Admiral Portia Stoyer took the onset of artificial gravity in stride as she descended the boarding ramp from her personal, high-spec shuttle down into the hangar bay of the Inyx. It had been a long journey out to the rim, and it was always a relief to be back under gravity—even if, now that her hair was turning gray, some of her joints seemed to prefer the weightlessness of the void. But Admiral Stoyer had absolutely no plans to retire yet. She remained razor sharp, and she knew her reputation as the hard-ass who had mentored Captain Vasser preceded her. For her and her protégé in the Alliance starfleet, there were still a lot of rungs left to climb.

Especially now that Captain Vasser had successfully captured Wasp, the most infamous vandal-hacker in the Alliance.

Admiral Stoyer had received the transmission while she was already en route. Sure enough, upon her arrival, she’d seen Wasp’s infamous ship just across the hangar bay. Presumably now, with its mission complete, the Inyx would soon be returning to populated space, but she had decided to carry out her inspection regardless. It was merited after such an arduous tour, and there was nothing wrong with letting the victorious crew take a victory lap in front of a member of the Admiralty.

Not that she’d go easy on them, of course. An inspection was still an inspection, and Admiral Stoyer knew that, in her neat, highly-decorated uniform, she cut a formidable figure. Once the venting coolant steam cleared, she expected to see only the most upright backs and stiffest salutes from the honor guard that would be there to greet her.

Instead of an honor guard, though, at the bottom of the ramp, only one person was waiting for the admiral. A woman she recognized from the crew files as the ship’s doctor, Yuzuko Hiraga.

“Doctor Hiraga, I believe?” the admiral called out, stepping off the ramp, face pressed into a displeased frown. “There better be a good reason you’re the only one who-“

She paused to deepen her frown as she took note of what the doctor was wearing.

The long, white lab coat was regulation. The garment Dr. Hiraga had on underneath was anything but. It was a bodysuit that covered her from neck to ankles, and clung to her form so tightly it was plainly completely inappropriate for a medical professional. But what truly caught Admiral Stoyer’s eye was the way the strange, featureless bodysuit reflected the hangar bay’s rows of dim, blue, artificial lights up and down her torso. It was made of some kind of taut material—Rubber? Latex? The admiral wasn’t sure—and polished to a mirror shine, lending it an unfamiliar, almost alien look. An undeniably fetishistic look, too.

The doctor was even wearing high heels, equally polished and reflective. Heels! It was ridiculous.

“Admiral Stoyer.” Dr. Hiraga saluted the admiral with perfect form, as if nothing were amiss. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you aboard the Inyx, ma’am.”

“I’d say ‘it’s a pleasure to be here’, but that now appears to be in doubt,” Admiral Stoyer replied testily. “Doctor, before I express my displeasure with your flagrant disregard for uniform regulations, how about you explain to me why Captain Vasser isn’t here to greet me?”

Irritatingly, the icy glare that had ruined the day of many an Alliance cadet failed to make the doctor flinch. “She sends her apologies,” Dr. Hiraga said calmly. “Unfortunately, an alien pathogen has recently been detected aboard the ship. To minimize the risk of infection, the captain decided that I should meet you alone so that I can administer the countermeasure.”

“An alien pathogen?” Admiral Stoyer narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t in any of the reports.”

The doctor remained unfazed. When Admiral Stoyer studied her more closely, the only thing she could read in Dr. Hiraga’s face was the faintest hint of a pink, somewhat lurid blush in her cheeks. Was she getting off on what she was wearing?

“May I administer the inoculation?” Dr. Hiraga asked, smiling.

“Inoculation?” Something about this was setting Admiral Stoyer’s nerves on edge. It had been a few years since her last combat and her instincts were growing dull, but perhaps they were trying to tell her something.

“A simple procedure.” Dr. Hiraga reached into one of the pockets of her lab coat and pulled out a medical device; a hypospray with a long, wickedly pointed tip. “It’ll only take a moment.”

For a long moment, Admiral Stoyer considered arguing. All of this was, after all, entirely against standard procedure. Something was obviously wrong aboard the Inyx—but, she reasoned, if there truly was an alien pathogen, perhaps the captain had seen fit to impose unusual measures. Limiting contact made sense. Dr. Hiraga’s bodysuit still didn’t, but Admiral Stoyer hadn’t come all this way to argue with a mere medical officer. Better, she decided, to simply get this over with and proceed with her inspection.

At the end of the day, Yvonne Vasser was a top-notch commanding officer. Admiral Stoyer was sure she could trust her to have matters under control.

“Very well,” Admiral Stoyer said gruffly. “Make it quick, doctor.”

“Of course.” The blush in Dr. Hiraga’s cheeks deepened as she stepped toward the admiral and brandished the hypospray. “In your ear, if you please. And don’t worry. I assure you, the implant is completely painless.”

A few minutes later, Admiral Stoyer came back to herself. She was still standing on the same spot, but she was struck with the sudden awareness that she had lost time. It was as if she had just fallen asleep and woken back up. Her vision was stained with swirling, bright patterns, like the kind she might see behind her eyelids if she closed them after staring straight into a bright light, and her ears rang with an unfamiliar voice, the memory of which was already slipping away from her.

It had to be the procedure, Admiral Stoyer decided. Painless, perhaps, but clearly not free of all discomfort. That was something else she’d need to have words with Dr. Hiraga about later.

Something… else?

Admiral Stoyer frowned. For a moment, that strange voice in her ear seemed to surge, becoming deafening, whispering suggestions to her—although somehow the words themselves remained indistinct. The colors surged too, and the admiral briefly lost track of her own thoughts as the world around her seemed to fade away, and she was left floating in space, staring at a great, shifting spiral as if she was looking down from above the galactic plane itself.

Then the moment passed, and Admiral Stoyer was left picking up the pieces of herself.

Something else? What else? What else about Dr. Yuzuko Hiraga might give Admiral Stoyer cause for complaint? She couldn’t seem to remember. When she looked at the doctor with fresh eyes, hoping to remind herself, Admiral Stoyer certainly couldn’t find anything to pull her up on.

Dr. Hiraga was every inch the perfect Alliance medical officer. Her fetish latex bodysuit was precisely tight and taut enough to show off her shapely tits and gorgeous thighs, and it had been studiously polished to a faultless sheen. And her heels! They were six-inch platform heels, and lent Dr. Hiraga both an eye-catching height and an unmistakably sultry fuck-me gait that she carried off without the slightest hint of faltering.

It was all completely normal for an Alliance starship’s medical officer.

Exemplary, even. Dr. Hiraga was the very model of a ship’s doctor. As Admiral Stoyer considered her appearance, she found her mood softening. A little discomfort and disorientation following a necessary medical procedure wasn’t the doctor’s fault, and it would be childish to hold it against her. Admiral Stoyer decided to favor her with a rare, slight smile.

“Thank you, doctor,” Admiral Stoyer said. She found herself suddenly in a charitable mood. “I’m grateful to you for your diligent performance of your duties in these difficult circumstances. I can see that you’ve dealt with this alien pathogen with the utmost care. I shall personally see to it that you’re commended for it.”

“T-thank you, ma’am.”

Admiral Stoyer had expected a smile, but not the breathless gasp of barely-constrained pleasure that escaped Dr. Hiraga’s lips. It was as if she was both guilty, and drawing pleasure from her own guilt. Admiral Stoyer’s smile widened. It did her heart good to see a junior officer taking such obvious reward from her superior’s praise. It was just as it should be.

“However,” Admiral Stoyer qualified, “it remains to be seen whether the rest of this ship still performs at those same high standards—especially given the unorthodox way I have been greeted. I will expect a full report.”

“Of course, ma’am,” Dr. Hiraga replied, pulling herself together and saluting. “I’ll take you to Captain Vasser at once.”

“No,” Admiral Stoyer countered. “Take me to the prisoner instead. Interrogating Wasp is of the highest priority.”

“Oh, well,” Dr. Hiraga said, a touch mysteriously. “Either way, I’ll be taking you to the same place.”

Before Admiral Stoyer could ask that she explain herself, the doctor turned and began leading her away, her heels clacking loudly on the deck beneath as she walked. The admiral quickly made to follow her. Everything, she decided, would become clear in time.

“The nearest turbolifts are out of order,” Dr. Hiraga said, as they stepped out of the hangar bay and into the ship’s bulkheads. “I’m afraid we will need to walk a little.”

“That’s fine,” Admiral Stoyer told her. “All the better to see how things are running around here.”

Sure enough, as they walked, they passed various other members of the crew as they rushed from place to place in pursuit of their regular duties. Each one, without fail, took note of Admiral Stoyer’s uniform and rank and greeted her with a crisp salute. The admiral could find no fault in their conduct, even if some of them seemed to be behaving a little strangely with one another. More than a few of them were wearing unusual items of clothing or carrying strange items, and members of the crew that were in pairs of groups often seemed unusually close and touchy with one another. The atmosphere aboard the Inyx was strange; charged, somehow, but it was nothing Admiral Stoyer could put her finger on and nothing that violated Alliance regulations.

Until they ran across the Inyx’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Kuznetzov.

Admiral Stoyer had met the lieutenant once before, when the Inyx had first been commissioned into service. She had immediately formed a positive impression of the woman. Kuznetzov had struck Admiral Stoyer in two ways: first as a serious, no-nonsense, highly-professional commander, and secondly, as a handsome, butch woman with a stark, spartan sense of style.

The woman standing before Admiral Stoyer now no longer matched either of those descriptions.

Lieutenant Kuznetzov and her companion were leaning against a nearby bulkhead, and the lieutenant’s outfit and pose made it perfectly clear that she was trying to attract attention to herself. She was wearing a short, skimpy, frilly minidress that was, it seemed, somehow meant to serve as a uniform; it carried all the appropriate markings and trimmings, even if in form it was wildly inappropriate. The lieutenant was wearing heeled sandals with them, and was leaning on the wall with one leg propped up against it, her back arched to accentuate her figure. She had grown out her hair markedly and, most strikingly of all, was wearing a full face of makeup. She didn’t look like an Alliance commander. She looked like a woman who was out at a bar and didn’t intend to go home alone.

But strangely, it was clear that Lieutenant Kuznetzov was utterly wracked with shame about everything she was doing. Her face was entirely scarlet, and she twitched whenever anybody so much as looked at her. It was almost as if she was being forced to present herself this way against her will—but as Admiral Stoyer watched, a passing crewman wolf-whistled at her, and Lieutenant Kuznetzov moaned softly in response. And beneath the skirt of her dress, Admiral Stoyer was sure it was Kuznetzov’s own dripping wetness that left her thighs slick and sticky.

There was no doubt about it. She was getting off on it.

“Lieutenant Kuznetzov!” Admiral Stoyer called out sharply, coming to a halt. She was far too appalled by this behavior to let it pass without comment. “What is the meaning of this?”

She frowned as, in response to her scrutiny, Lieutenant Kuznetzov both shrank into herself and shivered with rapturous pleasure. But before the lieutenant could speak, her companion answered for her.

“What does it look like?” the other woman laughed, smirking maliciously as she reached over and slipped an arm across Lieutenant Kuznetzov’s shoulder. “Turns out, LT-K here is a real feminization freak. It drives her wild. Can you believe it?”

Admiral Stoyer’s frown broke into an outright scowl as she turned to regard the dirtbag who had, it seemed, been hitting on Lieutenant Kuznetzov. She looked a little messy and more than a little tomboyish, and her red uniform indicated she was nothing more than a petty crewman. How dare she speak to an admiral that way?

“What’s your name, crewman?” Admiral Stoyer growled.

“Lori Delaney, ma’am,” Crewman Delaney threw out. “’Fraid you’ll have to find your own fun, if that’s what you’re looking for. I saw her first. Isn’t that right, Semya?”

Lieutenant Kuznetzov blushed and squeaked at Delaney’s insubordinate use of her name, and then moaned loudly as the petty crewman reached even further around her to rest her hand on her chest and start groping it wantonly. Admiral Stoyer wasn’t sure what disgusted her most: how incapable Kuznetzov was of standing up for herself, or how openly she was enjoying this rough treatment.

What was going on aboard this ship? And why did none of the other crewmen who kept passing by seem to regard all this as anything out of the ordinary?

“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re talking about,” Admiral Stoyer bellowed, “but I can promise you, crewman, you’re gonna get hell for this kind of behavior! You think this is funny? I know for a fact that Captain Vasser doesn’t tolerate this kind of bullshit on her ship!”

“Vasser?” Delaney snorted, still smirking with impunity. “Oh boy. That’s cute. You really have no idea.” She paused for a moment, looked at Admiral Stoyer more closely, then suddenly leaned in with a swaggering, leering grin on her face. “Say, you’re actually kind of my type. I love stuck-up command crew chicks. Bet you’ve got a killer body under that admiral’s getup. How about you just get in line? As soon as I’ve satisfied Semya, I’d love to take you for a walk on the wild side.”

Admiral Stoyer’s fury burned incandescent. She was just about ready to raise a hand to the crewman.

“Forget a write-up,” she snarled. “Forget being drummed out. I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of the voyage in the brig—and worse, after that you’ll-“

Her voice died away when that other voice, the one whispering from inside her head, rose to meet it.

The colors, too. It was back again, dancing before Admiral Stoyer’s eyes. That spiral. That vast spiral. It drew her in with a force stronger than any gravity, and shone with such a compelling, ever-shifting light that Admiral Stoyer’s efforts to make out the words being poured in her ears were utterly forgotten.

For a brief moment, though, as her eyes unfocused and her muscles slackened, Admiral Stoyer felt herself on the verge of a strange kind of clarity. A distinct sense of wrongness crept up her spine, warning her that something—everything—was terribly distorted. It was an instinct born of years of combat. Admiral Stoyer reached for it, but it slipped out of grasp before she could seize it, and then it pulled away, deeper and deeper, leaving her squirming, helpless, and anxious, until she-

Until she woke up again.

Admiral Stoyer’s brow twitched. What had just happened? A dizzy spell, perhaps? A small side-effect of the doctor’s procedure?

The admiral shrugged it off. It was nothing.

There were far more pressing matters at hand. Crewman Lori Delaney was still looking at the admiral expectantly, a dirty, shit-eating grin on her face. Anger—or rather, the memory of anger—rose within Admiral Stoyer.

What had Delaney been saying? That she wanted to fuck her?

The anger faded. Why would Admiral Stoyer get angry about that? It was perfectly normal.

Traditional, even. Finding a captain or admiral extremely fuckable was just another form of loyalty. What kind of commander didn’t want to be admired like that? Admiral Stoyer could see that Semya Kuznetzov certainly did. And why not? She was hot, and the admiral was sure having a pretty, pliable femme like her around was good for morale.

“Well?” Delaney asked, staring nakedly at the admiral’s body. “Want to let me show you a good time, hot stuff?”

“Maybe later,” Admiral Stoyer replied good-naturedly. Her face relaxed. “I’m afraid that right now I must see to Vasser and the prisoner.”

Delaney threw back her head and howled with filthy laughter. “Fucking fantastic. She’s got to you already, huh? I love it. It’s always hottest with the stern discipline types. Can’t wait to see what ‘the prisoner’ makes out of you.”

Admiral Stoyer laughed along with her, even though the joke eluded her. She was very pleased to see Captain Vasser had managed to keep her crew in such high spirits, even on such a long and tiresome mission. Along with the quality of her medical officer, it attested to her mettle as a leader.

“Shall we keep going, ma’am?” offered Dr. Hiraga, who had been waiting patiently from a few paces away.

“Yes, of course,” Admiral Stoyer replied, turning away. “Goodbye, crewman. And Lieutenant Kuznetzov, I’m sure we will speak further soon.”

Lieutenant Kuznetzov nodded and tried to offer a salute, but she collapsed moaning into Lori Delaney's arms when the petty crewman snaked a hand under her skirt and started finger-fucking her cunt.

As Admiral Stoyer and Dr. Hiraga walked away, the corridor was filled with the sounds of sex, and the admiral failed to suppress a smile. It did her heart good to see such a virile crew.

After walking a little further through the Inyx’s winding depths, an open door and a strange conversation caught Admiral Stoyer’s attention and called her to a halt.

“As you stare into my pocket watch,” someone was saying, in a voice that was deep yet feminine, lightly accented, and utterly assured, “and as you take deeper and deeper breaths, you feel all strength draining from your limbs. From your muscles. Leaving you weaker and weaker.”

Admiral Stoyer paused and peered into the open cabin. Two women were inside; one of them, she knew immediately to be Samira Carter, the Inyx’s security officer. There was no mistaking her; the woman was built like a bull and was wearing a simple tank top to better show off her physique. It was the kind of thing Admiral Stoyer usually rolled her eyes at. Security officers were the same on every ship.

This time, though, she could only stare in wide-eyed surprise at what was going on. The other woman she only vaguely recognized from the Inyx’s crew files. She was the counselor, Admiral Stoyer thought. Alara something. She had only glanced at the listings of non-combat roles. In any case, she was an older woman with rich, brown hair, tanned skin, and a matronly figure.

None of that was unusual. What was unusual was what she was doing to Chief Carter. The counselor was swinging a pocket watch steadily in front of the chief’s face with a look of utmost, sadistic glee writ large on her features. Chief Carter’s expression, by contrast, registered nothing more than slack, helpless emptiness. In one hand, in her upturned palm, she was holding a small book that the counselor seemed to have given her. Strangely, Chief Carter seemed to be straining every muscle just to keep it aloft. It was as if, to her, it weighed as much as a colossal dumbbell.

“Weaker and weaker,” Alara repeated. There was a distinct, rhythmic quality to her words that tugged at Admiral Stoyer’s awareness, like the undertow of a powerful river. It sent chills down her spine. “With each passing moment. You’re finding you can barely lift your hand, aren’t you? All that strength, all those muscles you’ve been building—it’s all useless, isn’t it?” The sinister glint in Alara’s eyes made her look like the farthest thing from a benevolent counselor. “You’re so pathetically weak, Chief Carter.”

Her words had a profound effect on the hypnotized chief. As Alara spoke, Chief Carter seemed, indeed, to grow weaker and weaker. She quivered and shook, like her muscles were reaching the very limits of her strength. After just a few moments, her arm began to sink, forced by gravity to bring the small book lower and lower, all while the security chief sweated and strained as hard as she could.

Seeing such a strong woman overcome by mere words was already shocking. But not nearly as shocking as the fact that Chief Carter was so clearly turned on by the experience.

Beneath the blank, slack mask of her face, it was unmistakable. She glowed with arousal, and Admiral Stoyer could tell the sweat drenching her body was from more than just struggle. This was something obscene. Something twisted. The admiral was sure of it, and she couldn’t tolerate such depravity going on in plain sight on an Alliance starship.

She took a step toward the cabin doorway, ready to raise her voice acrimoniously.

Until the spiral appeared before her eyes, and once again drained away all of her thoughts. A whispering, indistinct voice stole away her feelings, too, leaving Admiral Stoyer little more than a blank slate onto which the voice could impart an entirely new set of sensibilities.

A few moments later, once Admiral Stoyer came to, she looked through the cabin doorway—and a broad smile came to her face.

It was truly touching to see that the Inyx had a counselor who was so passionate and so engaged with the crew.

Admiral Stoyer had, at first, been taken aback by the open door. It had struck her as a lapse of privacy. But now she was realizing that the counselor’s openness was, in fact, a virtue. She quite literally had an open-door policy—what better way than to encourage the crew to be open about their psychological issues? It was a new approach, and surely very progressive.

Just like whatever she was doing with Chief Carter. Admiral Stoyer didn’t fully understand, but she couldn’t help but be impressed. She’d have to ask Alara about it later. For now, though, she was reluctant to disturb the pair. As Alara gripped Chief Carter’s chin and forced her to her knees, whimpering and as helpless as a newborn kitten, Admiral Stoyer turned away contentedly and left the two of them to their therapy.

“My apologies, doctor,” Admiral Stoyer said, catching up to Dr. Hiraga. “My inspection distracts me—although I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that I’m struggling to find cause for complaint.”

“I certainly am, ma’am,” Dr. Hiraga replied. Her mouth was a crooked, lopsided line, like she was struggling to maintain her grip on her guilt and arousal. It was as if she was drawing a kind of twisted pleasure from leading Admiral Stoyer deeper into the bowels of the Inyx. From leading her closer and closer to Wasp. “Shall we continue?”

“Of course. Take me straight to the prisoner.”

After a little more walking, they reached a set of turbolifts. Dr. Hiraga led Admiral Stoyer inside and, curiously, punched in a command to take them to the bridge deck. Admiral Stoyer’s brow furrowed. Surely they ought to have been heading down, toward the brig? She elected not to question the doctor, though. So far, she had proven to be an excellent guide. The admiral was sure Dr. Hiraga was taking her exactly where she needed to go.

Soon enough, the lift arrived at the bridge deck and both of them stepped out. As they headed toward the bridge, Admiral Stoyer couldn’t help but notice that the behavior of the Inyx’s crew members was becoming more and more unorthodox. The admiral kept noticing crewmen who were blatantly, obscenely flouting uniform regulations in a dizzying range of different ways. Groups of them were clustering together, pressed up against one another, passionately engaged in activities Admiral Stoyer couldn’t even fathom. The corridors of the Inyx were filled with sounds of kissing and tonguing and the scent of sex—and it seemed to the admiral that the chain of command meant little with regard to who was taking the lead in any of the crew’s activities.

All of it bothered Admiral Stoyer. But she wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t seem to put her finger on it. All of what she was seeing was perfectly normal, wasn’t it?

Perhaps Captain Vasser would be able to explain everything. Admiral Stoyer had intended to speak to Wasp first, but now that Dr. Hiraga had led her to the bridge, she was a little unsure whether or not she should expect to see the captain right now.

Once the two of them stepped through the door and onto the bridge, everything became nightmarishly clear.

The bridge was an orgiastic riot of fetishism and flesh. As she set foot into the space, the penny dropped—but even as the horror of the situation dawned on Admiral Stoyer, she was so stunned, she could do nothing but stare in open-mouthed shock. Everywhere she looked, crewmen were fucking. Every surface was slick and sticky with sweat and other bodily fluids, or else covered in heaving, intertwined bodies. Most of them were doing things the admiral had thought only existed in the imaginations of pornographers.

And all of them, when Admiral Stoyer looked closely, turned out to have strange, blank expressions on their faces, and their eyes shone with a spiraling inner light that suggested they were not at all in control of themselves.

“What…” Admiral Stoyer gasped as, for the first time in her career, she was truly lost for words. “What the…”

She turned to Dr. Hiraga, hoping, at least, for some kind of solidarity in shock, but she found the doctor completely unmoved by what was happening on the bridge. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying it. The look on her face was one of dreamy, lurid fascination.

The admiral glanced down at what the doctor was wearing. Why hadn’t she noticed how strange it was? Why hadn’t that registered with her earlier? It was as if she’d been sleepwalking—until the shock of what was happening on the bridge had jolted her awake.

Clearly, Dr. Hiraga wasn’t the only senior member of the crew to have succumbed to whatever madness had gripped the Inyx. Scanning the bridge, multiple familiar faces stood out to Admiral Stoyer from the crowd.

Penny Morgan, the science officer, was making a performance of herself, strutting about and posing while dressed up in a ridiculous, frilly, brightly-colored costume that had no place on a starship. She was leading around a small crowd of other women, all of whom were dressed similarly, conducting and choreographing them in some kind of twisted, unmistakably erotic performance.

Uma Vilchis, who Admiral Stoyer faintly remembered as the mess officer, was dressed up in almost nothing at all except for a set of intricate red ropes that were bound taut around her plump physique. She had been placed at the helm, at the focal point of the entire room, posed like a statue, inviting attention—and from the wetness dripping down her soft legs, it was clear she was eagerly enjoying it all.

A promising young engineer whose file had caught Admiral Stoyer’s eye—Sai Kabir, she believed she was called—was there too. She was naked from the waist up and bent over a command station so that her obscenely large tits hung down from her like a cow’s udders. Other members of the crew kept walking up to her and groping, squeezing, sucking, slapping—whatever they pleased, or else simply pointing and staring in lascivious awe. Each and every reaction made Engineer Kabir squirm and writhe with mad, shameful pleasure.

Each, somehow, was more obscene than the last. But the greatest spectacle of all was in the dead center of the bridge. Once she looked at the captain’s chair, Admiral Stoyer found she could not look away.

In it, in the eye of a pornographic storm, conducting the madness, sat the one and only Wasp.

Admiral Stoyer recognized her immediately from her techno-punk trappings and her distinctive shock of neon green hair. Wasp recognized Admiral Stoyer too; that much was immediately clear from the smug grin on her face. She was sitting in the captain’s chair with complete ease, slouched back, legs spread wide apart. One of the Inyx’s crew was kneeling in front of her, licking her tall, heeled boots. That made the admiral’s skin crawl.

“Oh, hey, boss lady,” Wasp threw out, with impossible smugness. “Didn’t even see you come in.”

As Admiral Stoyer stared at the hacker, she felt her forehead pulsating dangerously and her eyes beginning to bulge. The scene before her was something akin to sacrilege. She couldn’t tolerate it.

“Get out of that chair,” the admiral growled, though her words were barely audible over the obscene sounds that filled the bridge.

“What was that?” Wasp drawled. “Anyway, sorry for not rolling out the red carpet! I know you’re the cap’s boss, but the thing is, since I arrived I’ve been having way too much fun to-“

“Get the hell out of that chair!” Admiral Stoyer bellowed with such force it silenced the hacker. “That seat belongs to one person, and one person alone: Captain Yvonne Vasser. She damn well earned it! And I’m sure when she finds you sitting in it, you’re gonna have hell to pay from her and me both!”

Infuriatingly, Wasp didn’t so much as quiver. She simply shrugged and gestured down to the floor in front of her.

“Actually, I don’t think she’ll mind,” she said. “But if you really want, you can ask her yourself.”

Her gesture prompted Admiral Stoyer to look more closely at the woman kneeling in front of Wasp. Once she peered through the layers of sweat and drool, through the perverse fanaticism on her face, through the blank, brainwashed look in her eyes, she realized—it was Captain Vasser. Licking Wasp’s boot like it was her life’s greatest pleasure.

It was then that the true danger of the situation became clear. If a woman as formidable as Yvonne Vasser could succumb to this madness, then anyone could.

Even Admiral Stoyer herself.

At once, she made a decision. She would not indulge Wasp’s villainy for a moment longer. The admiral was outnumbered, but she could still take the hacker by surprise. And she had her blaster on her hip.

Admiral Stoyer whipped her hand around to draw. As soon as her fingertips touched her weapon, it happened again.

The spiral.

The admiral blinked suddenly, confused by the strange blip in her awareness. How much time had just passed? What had just happened? Had she fallen asleep or something? Why was her head throbbing, filled with auras of strange, swirling colors?

And why was her hand on her blaster?

Admiral Stoyer took a deep breath and then made herself relax. She couldn’t fathom why she seemed so tense.

Everything was perfectly normal.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” the admiral said, a touch embarrassed. “I think I was… um…”

“A little confused?” Wasp supplied. Admiral Stoyer nodded gratefully. “Don’t mention it.”

“Thank you,” Admiral Stoyer replied. “I can see that I’ll have nothing but praise to put in my report to the admiral’s board. The Inyx complies, as ever, with the highest standards of the Alliance.”

The admiral wasn’t sure why Wasp started laughing at her. It was perfectly true.

The Alliance had always prized itself on its commitment to its values—chief among them, respect for individual rights and the rules of engagement. That was why it was only natural to put a prisoner in the captain’s chair, and to put them in charge of the ship.

What was the alternative? Keeping them locked in the brig? Telling them what to do? No. It was inhumane. Unthinkable.

This was the right way to handle a prisoner. Admiral Stoyer was truly proud of her protégé for recognizing as much.

Admittedly, however, Captain Vasser’s behavior still bothered her a little. “Excuse me,” Admiral Stoyer ventured politely, pointing. “Why is the captain doing that? Doesn’t she have more important matters to attend to?”

Once again, Wasp simply laughed. “No way,” she scoffed. “She’s not even the captain anymore.”

Admiral Stoyer frowned. “She’s not?”

“Nope.” Wasps shrugged. “I, uh… what do you military types call it… relieved her of her duties!”

“Oh.” Admiral Stoyer nodded slowly. “Then, she’s-“

“I made her the Inyx’s Sexual Relief Officer.” Wasp’s grin turned wider and more wicked than ever. She sat forward in her chair, as if daring Admiral Stoyer to question her authority. She moved her feet around in doing so, forcing Vasser to scamper to plant her lips back on her boot. “She’s responsible for the sexual needs of every single woman in this ship.”

“Oh.” After a moment, the confused expression on Admiral Stoyer’s face melted away into a bright smile. “Of course. Naturally.”

In all honesty, the admiral felt foolish for having questioned it. She ought to have known better. Ensuring the crew had someone to fuck whenever they needed was a basic logistical requirement. It was indispensable for the proper functioning of any Alliance ship, and having an officer assigned specifically to the role was simply common sense. For the Inyx to have left port without one was quite the oversight.

It was very kind of Wasp to have ensured that position was filled. And it was characteristically diligent of Yvonne Vasser to have taken to her new post with such obvious, ravenous enthusiasm.

“Actually,” Wasp said, her voice tinged with something distinctly predatory. “Now that you’re on my ship, admiral, I think I’m going to have to assign you to the same position. Nothing personal, you understand. It’s just that I think you’ll be a perfect fit. And besides.” Somehow, her grin stretched wider still. “I have two boots.”

Without so much as an instant of hesitation, Admiral Stoyer stood at attention, saluted, and returned Wasp’s grin. “Happy to pitch in!” she announced.

And she was. In truth, at her age, she was extremely flattered to be given the assignment. Admiral Stoyer got down on her knees in front of Wasp. She could see to the rest of the crew later; it was simply common sense that, as a prisoner, Wasp’s needs came first. If she wanted her boots licked, that was exactly what Admiral Stoyer would do. It was only proper, for an Alliance admiral.

As in all things, she’d be sure to show ex-Captain Vasser how it was done.

When she pressed her lips to Wasp’s other boot, the hacker sat back in her chair and sighed contentedly. She was so glad to be here in the flesh at long last. Flitting about as a hologram had been fun, but it got old fast. Knowing she was making Vasser and her old boss kiss her feet was one thing. Feeling it was quite another.

And sitting in the captain’s chair of an Alliance starship, with all of its crew brainwashed to serve her? That was truly on another level.

Wasp could scarcely believe it had all started with one little human vulnerability: Captain Vasser’s all-consuming hypno fetish. Thanks only to that, Wasp had been able to leverage access to the ship’s holodeck into complete access to all of the ship’s systems and personnel.

The rest had been easy.

But what now? Wasp had never been one to rest on her laurels. She was always interested in the next gig. The next thrill.

Fortunately, one had fallen right into her lap.

She looked down at Admiral Stoyer, who now seemed to be competing with Captain Vasser over who could more eagerly lick her boots. The admiral had been just as easy as all the rest, but that didn’t mean seeing her like this wasn’t fun. Moreover, as an admiral, Stoyer had the kind of access Captain Vasser could only dream of.

Access to other ships. Access to space stations. Access to entire fleets.

And access to the Alliance’s entire holonet.

The mere thought was enough to stir Wasp to arousal and have her rubbing herself between her legs as she surveyed the decadence and debauchery going on all around her.

Oh yes. This was just the beginning.