The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

A rat jumped from land onto a ship.

As the ship rocked across the ocean they multiplied. One by one each crew dissolved into a seething mass of fur, tail and whiskers. Soon the ship thrummed with their chittering squeaks and they scampered along every deckboard and plank. The ship moved with the flow of the swarm.

The ship landed in a port. The rats multiplied there. Other ships set forth, soon rodents scurried in every sewer and alley on the continent. Then the globe. The faces from her past lives that told her no were replaced by bulging eyes and eager whiskers. When someone tried to close their doors against the swarm she turned her gaze and soon enough one part of her would slip through a small hole and in due time every door opened. She realized she couldn’t find her body. She didn’t know where or what she was other than the swarm, a multitude of living beings responding to her thoughts like her own limbs.

She gestured towards the media organizations and soon their microphones captured nothing but hungry squeaking. She pointed at institutions of government and in a moment they became nothing but an extension of her hand, reaching for more. Every building in Beijing, New York, Berlin and Delhi surged with scurrying extensions of her will. When she was hungry the swarm devoured, when she thought the horde flowed towards her desires, when she burned with ion the throng multiplied. There was no dissension, no debates.

When she curled her fist her swarm leapt starwards and formed into a bristling phalanx of battleships and carriers. When she punched it plunged towards the Zetai core worlds in a storm of titanium and nuclear fire.

Queen Hera woke with a smile on her face. Tulip was resting peacefully against her breast. Violet had wandered back to the enclosure for food. The entire ship would be their enclosure soon.

“Good morning darlings...” she murmured with a smile at her original devotees.

The officers met for their first all-hosts meeting. Queen Hera sat at the head of the table this time.

“I would say thank you all for coming, but ...” she chuckled as she sat down. Baranov threw up a list of crew on the main screen. It displayed status indicators next to each crew member. Roughly a quarter of the crew had checkmarks next to their profiles already. Now it was time to start churning through the rank and file.

“Before we get started—” Charles interjected “Now that we all understand each other I want to apologize for how I used to act. I didn’t realize how I was coming off to everyone.” Queen Hera raised an eyebrow.

“I told you to stop being such an ass. So many times.” Luna rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but like, I didn’t really get how it actually made people feel. I’ll do better from now on.” As insignificant as it was, it was a breath of fresh air hearing Charles mollified. The other officers murmured some sort of acceptance of the apology and they sat there in an awkward moment.

“Okay, now that we’re all one happy little telepathic collective does anyone else have anything to share before we go forward?” Queen Hera asked in mock exasperation.

The room sat in silence for a moment.

“I can’t believe you were the one eating my hotsauce Sai.” Hiro murmured. She laughed.

“I’ll buy you more.” Sai responded. Then she frowned.

“Are we still getting paid?”

Queen Hera shrugged.

“Economics isn’t really my area of expertise. I’m delegating that to Luna and Baranov. I’m told that mind controlling empires still have to respect supply, demand and markets, etcetera. As long as we can meet our goals, I don’t care.” Queen Hera responded. Sai nodded. Queen Hera motioned to Baranov.

“Let’s get this started then.” He said and they launched into a telepathic planning session. It was faster than every meeting Dr. Hera had ever been in, information, ideas and discussion instantly understood between them all.

With the officers all subjects, they could easily manipulate the ship but they were getting close to Raven-4 and intricately crafted implantation operations were both too slow and unnecessary. The easiest way of course, was to get them while they were sleeping.

In the dark of night several crew fanned out across the crew quarters. Charles slipped through the door as it opened, unlocked via his security officer codes. He approached the sleeping form of his subordinate Yusuf and pressed the injector against his neck. Queen Hera sat in the twilight of her lab wearing the neural headband and smiled as she felt new worms wake up to her control throughout the ship.

There was of course always brute force. It was risky but since they knew all crew schedules it was easy to find isolated crew and overpower them with numbers. Women were easier to muscle into submission and implant.

Jade hummed in the shower as she scrubbed off the grime of a day working duct and plumbing issues. Water from the mist shower slowly gathered into rivulets rolling down her breasts as she washed her long brown hair. It was the end of 2nd shift and the showers on this end of the crew quarters were rarely used in this awkward hour. Or that was usually the case. She turned when she heard the door open. She frowned as she saw Yusuf, one of the tactical guys, enter the showers. He was looking straight at her. The showers were co-ed on a utilitarian ship like the Rusalka but it was still common courtesy to use the other door and go to the unofficial male half of the room unless things were super busy. Which they most certainly weren’t.

“Hey—” she noticed he was wearing his normal duty clothes. Behind him another man appeared. Her heart jumped and eyes went wide. Something was off. They rushed her. She got off half a scream before a hand clamped over her mouth and she was wrestled down to the ground. The last thing she felt before everything went numb was a small sting at the back of her neck.

And of course while the Queen was largely leaving others to do the routine work there was always the opportunity of a medical appointment. On a mercenary ship routine checkups weren’t mandatory but some people had existing appointments.

“Hey Angelo.” Jorge walked into the clinic. The nurse waved at his friend.

“Where’s the doc?”

“She’s busy. I’ll do your injection today.” Jorge nodded. The doctor seemed all over the ship recently, odd compared to her normal shut in nature. He settled into a chair and Angelo approached with an injector. Jorge held out his arm and looked at the wall while Angelo prepped the site. He felt the cold touch and slight discomfort of the injector in his arm. Angelo held the site and put an adhesive bandage on it. Jorge started to get up to leave.

“Hold up. New formulation. Doc wanted you to stay for observation.” Jorge groaned.

“How long?” Angelo returned to his station and stowed the injector. He rummaged around in a drawer.

“Just five minutes.” Angelo replied. Jorge huffed and returned to studying the bulkhead.

“So...” he tried to think of small talk and then smiled. “How are you and Clara getting along?”

“Quite well. Quite well.” Angelo grinned.

“She putting out?”

“we’ve had a lovely time together.” Angelo winked. Jorge gave him an air fist bump from across the room. His arm felt oddly sluggish, clumsy.

“Hey whass..” his speech slurred. It was hard to focus on anything with his eyes. His legs refused to move. Angelo moved to the clinic chair and watched Jorge’s eyes start to glaze over.

“He’s ready.”

Jorge heard a door open and it was all he could do to move his head enough to see the doctor’s lab door open. Dr. Hera approached him. When she got close he noticed her hand was holding some small and black thing. He tried to say something but all that came out was a gurgle. Dr. Hera moved behind him and deposited the worm onto the back of his neck. The little creature took a moment to gain it’s bearings and then bit down and began burrowing into his neck.

“My worms should be ready any day now. After that we have enough for the entire crew.” Queen Hera continued in the meeting.

“I previously recommended we always have a supply on hand so we can take advantages of targets of opportunity when they present themselves. Based on the amount of women onboard we should have enough natural fertilization to build a reasonable stockpile of worms.” Baranov pulled up numbers of the amount of women onboard and projected yield per worm, plus gestation time and interbreeding interval. The numbers worked out to a healthy quantity of worms. Assuming the women onboard were being fertilized as constantly as possible. which seemed assured given the increase in contraceptives being requested from the clinic. Queen Hera was ready to move on when Luna piped up.

“Why not blood fertilization?” She asked. Queen Hera looked up from her pad. Luna was smart. Why ask such a question?

“Because it takes several blood draws, concentration treatment, blood type matching and medical supplies.” Queen Hera refrained from reading Luna’s mind. She wanted to see the choice of words her subject took.

“But it’s an alternative to penetrative sex.” Luna said almost tersely. Queen Hera raised an eyebrow.

“An expensive alternative compared to a quick fuck. Out with it Luna.”

“I’m a lesbian, my queen.” Luna said quietly. Queen Hera paused and leaned back, expecting more.

“So?” Queen Hera asked in confusion. Luna looked down. The room was silent.

“I assume what Luna is saying is—” Sai spoke up.

“I know exactly what she’s saying. And I’m not asking you to fall in love with a man, I’m just telling you to get cream-pied occasionally.” Luna somehow blanched and blushed at the same time. She avoided meeting Queen Hera’s eyes but stiffened when the telepathy engaged.

“I’m telling you—you will give me a brood of worm spawn as needed to fill our supply. Moving on.”

Sam had squirreled away a little extra desert with his ration card from the mess hall and setup some fake candles. It was date night. Between the cooped up scoundrels on the Rusalka romance wasn’t a given but stress release was an inevitability. Sometimes it turned into actual romance, risky as it was on a ship like this, and he was trying to make this one work. He had set everything into place and triple checked his bunkmate was still on shift when the knock came. He practically leaped to the door. The beautiful image of Jade appeared in his doorway. He showed her in with excitement and they sat down to his little treat. Jade was of course as lovely as ever and her eyes twinkled in the candlelight as they spoke. It was like a real date, from the movies set on Earth or Elysium. Jade set her fork down when a natural lull in the conversation rose and asked to see his communicator, she had forgotten hers at her workstation. There was still one bite left of her desert left.

“Babe, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Sam’s heart caught in his throat. Had he said something wrong? He started to run his mind through every interaction he could -

“It’s not bad.” She quickly offered. “Sorry. That was a terrible lead in.” Sam laughed, only a little nervously. Jade smiled.

“What’s up?”

“I’ve been looking for a way to tell you this ...” she looked down at her plate. Sam waited.

“I really like you. I’ll it for a while I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about what our future would really look like, given —” she motioned at the tiny cabin. “but lately I can’t imagine a future without you.”

Sam broke into a grin.

“Jade—I love you.” The words escaped his mouth. Her eyes widened and her lightly freckled cheeks blushed. “I love being around you. I love talking with you. I can’t stop thinking about you recently and ...” She reached out and grabbed his hand.

“I was serious when I talked about saving up for a place on Delphini and just settling down. I want to do that with you.” He beamed. The things they had talked about flashed in his mind, white sand and blue sky, work in a terrestrial port where they could return to a nice little home after work. She squeezed his hand.

“There’s something I need you to do though, first.” She looked deep in his eyes.

“Of course babe, what is it?”

“I want you to accept the worm.” She smiled.

“The what?” Sam cocked his head.

“The alien organism we met on Raven-4. I want you to accept one.” He looked at her warm, happy face in utter befuddlement.

“Okay—I don’t get it. Is this a joke from the guys in —” Her face didn’t change.

“It’s not a joke Sam. I have one of the worms and I want you to have one as well.” Was she serious?

“The little bugs that made Tomas go crazy and turned the Doctor and Erik into cultists?” He suddenly chuckled. This was the furthest he had ever seen her go as far as the straight woman act. She finally stopped smiling.

“It wasn’t a great start, but our queen is amazing and —”

“Your queen?” The first bit of unease.

“Queen Hera. She is our leader and —” Sam shook his head.

“Okay, this isn’t landing. What’s going on?” He tried to glean some sort of information about what joke was being played on him from her utterly sincere expression.

“I’ve been sent to give you your worm. I asked that you be given the chance to take it willingly.” She reached into a cargo pocket and pulled something out. He watched with dread as she carefully put the medical looking device on the table and clicked a button on it. A sheath on the tube rotated and revealed a clear vial, suspended inside it was a small black creature. He recoiled and his blood ran cold. He had seen the pictures someone had been ing around the shipnet of Tomas’ dissection. It was the same creature that had been latched onto his brainstem.

“What the fuck is that Jade?” Was all he could get out.

“It’s your worm.” She said simply. Her expression was gentle but firm. He looked at the woman he loved in front of him. He looked at the worm. He looked at the door. He reached for his pocket and—ed he had given her his communicator. He looked at Jade.

“Jade can I have my communicator back?” He asked in a barely restrained voice. He thought of who he would .

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” She whispered, the smallest sign of discomfort in her eyes. She was serious. He stood up and moved to the other side of the room, angling towards the door. Jade didn’t move from her seat.

“Please don’t try that.” She said quietly.

“Why not?” He slowly moved towards the door. He had never remotely considered it before but Jade was half a head shorter than him and almost a hundred pounds lighter. If he needed to get past her -

“Because there are two guys from tactical outside the door with stun guns.” She said. He stared at her. She raised a hand and knocked on the table, simultaneously came two loud knocks on the bulkhead from the outside hallway, in perfect sync. He froze.

“I asked if I could give you the worm peacefully rather than have someone jump you. I wanted to ask you to do this to your face rather than in your sleep. But we can’t let you jeopardize our mission.” She said firmly. He was lost for words. “Please honey sit down.” She gestured at his seat. He looked at her and looked at the door, then slowly, stiffly returned to his chair. Jade smiled thinly as he settled in uneasily. Nobody said anything for a moment.

“You have one of those in your head?”

“Yes.” Another pause.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you.” She replied. Sam’s hand gripped his pants under the table.

“You want to infect me with an alien parasite because you love me?” Desperation strained in his voice. She looked hurt.

“I know it doesn’t make sense now but I do love you, and I want to stay together. When you have your worm we’ll be bonded like never before. I’ve waited to breed for my worm so that you can be the one to fertilize me. Please.”

He stared at the little black creature in the vial.

“Are you still you?”

“Do I not seem like me?”

“I mean—you seem like it, but in there—” He pointed at her head.

“Are you still Jade? Or am I talking to the alien?”

“It’s still me. I still talk the same, I still everything that makes me me, I still us.” She reached out for him, he watched her hand and made no move to take it. She sighed. “I just have some different priorities now, and I’m connected to everyone else in a way that I never dreamed of. It’s—It’s magical.”

“What are your new priorities?” He asked grimly. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“To spread the worm. To serve my queen.”

“I’m not interested in taking orders from alien slugs.” Sam replied bluntly. Jade sighed. Sam was trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“And what about Delphini? What about wanting to be a chief engineer one day? what about—“ His words caught.

“I still can do all of those things. We can still live our life together. As our queen permits.” He shook his head.

They were quiet for a long time.

“How much of me would be left?”

“All of you. I’m telling you it isn’t something taking over your mind. Can’t you see I’m still me and I still love you?” He stared at the table, unable to meet her eyes.

“We’ll still be together Sam.” She whispered.

“Please don’t do this Jade.” He tried to keep his voice from cracking. She looked away.

“We can’t let you leave here without a worm. Please, let me do it.”

Finally, haltingly, he moved a hand towards hers on the table. He grabbed her hand. It still felt normal. Warm. Lovely. He nodded slowly. She got up and moved around the table towards him, picking up the injector as she went. His breath was coming fast.

“It’s okay. I’m here. It’ll be alright.” She tried to soothe him as she put a leg over his chair and straddled him. A tear slipped down his cheek.

“Look at me darling.” She put a hand under his chin and he looked up into her gorgeous blue eyes. Jade leaned forward and kissed him. When the familiar sensation and taste of her lips met his, Sam’s eyes fluttered closed and he let himself enjoy a moment of comforting bliss before the cold tip of an injector pressed against his neck.

Later in her office Queen Hera watched the progress tick up. They had just reached over half of the ship as subjects and it was only speeding up as every new host made things faster. Most of her new subjects were implanted while sleeping and it would only go faster next shift when there were more hands available. She absentmindedly rubbed her neck. It was sore, like it had been for the last two days.

“It’s time.” She heard herself say. Her older self. Elizabeth Hera brought her a cup of coffee as the two clones sat in the lab.

“How do you know?”

“When my larvae were ready my neck felt just like that. In the next day or two you’ll start to feel antsy to get them out. It felt like a compulsion.”

“Maybe I won’t with the state of my worm.” Queen Hera wondered.

“Are you so sure you’ve effectively isolated the behavioral effects of the worm?” Elizabeth took a sip from her own cup and looked at her younger self.

“It’s a moot point. It’s what I am now.”

Elizabeth nodded. Dr. Hera groaned and massaged at her neck.

“Want me to do the honors?” Elizabeth asked.

A few minutes later Queen Hera sat while Elizabeth stood behind her and prepped her for worm extraction. Even through the numbing agent she winced as Elizabeth opened up the worm’s channel. Soon enough she felt a feeling of relief as the worms started slowly crawling out of their brood chamber. Elizabeth collected each one and set them aside before treating the channel as it began to close up again.

“I’m close to figuring out their developmental cycle. Soon we can extract the worms as soon as they hatch and raise them in tubes with artificially delivered nutrients. Less strain on host, easier extraction, faster development.” Elizabeth mentioned. Queen Hera stretched her still slightly sore but much better feeling neck. It was good to finally have a research partner her equal.

“Put in your order to one of my subjects in the fab shop, they’ll implement whatever hardware you need.” Elizabeth nodded and moved in front of Queen Hera.

“You spawned a queen.” She murmured in excitement. Queen Hera looked down in the dish of worms fresh out of her neck. Sure enough one of the worms was slightly larger, with the telltale ridges of a queen worm. Elizabeth set down the dish as the two women marveled at the little thing. As it slowly squirmed in the dish, an odd feeling swept over Queen Hera. This was her spawn. Her worm was spreading and now she had produced a new queen, ready to proliferate the worm further among the stars and expand their kind. She felt a sensation of pride altogether different from her usual self-estimation. Pride and .. adoration?

This was her spawn. Her child. Her lineage. Her...

No. Not hers. The worm in her neck. And Baranov’s worm. The offspring of those two creatures. Not her DNA. The surge of maternal instinct was foreign to her. Unnatural. She reached out a hand to the table of implements Elizabeth had been using and grabbed a scalpel. With a quick motion before Elizabeth could react she brought down the scalpel and bisected the queen worm, spilling it’s xenos blood into the dish. Her own worm seemed to clench in protest and a wave of revulsion and horror flared across her mind from Elizabeth standing before her. She looked up and saw Elizabeth’s face in a state of shock and grief.

“There’s a better way.” Queen Hera said in a low tone while Elizabeth blanched. The two women looked at the Lazarus machine.

The door’s to the captain’s room slid open and Luna walked in. Baranov was nowhere to be found, but Queen Hera sat at the edge of the bed. Some of her things had already been moved in. An empty rat enclosure sat on a table. The Queen was already looking into her eyes the moment she entered the room and Luna felt herself being pulled into the gravity well of those icy blue eyes. She slowly approached the bed and kneeled before her Queen.

“Thank you for receiving me.”

“Pleasure’s mine.” Queen Hera replied tersely.

“Now of all the important things my quartermaster could rather be doing or planning—let me guess; the gold star lesbian is here to plead her case?”

Luna nodded. The slight displeasure of her queen was a scalding rebuke that unsettled her to her core, but she persisted.

“I’ve looked at what it would take to do blood fertilization. Once we scale the hardware up it will be far more productive than natural, even beyond the obvious advantage of men spawning worms. Having an organized means of fertilization will also establish the infrastructure for organized harvesting that will vastly increase the rate at which stockpiles recharge to quantities needed for mass implantation campaigns.” Luna pleaded her case.

“I saw your report. It seems completely valid as far as projections. We’ll need to do something like it in preparation for taking the core worlds. That I’ll grant you.” Queen Hera itted. Luna felt a small spark of hope.

“But the fact is we are not at the core worlds yet. We have yet to take even a single backwater planet and our resources are limited to merely the Rusalka. I need new worms and subjects now, not more later.”

“My Queen, I understand the processing of the blood is trivial as far as lab operations. I already know of male subjects with the same blood type as me. It could be done in two hours. If you could just ask Angelo —” Queen Hera raised her hand and Luna stopped in her tracks.

“You’ll be able to take advantage of blood fertilization Luna. I’ll probably put you in charge of developing the program. I won’t make you have sex with a man.” Luna exhaled and started to smile.

“I trust in your capabilities and I don’t want you as a mindless breeding sow. I have better things to do myself than puppeteer you into breeding. That’s a level of micromanagement I try to stay above.” Queen Hera stretched out a naked foot and put it under Luna’s chin, raising her head till their eyes met.

“I also don’t need to do that to get a batch of worms from you. I don’t need to order you to breed. You’ll do it yourself because you can’t help it.” Queen Hera put her foot down and leaned towards her subject beneath her.

“I’ve been watching your mind the last few days. You’re practically going into heat every time you’re in a room with a male subject. You’ve lingered in the thoughts of every couple banging behind a closed door as you ed. You’re fighting this urge fruitlessly.”

“I don’t want to my Queen. I’m afraid.” Luna said in a meek tone. Hera smiled at the massive woman cowering before her. Just a week ago Luna would have throttled her for the very suggestion of kneeling before her. Now she was a good subject.

“I’m afraid it will hurt. I’ve never —”

“Of it’s not that bad. You’ll like it. The worm will make sure of that.” Queen Hera reached down and cupped the cheek of her subject.

“I brought someone to make it easier for you.” Then she felt Queen Hera communicate with someone else. Suddenly she felt another presence in the room. She felt -

Charles came out of the walk in closet, he was naked and beneath his hips swung a half erect cock, already massive. Luna’s eyes practically popped out of her head.

“Hey girl.” He sauntered over the bed besides Queen Hera and sat down. His member hung a foot from Luna’s head. She gulped. A fire lit in her cunt. Luna shook her head but couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“You can’t fight this. I can feel your resistance melting. The sooner you give in, the sooner your worm will be fertilized and stop whispering in your loins. For a while.”

“Please my queen, it’s so big, that can’t possibly.—“ her words caught when Queen Hera reached out a hand and started stroking the monster.

“It’s one hell of a cherry popper.” Queen Hera marveled. “I could have let nature run it’s course, but why miss the show?” Luna caught herself involuntarily moving towards the now throbbing cock in front of her. She blinked and recoiled.

“I’m not going to order you to do it. I’m not going to puppeteer you. You can leave if you want. If you can.”

Luna shot to her feet and took a step back but her eyes were still glued to the cock as Queen Hera pumped it. She was summoning all of her willpower to turn around when she saw it. Something glistening at the tip. Queen Hera removed her hand and touched a fingertip to the pre-cum, leaving a trail of it connecting her finger and the twitching cock beneath.

Pre-cum full of worm-dna. Worm dna that would fertilize her worm.

The presence in her neck throbbed.

She took one step forward. Queen Hera grinned.

Luna fumbled with her belt as she approached. Charles groaned and spread his legs as his cock twitched, needy and full of worm DNA.

Her pants fell to the ground. Luna hooked her thumbs in her underwear and paused. She took a glance at Queen Hera.

“I’m not on any contraceptive...”

“Angelo will handle it.”

Underwear fell to the floor, they were already damp. Luna slowly straddled Charles as Queen Hera scooted out of the way.

“Oh yeah.” Charles moaned as Luna hovered her hips above his.

“Shut it.” she almost cried.

Her opening was just above him. So close. So close to breeding. So close to spawning. She blinked as a wave of need swept over her. When she opened her eyes she felt full, and a slight discomfort.

She was on him, he was sliding into her. She sharply inhaled and froze as Charles’ hands on her hips guided her down.

“There you go.” Queen Hera purred as she slipped a hand beneath her waistband.

Luna couldn’t do anything but feel the overwhelming sensation of being filled inch by inch. When she finally find her breath again all she could manage was a low drawn out moan. A smear of blood appeared where the two were ed.

Then she started to move. Hips rising and falling. Charles’ hands helped her motion. She was clumsy at first, but the natural rhythm caught on quickly. Soon she was thrusting herself onto him in amazon position, the bed groaning as the two massive bodies bounced into it. Every pump in and out got her closer to being filled with cum. That cum that would fertilize and breed her. The thrusting became frantic. At some point the two involuntarily linked and she felt him swelling up, getting ready to fill her. With a final groan she pressed down hard and felt Charles release inside her. Her hungry cunt pulsed, squeezing him for every drop.

Charles grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed on top of him, holding her close while his cock pumped it’s last few blasts of seed. Finally she gasped and rolled over, jism leaking from her quivering cunt.

“Good show.” Queen Hera mumbled. “Now get over here and finish me off.” Luna lolled her head to the side and saw her queen with one hand finger fucking herself. Now this she knew how to do. She rolled off the bed eagerly.

The corridors were oddly quiet for the lunch rush hour, but that didn’t bother Christine as she bounced down the hallway. She was a petite blonde that worked on the comms systems and unlike most of her department, she was a little self-contained ray of sunshine. She noted the unusual lack of people coming from all over the ship to the mess, but didn’t pay it much attention. Right before she rounded the corner she saw movement near her feet. A small creature darted around the corner and scurried past her. She momentarily froze from the surprise but turned just in time to see a pink tail disappear down the hallway.

Was that a rat? She had never seen a rat on the ship. Luna kept cargo secured and Nadia ran a clean kitchen, stowaway pests had never been a concern. She frowned and entered the mess. Something to tell her crew chief about.

She picked up a plate and sat down. Even the handful of people in the mess were quieter than usual. Barely any talking. Christine looked around but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She shoveled down something like rehydrated potatoes for a while before someone approached the table.

“Mind if I you?” She looked up. It was XO Lenoir. Christine smiled.

“Hey Elise.” She gestured at the seat opposite her. Elise sat down with a cup of coffee.

“I saw a rat earlier. Weird, right?” Elise raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll have to look into that.” She took a sip of her coffee and looked at Christine. The XO was something of a role model for her on the ship and a friend even if she wasn’t always friendly.

“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about Christie.”

“Oh?” Unusual. Elise usually let Hiro and her crew chief talk about work taskings.

“You’re the last one.” She said simply and sat her coffee down.

“The last what?” She asked blankly. “Did I forget to log my weekly shift report again?”

“No.” Elise smiled. “Everyone else has their worm already. You’re the last one without.”

“I’m sorry—I’m a little lost.” It wasn’t like Elise to play some sort of inside joke on her. She didn’t notice that everyone else had stopped eating.

“The aliens we picked up from Raven-4, those? Queen Hera has given the rest of us those worms.”

“Who Hera? The doctor?” Elise nodded. Christine put down her fork and took a cautious look at the XO. She was perfectly straight-faced.

“Ma’am I’m not sure if this is some kind of joke or a test, but I’m—”

“It’s not a test. I’m serious. We’ve all been given a worm that allows us to communicate telepathically and links us to the Queen. It’s your turn to get yours.”

“Okay you got me —” Christine stood up.

“Please sit down.” There was a chorus of voices. Her jaw dropped when she saw Elise’s mouth move in concert with everyone else in the room. She finally noticed everyone in the room looking at her, conversations paused, eating stopped.

Elise watched her sit back down.

“I have a worm with me. If you would please turn around we can get this over with.” Elise produced a medical injector. Christine gulped.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No. I don’t want it, whatever it is. No thanks.”

“That isn’t an option Christie.” Panic rose in her throat when she saw the steel in Elise’s eyes, she turned to look for the door only to see it filled by Charles’ massive body. He waved.

“Charles, something is going on—”

“When she said everyone she meant it, little lady.”

“Everyone?” Christine asked in a small voice.

“Everyone. The captain. All of the officers. All of the crew. You’re the only one left.” Elise said. Christine turned back around. Every eye watching her was making her hairs stand on end. She looked around. Other men stood in each door. She recognized formerly jovial crewmates she got along with giving her the same ive stare as Elise.

“And Doctor —”

“Queen.” Elise corrected her.

“— Hera is in charge now?”

“She is our queen, yes, we serve her.”

“What about Baranov?”

“Baranov is still captain of the ship and will continue to be. He just serves her now.”

Christine looked around at the room full of two dozen people now staring at her in silence.

“This is fucking crazy guys. I don’t—Can you just let me go?”

“You’re getting your worm. You’ll continue to serve on the ship. I’m only giving you the option of accepting it peacefully.”

“Elise, please...” Lenoir just shook her head. She looked around the room and saw a friend. Clara had poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Clara! Are you —”

“Yes, I’m one of Queen Hera’s subjects. Really Christie, it’s so good. You’ll feel great. Trust me.”

“I—” Christine choked on her words, trying to blink back tears.

“Can I talk to her first?” She finally said in a small voice.

“Who—Queen Hera?” Elise asked. Christine nodded.

“Sure, if she’ll—“ Elise blinked and twitched mid sentence.

“There we go. You’re the last one then.” Elise’s demeanor shifted and her French accent vanished into flat American. Christine’s jaw dropped.

“Doctor?”

“Yes—it’s me. I’m driving Elise’s body for a bit.” not-Elise stretched out. “So who are you?”

“Christine. Comms technician.” She said meekly.

“Fuck I like being in this body. Anyways—okay Christine. I hear you wanted to chat before we implant you. Be quick, I have shit to do.”

Suddenly she realized she didn’t really have a plan.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Above your paygrade dear, just know that this is for the good of all of humanity and play your part.”

“What happens when you ... implant?”

“The worm attaches to your spinal cord right below the brainstem and turns itself into an extension of the brain. I have one. Everyone else has one. Quite safe.”

“What will it feel like?” She trembled as this different version of Elise calmly explained her soon to be subjugation.

“Nothing really. Just a little sting as the worm enters but it will knock you out while it attaches. Afterwards—ask your crewmates. Mine is different.” She looked around.

“I can instantly understand everyone. I’ve never felt so connected to everyone else.” Clara offered.

“I finally feel like my life has a real purpose. I always know that what I’m doing is for our kind.” Yusuf had entered the room.

“The sex is fucking amazing.” Simon said with Chen hanging on his shoulder.

“The crew is performing so much better. Everyone is getting along and communicating perfectly.” Charles added.

“Good reviews.” not-Elise smiled.

“Are you controlling all of them like this? Will you control me?” Christine was starting to get her beating heart under control.

“If I need to. But generally no, everybody still has their own minds, just with some different urges layered in. I let everyone do their own jobs unless I need something personally.”

“What different urges?”

“The worm induces mating drive to fertilize the worms of female hosts—so you have that to look forward to.” not-Elise winked. “Then of course everyone has a need to spread the worm and do what I say. It’s not too different from mark 1 humanity, if you think about it. Just ... less psychologically complicated.”

Christine gave her an unsure look.

“You think it’s an alien subversion of the human will—but humanity has always worked like this. People have the animal urge to reproduce. Populations organize themselves into hierarchies. People end up loyal to ideas even to the death. The worm isn’t too different, just a better focused version of our essential qualities. “

“Focused—into your plans?”

“Exactly.” not-Elise grinned.

“And what are those?”

“You’ll see soon enough. Now that’s enough of the questions. Are you going to go peacefully?”

Christine took in the room silently watching her. She recognized all of her crewmates, but they all had something invisible between them. She couldn’t see it, but it was there. She felt small, a lone spark of free will on a ship entirely entangled in an alien nervous system.

Slowly, she nodded.

“I’m scared.” She said quietly.

“If you want I can have someone hypnotize you or sedate you.” not-Elise offered.

“I just—can you let Elise do it?”

Elise blinked.

“I’m back. Are you ready?” Christine closed her eyes. She felt movements through the table as Elise stood up and moved around her. She felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. Christie. Just breathe in.” She took a deep breath with Elise and realized the entire room was breathing in sync. She was already becoming part of this new entangled collective.

“On three.”

“One” She took a deep breath. Elise’s hand gently held her. She unclenched her fists. Would she what it felt like to be her?

“Two.” She took another deep breath then exhaled in surprise as Elise pressed the trigger and the injector shot the worm into her neck.

“I hear we just hit 100%.”

“Yes, I felt it.” Queen Hera sat down in the chair. They were on the bridge and the captain’s chair had been slightly modified. The geometry had been adjusted to fit her smaller frame and a new data port added. Baranov had moved into the XO’s seat. Which left Lenoir ... somewhere else.

“How soon to Raven-4?”

“53 hours.” Baranov said. Queen Hera nodded. There wasn’t much to do until then. Baranov already had the plan worked out. The older Elizabeth was handling the special project but it wasn’t quite ready yet. The crew received information and training effectively instantly. There was a lot more free time. A lot more fucking time, if she was honest. Her own worm was starting to give the signal it was ready to be fertilized again. She bit her lip.

“And what about our next target?”

“I drew up some recommendations.” He displayed a list of planets and stations on the outer rim.

“We can absorb smaller stations like these quickly but they don’t have much population or political power we can leverage for future growth. My preferred target would be Kadisha.” He focused on the planet. An olive green globe speckled with giant lakes came into view. Planetary metrics scrolled across the screen.

“The primary industry is exotic agriculture but due to how remote it is, major shipments are rare enough that we’ll have time to do our work without anyone coming knocking. For it’s size it has a well developed spaceport and several outlying stations are connected to it for supply, transport and istration.

“Anything wrong with it?”

“Besides being on the outer rim, no. It’s somewhat humid and there is a nasty alien mosquito-type creature that is quite prolific half the year, but otherwise a small and steadily growing colony.”

“UN Presence?” He shook his head.

“Let’s go ahead with your plan then.” She nodded and Baranov started tapping buttons on his pad. She looked at the planetary metrics again. Seventy three thousand people. Seventy three thousand new subjects to be. She salivated.

“Let me wrap my teeth around this world.” She whispered to herself as she looked at satellite pictures of settlements, forests and lakes.

Baranov finished tapping on his pad.

“I’ve programmed in some minor stations surrounding Kadisha as initial targets that will help us gain a foothold. How easily Raven-4 goes will determine next steps.” He finished.

The two sat in silence for a time watching the void outside their FTL envelope shift. Tulip scampered down the corridor and climbed up into her chair. She had found an apple slice and set to happily munching it in her mother’s lap.

“Are we ready Max?”

“For what my Queen?”

“For empire. For crusade.” She muttered as she brought up a star map. Kadisha was a backwater and it would probably take them weeks if not months to assimilate. She panned over to the core worlds. To earth. Teeming with population. Billions.

Teeming with problems too. Eventually, something would go wrong. The UN would notice if it wasn’t too busy with it’s internal conflicts. She knew the kind of people they would send after her realm. Especially if they found out who was leading it.

The Naval Special Warfare Division. Black ships slipping through the void, invisible to sensors, crewed by cyborg tactical operators. Any potential subject could be an Office of Naval Intelligence agent waiting to spring a trap. If they ever got wind of how the worms operated she could count on bioengineered toxins targeting worms and jamming targeted at the RF channel the worms created. The Rusalka was tough but she couldn’t take on a UNN cruiser, let alone a battleship. She let Baranov quietly listen in on her thoughts.

“We aren’t ready for the core worlds—true. We need to play carefully and not attract too much attention before we’re ready for it. If we build population and gain influence, political and commercial, we can make ourselves too prolific for the UN to ever quash with military action beyond scorched earth campaigns. After that it will only be a matter of time. There will be a tipping point.”

“And after that?”

“Whatever you want.”

Queen Hera smiled and settled back into her seat.

“If you haven’t seen the news we got during our FTL recharge stop today; a Chinese patrol fired on some Libran cargo ships in their disputed sector. The UN internal security mandate is coming apart. If there is any time to gather our strength while their pants are down, it’s now.” He continued. She didn’t care much. Details like that she left to him. All she heard was a prime opportunity for her realm to grow.

A subject entered the room and gave Baranov a box. He quickly got to unpacking it and plugged a thick cable into the data port at the base of Queen Hera’s command chair. Then he took it out of the box; a gleaming silver crown-like device. The guys down in the fab shop had done another round on the neural headband and it now had sensors sufficient to pick up her brainwaves without direct . The higher bandwidth electronics were hidden beneath silver plates. She put it on her head like a self-coronation and took a moment before flipping the switch.

In an instant she felt everyone. She gasped. The communications network patched her worm through to every other worm on the ship, A hundred minds open to her will. She felt subjects eating dinner, she felt subjects working in the engine room, she felt subjects fucking in their quarters. Her mind was a hundred different places at once. She was the crew, she was the ship. At some point she lost track of her own body and just existed in a hundred minds at once. Then she saw her own body through Baranov’s eyes. She sat straight-backed on her throne staring off into space, with a dreamy ecstatic look on her face. How many subjects could she be? An entire station? An entire planet?

She focused her will and everywhere on the ship at once the crew stopped what they were doing and stared ahead, stiff, waiting for instruction. Multitudes of eyes combined into a view of everything. A swarm of hands became hers.

Then she imagined herself snapping. In unison the Rat Queen’s crew scurried to work.