned in front of her quarters. Air hissed around us, and my HUD indicated the air contained several medical compounds, likely meant to help with Balan’s condition and slow down the rate of rejection.

The cabin beyond was simple. The main room contained a narrow, hard bed; there was a washroom off to the side. A medical station, with an attached auto doc, took up most of the space.

“It’s not much, but it’s more than what I had in the Circus,” Balan said dispassionately.

Her respirator hissed as she reached behind her head and undid the clasps that held it in place.

I had rarely seen her without her mask. She had worn it constantly since Aggy had first saved her life on Xiphon-8.

Despite her secretive and fierce nature, she had what I would consider a cute face; narrow, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and heart-shaped lips. Aggy had reconstructed her facial features step by step, growing and replacing damaged bones and grafting cloned skin. Looking closely, I could still see the suture marks running along her hairline.

Balan locked eyes with me, never looking away as I studied her.

“Who are you?” I finally demanded.

A flicker of doubt played across her face.

Instead of answering, she took a seat on the edge of her bed. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, making it clear this wasn’t a social visit; I wouldn’t leave without some answers.

While onboard the ship, Balan wore a modified skinsuit, the sleeves and legs sheered back to not interfere with her cybernetics. The mechanical joints moved silently, the artificial muscle fiber underneath stretching or relaxing as she adjusted her position.

For a moment, she just tapped a finger against her leg, plastic and metal against plastic and metal. Her breath rasped painfully in and out of her chest, her shoulders rising and falling with each inhalation and exhalation.

“Balan Konstantine, fifth daughter of Eldric Konstantine,” she finally answered.

“Konstantine?” I sorted through my memories; the name sounded familiar.

She glanced up at me, her expression hollow. “More accurately, I should say General Eldric Konstantine, former High Commander of the Republic and condemned arch-traitor.”

The pieces fell into place. “Shit.”

She gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “Now you understand.”

I had only been a kid, not even old enough to sign up for military service when General Eldric Konstantine was executed.

The Konstantines were an old military family, one that had been around since the founding of the Republic. They had served humanity as stalwarts for generations, fighting heretics and xenos in the name of Justice, Logic, and Reason.

I knew several of the early legions had been led by members of the Kostantine family, and even more had served in the army and navy, rising to become great leaders.

Until High Commander Eldric Konstantine’s downfall.

The last, leading scion of the family, he had acted as both a military leader and a powerful sector governor. He had led daring campaigns to push the boundaries of the Republic and claim new territory for our people. The Republic’s propaganda had painted him as a hero, crushing heretics and xenos as he claimed system after system in the name of the Martyred Goddess.

Until his sudden and swift downfall.

The shocking and unexpected news broadcasts from Principe Divin stated that he had turned against the Martyred Goddess and the Saints. Rather than upholding the principles of the Republic, he had attempted to carve his own fiefdom from the systems had had conquered.

The legate legions had been dispatched to quell his insurrection and then bring him to Principe Divin for trial.

Eldric Konstantine had been executed, his death broadcast across the stars. His general staff and retainers had followed him to an ignoble grave.

A brutal purge followed, rooting out all those who displayed disloyalty within the military’s ranks. It had taken decades for the Republic to replace the losses, which were still keenly felt even by the time I had been invited to join the Star Ravagers.

But those that had risen in the ranks were far more zealous and dedicated to the Saints and the Martyred Goddess. Konstantine’s name became a byword for betrayal.

I had never heard anything about his family.

Balan rubbed her face. “I barely knew my father. He was distant, always obsessed with his job and his stature. All he could think about was the next campaign, the next victory. His wife, his children – they were a necessity, something to maintain the bloodline and the family legacy.”

“Were you captured by the Hegemony because of what happened to your father?” I asked.

She couldn’t seem to look at me, she stared at the bulkhead instead.

“No, not directly,” she answered at another pause. “By the time of my father’s downfall, I had already been recruited by military intelligence. I had enlisted in the army – as was expected of me – but they recruited me right after basic training. They claimed I was too talented to waste as a front-line grunt, but I knew they just wanted me for my family name, my connections.”

“I was recruited into Section 8P,” she continued. “Think of them as the organization’s auditors. They watch the purse strings to ensure that nobody is embezzling or misappropriating funds.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “The other sections mocked us as a bunch of nosy accountants, but I felt like I was really making a difference, rooting out corruption and exposing wrongdoers.”

“Then your father was arrested and executed,” I guessed.

She nodded. “Don’t ask me if the accusations against him were true or not – I don’t know, and I never cared to look into it, honestly. My father was only a name, a figure I had glimpsed a handful of times in my life. I had six older siblings, but I can’t remember their names. The Konstantines were a family in name only.”

She was suddenly racked by a coughing fit. The auto doc spun to life, handing her a vial of medicine. Balan quickly drank it, choking down the viscous liquid.

Last Wasp wiped the back of her arm across her mouth; the plastic came back stained from the medicine. She stared at the stain for a moment before wiping the prosthetic clean on her bedsheets.

“My downfall didn’t follow immediately, but after my father’s death everyone treated me differently,” he continued, her voice raw. “My superiors investigated me multiple times, but I truly had nothing to do with my father or whatever plots he was involved with – real or imaginary.”

“But guilt by association is not something you can just cast away,” I said.

“It’s not,” she agreed. “I don’t know how, but I came to the attention of Section X. As I explained before, they’re the elite of the elite, those that work hand in hand with the Saints. Espionage, terrorism, infiltration, and extermination, they did the jobs too dirty for the Saint’s harems to handle.”

I found it hard to believe there were any tasks to foul for those xeno-tainted monsters. But, I imagined Saints and their harem couldn’t be directly behind every misdeed conducted on behalf of the Republic. Plausible deniability was always useful.

“And when you came to their attention?” I pressed.

“They kidnapped me, forcibly recruited and inducted me into their ranks,” she answered. “I became a killer – an assassin.”.

Her mechanical fingers traced along her shoulder, likely reaching for a service tattoo that was no longer there.

“I was a disposable asset, a tool they could use and then throw away at any time. I knew that, but I felt like I had no choice. To them, I was the daughter of the arch-traitor, a sinner by blood.”

“The training was the worst part,” she whispered. “They stripped away who I was, replaced it with something cold and uncaring.”

Balan’s gaze remained blank. “Pattern recognition. That’s how I knew that sealed tomb was there, on Valeur Mineure. Section X trained its assassins to look for the hidden patterns, the happenstances and seemingly random events of life. By mastering them, you could cut through the tightest security, find the one gap nobody expected a knife to thrust through.”

“How long were you in Section X?” I pressed.

“Five years,” she answered. “Don’t ask me how many people I killed, how many lives I ruined. They encouraged us to never keep count, to never think about the past or the aftermath of our actions. We were told instead to focus on the next task, the next kill.”

“I’m not proud of what I did,” Balan continued. “I kept telling myself I did what I had to, to survive, that if I didn’t follow orders I would be killed…”

The air hung heavy between us. Balan took another rasping breath.

“I was the best of the best, I lasted longer than of my peers, but I knew that eventually my time would come,” she continued. “I was on a mission in Hegemony space, sabotaging a research station belonging to the Veinglass Conglomerate. My cover was blown and…”

Balan’s words trailed off.

“I don’t remember much of my time in the Circus.” The cybernetic limbs against her back flexed and shivered. “Pain – the pain I remember, the agony of having my arms and legs sawed off, my chest ripped open and stuffed full of alien machinery, but the rest? It was like a nightmare, a horror I couldn’t awake from as I was forced to fight and kill, again and again – just like my life before.”

She finally turned to look at me.

“You saved me, you gave me a second shot at life, and I will not forget that,” she vowed. “I’ll do everything in my power to serve you, to –”

“No.”

Balan blinked. “What?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want some dedicated servant, someone who blindly follows me because they need a purpose in life, someone to make the decisions for them.”

Stepping closer, I put my hand on her shoulder. I could feel the machinery shift under her skin.

“Elspeth, Aggy, Josefine, Iuno, Xarl, and Victor – the crew of this ship – they’re here, they follow me because we all share a common goal. My battle brothers and sister – we want vengeance, while Aggy wants a chance to correct what she views as her past mistakes.” I laughed. “Outside her love for me, Elspeth is here because she wants to show the universe just what she’s capable of.”

Josefine wanted to find her place as well; locating the lost crew of her ship was just part of her larger goal.

“What do you want?” I challenged Balan.

She opened her mouth, then quickly snapped her jaw shut.

I was trying to think of what to say next when we interrupted.

“James, Balan, can you come to my AI core?” Aggy requested.

I queued into the comm channel. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been analyzing the tissue samples you obtained from that sealed tomb on Valeur Mineure,” she answered. “I’ve made some disturbing discoveries.”

“We’re on our way,” I answered.

Releasing my grip on Balan, I headed to the door. I heard her taking a rattling breath before she put her respirator back on.

“Think about it,” I told her. “What do you want? Do you want revenge against Section X or the Republic? Do you want to make up for some perceived sin of the past? Find a goal beyond just some perceived obligation or need for a leader to blindly follow.”

Neither of us said another word as we hopped a tram to take us to the AI core.