Crewman Lori Delaney made her way to the bridge of the starship Inyx in fits and starts. She sprinted in bursts, pounding the deck beneath her feet because she was running so urgently, but every now and then she stopped - not just to catch her breath, but because she needed to ask herself whether or not she was crazy.

What she’d seen in medbay defied all sense. Dr. Hiraga, Chief Samira Carter, and that dorky science officer, Morgan, acting out some kind of crazy fantasy, dressed in absolutely ludicrous outfits, whilst Wasp, the hacker they were supposed to be hunting, lorded over it all. If someone told Delaney they’d seen something like that, she’d never believe them. Not if they swore on a hundred years of replicator rations.

But she couldn’t dismiss the very last part of what she’d seen. Wasp had some kind of brainwashing device she was going to use to take over the Inyx. And it was almost perfected. Hearing that had made Delaney’s blood run cold. She needed to act, but she was just a petty crewman. She was powerless. She needed help, but if Dr. Hiraga and the ship’s security officer had already fallen, there was no telling who else might already be in the hacker’s clutches.

There was only one person Delaney could think to turn to: Captain Yvonne Vasser.

It was funny. Normally, there was no one Delaney wanted to see less. Captain Vasser was the very worst kind of commanding officer: one who truly believed in all of Alliance Starfleet’s bullshit about protocol, professionalism, and discipline. Most captains would allow a little leniency on a long tour of duty like this. Not Vasser. She was always on Delaney’s ass - about her uniform, about showing up a little late to her duty shifts, and about a hundred other tiny little rules and regulations Delaney didn’t give a shit about. And when it wasn’t her, it was her pet thug, Carter.

Why couldn’t Vasser take the hint, and accept that Delaney was only in this job for the paycheck and the training? And why did she care about petty crewmen in the first place? Didn’t she have more important things to pay attention to?

In a situation like this, though, Delaney couldn’t imagine anyone else she’d sooner tell. Captain Vasser was a legend. A machine. She was untouchable. Even if everyone else on the Inyx fell to Wasp, she’d fight tooth and nail to set them free. Delaney was sure that Captain Vasser would know exactly what to do.

“Where’s the captain?” Delaney demanded as she rushed out of the turbolift and onto the bridge.

Heads turned, every one of them looking at her like she was suicidal. She had no business being here, after all.

“Captain Vasser is in her ready room,” said Lieutenant Kuznetzov, in a voice cold enough to freeze the air between them. “But I would remind you, crewman, that-“

“Great, thanks.”

Delaney grit her teeth as she interrupted and dashed past him. She really hoped she wasn’t crazy because if not, she was seriously going to pay for that.

Before anyone could stop her, Delaney raced into the ready room. Once she was inside and the door slid closed behind her, she found herself alone with Captain Vasser. The captain was sitting behind her desk and looked up at Delaney with an impossibly stern, displeased expression on her face.

“Crewman,” she said in a warning tone. “Just because I do not lock my door, does not mean you should presume to-“

“Forget that!” Delaney cut her off.

She paled slightly as she watched Captain Vasser’s eyebrow raise higher than she’d ever seen it. However, the captain seemed to sense her urgency, and gave her a chance to speak.

“Captain, I saw something,” Delaney began. “Just now, down in medbay. I…” She paused, wishing she’d spent more time thinking about exactly what to say. “It’s Wasp. She’s infiltrated the ship. And she’s doing something to people. I don’t know what, exactly. But she’s in their heads. She’s controlling them.”

Delaney paused to catch her breath. She half expected Captain Vasser to query something, or else yell at her for telling tall tales. Instead, the captain just stared at her with an odd, vacant look in her eyes. Delaney couldn’t tell what that meant, but it made her nervous.

“I swear, Captain,” she added quickly. “I really saw it. You have to believe me. We’re all in danger. That’s why I came running in here. I couldn’t tell anyone else, I couldn’t even use my communicator. We don’t know who else might be-“

Suddenly, Captain Vasser bolted to her feet. Delaney broke off mid-flow but then tried again. “Captain, please, I-“

“I believe you, Crewman Delaney,” Captain Vasser said, somewhat stiffly. Relief swept over Delaney. “And you did the right thing by bringing this directly to me. You must not tell anyone else. Now follow me.”

She started walking at a brisk, purposeful pace, out of the ready room and toward the turbolift. Delaney moved quickly to follow her. In that moment, she could have kissed Captain Vasser she was so grateful to be believed. She wasn’t sure where the captain was taking her, but it was an immense relief to see that she seemed to have some kind of plan for contingencies like this. For once, Delaney was glad to have a hard-ass as a captain.

As they crossed the bridge, Delaney caught plenty of dirty, impressed, or downright incredulous looks. The officers must have been wondering why she wasn’t currently being chewed out for insubordination. Captain Vasser ran a tight ship, though, and as such, none of them dared to question her. They just busied themselves with their assigned tasks, and so Captain Vasser and Delaney made it into the lift without comment. From there, they headed down into the Inyx’s decks. Delaney didn’t think to ask where they were going until, after they left the turbolift and started walking again, she realized what they were heading for.

The holodeck.

“Uh, captain?” Delaney ventured as they stepped over the threshold. “What are we doing here?”

All too late, she was giving thought to how Captain Vasser had seemed during the walk down. She had been oddly quiet, and unnaturally serene. Delaney had assumed she was simply trying not to give the game away, but it was starting to seem like more than that. Captain Vasser was behaving more like a robot than a person. It was almost like she was-

“Computer, seal the holodeck,” Captain Vasser said. Her voice was chillingly monotonous. “My authorization. Hold all communications. Load up and engage scenario Wasp One.”

“Wasp…”

The penny dropped. Delaney turned back toward the door, only to see it slide closed and hear the heavy-duty mechanical locks slam into place. She was trapped. A beat later, the holodeck’s many, many highly sophisticated holographic projectors hummed to life. At her rank, Delaney didn’t get a lot of holo-rec time, but she was still familiar enough to brace herself for the walls and floor shifting and dissolving into a new scene. Instead, though, all that happened was that a single hologram appeared in the space between Delaney and Captain Vasser.

It was Wasp. She looked just as she had in medbay, complete with the bizarre, regal, latex costume that was such a strange match for her neon green hair and punk looks.

Now Delaney knew she wasn’t crazy. She just really really wished she was.

“Well, I guess this was always going to happen,” Wasp complained, throwing up her arms and looking straight at Delaney. “But you really picked your moment, you know that? Right as I was finishing up all the preparations.” She glanced at Captain Vasser and snickered. “Good thing your trusted captain knew exactly what to do. Or rather, good thing I programmed her with exactly what to do.”

“You…” Delaney paled. “What the fuck? What the fuck is going on?”

“Oh, well, allow me to fill you in!” Wasp bowed mockingly. “At least, as soon as I…”

She snapped her fingers, and her bizarre, latex getup phased out of existence, replaced with an outfit that was equally conspicuous, but far more in keeping with the hacker’s usual style.

“Basically, I’m in your ship’s computer,” Wasp explained. “I’m running the Inyx. All of it. The only thing around here I don’t control is the crew. At least, not yet. But I’m working on it. Turns out, if you know how, getting into a person’s head isn’t so much harder than getting into a computer.”

Delaney shook her head in disbelief as Wasp crowed. She reached up and slapped the communicator badge on her chest.

“Emergency channel,” she said urgently. “This is Crewman Delaney to the bridge. Delaney to the bridge. Do you read me?”

There was no response except the sound of Wasp’s laughter.

“See?” she mocked. “Believe me now?”

Delaney balled her hands into fists. She felt powerless, and it was pissing her off. She looked at Wasp. No point punching a hologram. She looked at Captain Vasser. She was clearly a puppet. She looked back at the door. Locked, and military-grade.

There was no way out.

Delaney didn’t understand. This didn’t seem possible. Up until half an hour ago, this had just been a normal day. She was struggling to make sense of it all.

“You… you have…” she said slowly. “Some kind of fucking… device? That you just put in people’s heads? And then you’re in control.”

“Uh-huh!” Wasp nodded happily. “I do now, at least. That delightful little science officer is figuring out the finishing touches.”

Delaney shook her head in futile disbelief. She’d never heard of technology like that, but there was no way to deny what she’d seen in medbay. Something was missing from Wasp’s story, though.

“But then,” Delaney asked slowly, “how did you get to this point? You… you got the captain under your control? But… how? There’s no way any of this should have been possible without…”

She looked at Captain Vasser, willing her to somehow rouse herself from the strange, mesmerized stupor Wasp seemed to have her in. If there was anyone who could get her out of this mess, it was the captain. Delaney just needed to figure out exactly what was wrong with her.

“Oh, that’s the best part.” Wasp sauntered over to Captain Vasser and stroked her cheek, almost affectionately. “She was the key to all of this. I made it into the holodeck on my own, but all the rest? She gave it to me. Let me into all the critical systems. She was the very first piece of the puzzle. She couldn’t help herself.”

“N-no,” Delaney breathed. If any part of this madness was truly unbelievable, it was that. Captain Vasser would never put her ship or her crew in jeopardy.

“Yes,” Wasp insisted gleefully. “Your captain has a few skeletons in her closet. Or a few spirals, as the case may be. Captain Yvonne Vasser is a complete and total hypno-slut. A fetishist. And she broke her brain so hard, all I needed to do was pull a few strings and use a few of the right words.”

“You’re lying,” Delaney hissed. It didn’t make any sense. The captain was… no. No way. Wasp was just messing with her. That was the only explanation. What she was telling Delaney was completely impossible to square with everything she knew about Captain Vasser. “Fuck you!”

Wasp arched an eyebrow. “I’m really not. You should see the amount of porn she had buried in the ship’s computers. Hell, you should see how messed up she got looking at some of it. Drooling, eyes blank, head drooping…”

“Go fuck yourself!” Delaney yelled angrily. “You’re full of shit!”

It was strange. She was the last person she’d expect to defend Captain Vasser’s honor. Maybe some of that deeply annoying basic training had sunk in somewhere along the way. Trust the ship, trust the captain. Maybe it was that in all the time Delaney had been serving on the Inyx, Captain Vasser and her sternness had simply always been there. You counted on it, the way you counted on the sun coming up each morning. Maybe it was just that she’d always assumed that when the going got tough, Captain Vasser would be there with a plan and a steady hand. Whatever it was, she couldn’t just let Wasp run her mouth like this.

“Hmm.” Wasp drew her face into a lopsided, daring smirk. She seemed to take Delaney’s words as a challenge. “Well, why don’t we see what the captain herself has to say about all that?”

She turned to Captain Vasser, still standing just where she had been when Wasp had first appeared, with a blank, dazed expression on her face. Wasp lifted her hand to the captain’s face and snapped her fingers a few times.

“Captain? Earth to captain? It’s time to wake up. Oh, and that’s an order.”

At those last words, Captain Vasser seemed to stir. Her pose became a little less stiff and she blinked her eyes a few times, and slowly they cleared of fog. It was like watching someone wake up - but slowly. Agonizingly slowly. Delaney couldn’t begin to fathom how deeply Captain Vasser had been under, or for how long. What did that mean, for how she’d been commanding the ship all this time?

“W-what…” Captain Vasser said in a desperately faint voice. “W-w-where… am I?”

“That’s it.” Wasp kept snapping her fingers impatiently. “Come on. All the way up.”

Her insistent snapping seemed to do more to disorient the captain than anything else, but eventually, Captain Vasser seemed to get her bearings. She looked around at the holodeck, and then at Delaney, and then at Wasp - and then she turned as white as a sheet.

“You…” Captain Vasser breathed, aghast. She looked down. “Oh. No, no, no…”

“Captain!”

She looked like she was about to fall over, and so Delaney rushed to her side, ready to support her. She couldn’t possibly fathom what was going on in the other woman’s head, but she knew what was at stake and she knew her duty in a situation like this: report to the captain, and be ready for orders.

“Captain Vasser,” Delaney said crisply as her captain peered blearily at her. “Wasp seems to be in control of the ship’s systems. We need to stop her. What should we do?”

Captain Vasser’s eyes widened. She started shaking her head. “T-that can’t be,” she said. “I didn’t… I wouldn’t…”

Delaney’s heart started to sink. What was happening? “Captain!” she said, louder. “Orders, captain?”

She just didn’t seem to be getting through to her. Captain Vasser kept shaking her head and winced like she was recoiling, both from Delaney’s question and from the sudden torrent of her own memories. “Crewman, wait, I… I need to think.”

Delaney’s face fell. Who was this woman? She was like a husk of the captain Delaney had known. Seeing her like this was unspeakably demoralizing, and it was enough to make Delaney wonder if Wasp had actually been telling the truth.

“Captain, she…” Delaney ventured slowly. “She said you let her into the critical systems. Something about… your, uh, holodeck material?”

It seemed to take Captain Vasser a moment to process Delaney’s words, but once she did, she reacted in a way the younger woman never would have expected. Her nerve broke, and she looked away. Her face turned a deep scarlet with shame.

“T-that’s not…” she stammered. “I didn’t m-m… No, no, there must be something else. I couldn’t… wouldn’t…”

“Captain…” A sense of insurmountable disappointment washed over Delaney. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Captain Vasser was making excuses. She sounded like she was in denial. Was this really the woman Delaney had chosen to put her faith in?

“O captain, my captain!” Wasp echoed mockingly, rounding on Captain Vasser. “Come on, cap! Tell her! Let’s see… which scenario was it? You’ve so many, after all. The one with the student, at the academy? I think that was it.”

“Shut up!” Captain Vasser barked, but her voice was too high-pitched. It lacked authority. And Delaney couldn’t help but notice the other ways she was reacting. She was squeezing her legs together as if taken by a sharp yearning. “S-shut up.”

“Or you’ll what?” Wasp cackled mercilessly. “Lick my boots again? Please! And you can’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy it. We both know that’s a lie.”

“N-n-nooo,” Captain Vasser cried.

“I think maybe even your crewman does too,” Wasp added. “I checked her file, you know. Lori Delaney. A real troublemaker. But she came straight to you anyway. It’s almost touching, isn’t it? Such faith? What a shame that you’re just going to let her down.”

This time, Captain Vasser couldn’t seem to muster the strength even to deny it. She just let out a wordless whine that was half shame, half ecstasy. Delaney backed away uncertainly. What the hell was she watching? This felt, more than anything else, like some kind of twisted foreplay.

“But I suppose you’re enjoying that too, aren’t you?” Wasp went on. The way she posed and gestured theatrically, drawing out each word as she tormented the hapless captain out of sadistic glee, was infuriating to witness. “That’s one of your favorites. Getting humiliated in front of someone younger. Someone subordinate. Someone who should look up to you. If only she was hypnotizing you too, huh? I bet that would really get you off.”

“S-stop,” Captain Vasser begged. “P-please. I can’t… think…”

It was all too clear why. She was blushing like a maiden and sweating visibly, and the way her body twitched and contorted with each of Wasp’s loaded, venomous accusations was undeniably suggestive. Between shame and pleasure, pleasure was evidently winning out. This was a side of Captain Vasser that Delaney had never seen before, and it left her horrified and transfixed in equal measure.

“Can’t think? I thought you’d be begging for that.” Waps giggled, and then made a little gesture with her hand and plucked a holographic pocket watch out of thin air. She dangled it by its chain and started swinging it back and forth like a pendulum in front of Captain Vasser. “Well, I think Crewman Delaney here has gotten the picture. What do you say, captain? Do you wanna go back into that nice, blissful, trancey sleep? You know what you have to do. Just look at the pocket watch, and let your mind go blank.”

As she swung the pocket watch, Wasp’s voice changed. It became soft and melodious, a luring song, beckoning Captain Vasser to calm and submission. To Delaney’s horror, it seemed to work. Slowly, Captain Vasser’s face turned towards the pendulum, and as soon as her eyes locked onto it they started to go dull. With each swing, more and more emotion and personality drained from her face, and she started to slip into a kind of stillness that was disrupted only by occasional, rapturous shivering that hinted at the blinding, fetishistic pleasure she was experiencing.

Seeing how pathetically susceptible the captain was made Delaney tremble. It was practically confirmation of Wasp’s story. But that wasn’t the worst part. The very worst part was the ghost of the last expression Delaney could see haunting Captain Vasser’s face.

It was relief. The captain was relieved at being hypnotized. At not having to think anymore. At not having to face what she’d done. Delaney’s hands balled into fists again. She couldn’t take any more of this farce.

“Hey!” she yelled, striding forward. “Snap the fuck out of it already!”

Delaney shoved Wasp’s hologram out of the way as roughly as she could, grabbed Captain Vasser by the shoulders, and slapped her across her face. Captain Vasser shuddered in the aftermath of the blow, slowly coming back to life.

“Wwuh… hhuh?” she said blearily. Delaney noted with disgust that she was actually drooling.

“Wake up already!” she demanded. “Captain - no, Yvonne Vasser. Wake the fuck up, Yvonne. You’re better than this! I know you are! You’re one of the youngest and finest captains in the whole damn Alliance, even if you are a total bitch. So, Yvonne, I don’t care what you did or what you’re into. I just need you to straighten up, get your head out of your ass, and figure out how we’re all going to get out of this mess!”

Delaney wasn’t one for pep talks, but she thought it was a pretty respectable attempt. She just hoped it got through to Captain Vasser properly. Even though Delaney had managed to rouse her from trance, she looked like she was back to barely knowing where she was or who she was talking to.

“C-crewman?” Captain Vasser slurred, glancing down at the red of Delaney’s uniform that indicated her rank. “Did you just… slap me?”

“Yeah.” Delaney had to smile at the absurdity of it. This was going to make for one hell of a story someday. “I guess I did.”

To her surprise, though, Captain Vasser didn’t seem to come any close to true, clear wakefulness. With all the coordination of a staggering drunk, she shoved Delaney back and looked at her with a farcical impression of sternness.

“T-that’s… not appropriate, c-crewman,” Captain Vasser said slowly. She seemed to be drawing on some kind of deeply embedded reflex that Delaney’s behavior had manged to dredge up. “N-nor is calling me… ‘Yvonne’. Alliance regulation… 521. Salute when addressing a s-superior officer.”

The smile slipped from Delaney’s face. In that moment, all her faith was lost. They were in the clutches of an incredibly dangerous criminal, and Captain Vasser was so far gone that all she could think to do was to quote the regs and lecture Delaney about insubordination. Maybe she was too fucked up to think about their situation properly. Maybe she’d just chosen not to. It didn’t make any difference now.

“God,” Delaney spat, her expression twisted. “You really are broken, aren’t you?”

“Told you so,” piped up Wasp.

Delaney couldn’t spare the emotion to be angry at Wasp. All her fury was reserved for Captain Vasser. The Inyx was her ship. They were her crew. She was responsible for all of them. How dare she let them down so badly? Especially after all those lectures and tough rules and disciplinary sentences. She was a fraud and a hypocrite, and whatever happened to the rest of the crew fell on her head.

So maybe all Delaney could do was rub her face in it while she still had her free will.

“Forget it,” she snapped. “Fuck you and fuck all your rules and regs. This is what you want, right? This is what you’re mad at me for interrupting?”

Delaney whipped around and snatched the hardlight pocket watch out of Wasp’s hand. In imitation of the hacker, she dangled it in front of Captain Vasser and started to swing it by its chain.

“Go ahead,” she snarled. “Get your fill, captain.”

“I… I…”

Captain Vasser had been trying to say something, but as soon as she saw the pocket watch the words died on her lips. Delaney saw her eyes begin to glaze over once more. Making that happen flooded her body with a strange kind of satisfaction.

“Wow,” Delaney laughed. “You really can’t help yourself, can you? Don’t you get it? I’m mocking you, captain. Aren’t I being insubordinate now? Don’t you care? Can you even hear me?”

Delaney knew almost nothing about hypnosis. As little as the average overly-curious young gridnet user, anyway. She wasn’t exactly vanilla herself. Still, she’d never tried anything like this. She could tell that her technique was sloppy. She couldn’t seem to get the watch to swing in a nice, slow, regular rhythm the way Wasp had. But whatever she was doing seemed to be more than enough for Captain Vasser.

“I guess that’s part of it, huh?” Delaney ranted, thinking back to Wasp’s words. “You like knowing that I’m just a crewman on your ship. You get off on it. I can tell. Is this one of your precious little holodeck fantasies, huh?”

A weak, wet mewl from Captain Vasser’s lips let Delaney know she’d hit somewhere near the mark. She smirked. Now that she’d given up all her faith in the captain, she was free to revel in the satisfaction. She thought back to all the times Vasser or one of her officers had written Delaney up for lateness, or uniform violations, or anything else.

"Fine, then. Far be it from me to stop you getting your kicks. I’ll just have to try and enjoy this even more.” Delaney grinned with wild abandon. “Think about it, captain. Think about how easy you are. All it takes is waving some stupid watch in front of you, and any petty crewman on this ship can have you drooling all over yourself. It’s pathetic.”

The broken captain’s mewls and moans grew louder; more desperate.

“I hope everyone gets to see you like this.” Delaney was warming to her theme. “The whole crew. All those people who look up to you. I hope they all get their turn to stick their fingers in your head, just like I am right now.”

It was fascinating, watching Captain Vasser steadily slip under hypnosis even as her body burned and twitched from Delaney’s taunts. Delaney was starting to understand the appeal of the captain’s fetish - at least, from this angle.

“Bet you’d get a kick out of that, huh?” she went on. “From wondering what we’d all use you for. That’s what you want, right? You just want everyone to have their way with you. The more depraved, the better. What kind of captain wants something like that, huh? Along with how you’ve betrayed us all, you can hardly claim to deserve the captain’s chair.”

That brought forth a particularly anguished moan - but still, it was thick with pleasure. Delaney sensed that nothing was beyond the reach of the captain’s fetish. It was buried that deep in her soul. The more she treasured something, the more she wanted something, the more she felt ashamed of something, the better fuel it made for her kinks. And now Delaney was caught up in that feeling and that flow, eager to see how far she could push her.

“I think you’d be better suited for something a little different.” Delaney laughed darkly to herself. “You know that old joke about senior crew who sleep around? I bet you do. ‘Stress relief officers’. I think that’s a better fit. Don’t you? Maybe that’s what I’ll call you.”

Delaney laughed all the louder as she watched Captain Vasser’s face contort, as a spike of arousal drove its way through the captain’s body. Clearly, she’d hit on yet another fantasy.

“After all, who needs a holodeck for that kind of thing, when you have a ‘captain’ who’s just as easy to program.” Delaney snorted in amusement, making sure to keep the watch swinging in her hand. “I’m sure you’d love being turned into everyone’s fantasy. We’d just need to get you a fitting uniform.”

“It’s funny you should say that,” Wasp said. She had been standing off to one side so quietly, Delaney had almost forgotten she was there. Almost. “The captain herself came up with something that fits the bill. She never got around to trying it out, though. She was probably still working up the courage when I got to her.”

Wasp gave her fingers another snap as she instructed the holodeck’s computer to spring into action. At that very instant, Captain Vasser’s clothes warped and shifted. It was just a complex illusion, of course, but it was an effective one, and Delaney let out a gasp at what she was now wearing.

It was a blatant, gleeful mockery of her usual attire. An Alliance uniform - a captain’s uniform, no less - but so thinly made and so tightly cut it concealed almost nothing. It featured a plunging neckline and multiple sets of cut-outs all over Captain Vasser’s body, exposing all the parts of her body a captain’s crew weren’t supposed to think about. All in all, it was like something out of cheap pornography. A slutty Halloween costume take on an Alliance captain.

Perfect.

Delaney took a moment to admire Captain Vasser’s body. It made her feel superior. She’d never imagined she’d get to see the captain so thoroughly degraded, and there was something oddly tantalizing about the way Captain Vasser barely reacted to the humiliation. Delaney’s pocket watch still held her mind in its grip. She was like a puppet - and thinking about that gave Delaney yet another idea.

“Hey, officer!” she barked, in her best imitation of Captain Vasser’s usual, commanding demeanor. “What are you waiting for? Give me a salute.”

Her order seemed to take a long moment to penetrate the deep layers of fog enshrouding Captain Vasser’s mind, but once they did, the captain slowly raised her arm, bent it at an angle, and brought her hand to her temple in a vaguely passable military salute.

But Delaney wasn’t going to be satisfied with ‘vaguely passable’. No more than Captain Vasser ever was.

“C’mon, officer,” she jeered. “You can do better than that! Straighten your back! Hold your head up high! Stiffen that arm!”

With the pocket watch still swinging Captain Vasser could not disobey, but she was in no state to salute properly either. Delaney was treated to the spectacle of the hopelessly brainwashed woman trying desperately to pull herself together, straining to achieve enough focus to keep her back straight while she raised her arm. The result was still sloppy, just as Delaney’s salutes often were in the early morning. The comparison amused Delaney, but of course, the very best part was how utterly and unmistakably absurd Captain Vasser looked, saluting while wearing that porn-parody outfit.

Delaney just laughed.

“Nice work, officer,” she mocked. She was enjoying this little roleplay. “At ease.”

Captain Vasser slumped. She seemed grateful to be allowed to slip back into complete oblivion.

“I have an idea,” Wasp interjected. “If you want to see what really gets her off.”

Delaney sensed Wasp was offering, not telling. She nodded. Wasp had successfully aroused her curiosity. The hacker snapped her fingers again, and this time it wasn’t Captain Vasser’s clothes that changed. It was Delaney’s. Her uniform shoes disappeared beneath a hardlight hologram of a pair of thigh-high platform-heeled boots. The heels were easily more than six inches high, and the boots were polished all over to a mirror sheen. Delaney threw an irritated look at Wasp as she stumbled briefly from being raised up on her new, holographic heels, but she quickly found her balance.

“Trust me,” Wasp assured me. “This is one of her favs. If you want to really see her at her lowest, this is the best way to do it.”

Delaney really, really did. Seeing how far Captain Vasser could fall was addictive. She noticed that Wasp had also conjured up a small stool right behind her, so she perched on it and stretched out one of her new boots towards Captain Vasser.

“Kneel, officer,” she instructed.

She threw the pocket watch back to Wasp, who caught it. Delaney could sense it was no longer needed. Sure enough, Captain Vasser barely stirred, and her eyes soon settled on Delaney’s boots. She seemed to lose herself in the reflections that formed on their shiny surfaces, and sank slowly to her knees in front of the crewman.

“Officer,” Wasp sang out. “The crewman’s boots are looking a little dirty. Why don’t you show her how you like to polish them?”

It wasn’t true, not even slightly, but Captain Vasser nonetheless sprung into life with something approaching eagerness. She bent forward, placed her lips against the chunky tip of the boot heel, and began to worship. The brainwashed captain started planting slow, reverent kisses on the hardlight material, before moving on to drawing her tongue across the heel in long, slow strokes. Finally, shivering with pleasure, she took the heel into her mouth and started sucking on it, taking it so deep she almost choked.

Delaney was completely mesmerized by the sight.

“God,” she breathed. “You weren’t kidding. She loves this.”

Wasp just giggled. It was obvious. Nobody had needed to order Captain Vasser to put this much exultant devotion into polishing Delaney’s boots. Beneath the deep fog of trance, it was obvious just how much the captain was enjoying this. Her cheeks were stained red with shameful pleasure, and one of her hands was drifting down to between her legs.

“No,” Delaney said sharply, once she noticed Captain Vasser about to touch herself. “I haven’t given you permission, officer. Use this instead.”

She stretched her other leg forward and used the tip of the other boot to pry Captain Vasser’s legs apart before pressing it insistently against the front of her pants. Immediately, Captain Vasser’s low, muffled moans doubled in volume and desperation, and her hips started to buck and thrust. Delaney found herself grinning.

“See?” she purred. “This is the real you, captain. This is where you belong. Isn’t it?”

Captain Vasser was beyond anything but nodding in delirious agreement. She was still eagerly kissing and sucking Delaney’s boot, but the pleasure she was receiving sapped her coordination. Her worship became sloppy and, as she moved from the heel of the boot to the tip, she was leaving long, wet trails of drool all over the object of her adoration and down the sides of her own face.

She looked nothing like herself. Nothing like the stern, dignified starship captain Delaney was so used to. Delaney was struck by the sheer magnitude of the difference. She had never once seen Captain Vasser express even the slightest hint of pleasure, amusement, or passion. Delaney had taken to assuming she was every bit as joyless in private. Clearly not, if this was how she’d been spending her holo-rec time.

It made Delaney wonder. Where did her heart really lie?

“You know,” Delaney said, steadily grinding the tip of the boot against Captain Vasser. “I heard a rumor that you’d been spending a whole lot more time on the holodeck lately. Finally dipping into that holo-rec time you’ve been accumulating all these months. And I guess now I know why. I’m sure Wasp told you to, but I’m also sure you loved every minute of it.”

Captain Vasser shivered at the coming humiliation.

"All this time,” Delaney continued, “while your crew was steadily being brainwashed. While your ship was being taken over. You were spending every spare minute down here, fucking yourself stupid to whatever perverse little fantasies Wasp found in your holodeck files? Is that right? Answer me.”

“Y-y-yes,” Captain Vasser moaned around the boot in her mouth. Her voice sounded distant, but there was a high, needy edge to it.

“All when we needed you most.” Delaney just loved the way Captain Vasser twitched as she twisted the knife. “Or do you get off on that too, huh? On betraying us? On becoming the way we get brainwashed too? Answer me?”

“Y-yes!” Captain Vasser cried. Her voice was even more strained this time. She was obviously close to climax.

“Of course.” Delaney laughed. She leaned in close. There was something she wanted to hear straight from the captain’s lips. “So tell me. Between captaining the ship - between being the perfect, textbook, strict, admired, respected captain - and becoming nothing more than a porn star in your own fucked-up fantasies: which one feels better? That? Your old life? Or this?”

“T-t-this!”

The answer erupted from Captain Vasser’s lips without hesitation. It was anguished, but Delaney knew by now that Captain Vasser derived as much pleasure from the anguish as she did pain. And she didn’t doubt for a moment that what Captain Vasser said was true. She could already see it. The captain was exploring her deepest desires; urges and fantasies that had been fermenting within her for years. Compared to that, the pride and prestige of the captain’s chair was as fragile as an eggshell.

That Captain Vasser was already gone. She’d dulled and rusted down here in the holodeck, pleasuring herself at Wasp’s command. Now, she was just a hypno-slut.

“Good.” Delaney sneered, leaning in to better enjoy the moment. “Now cum.”

Captain Vasser obeyed. It was like she’d been struck by lightning. She twitched madly, drooling more than ever and flailing in increasingly desperate efforts to rub her cunt against the tip of Delaney’s boot. The other boot, meanwhile, was still in her mouth, and she was still kissing and lapping fervently.

She hadn’t been given permission to stop, after all.

Eventually, all the strength left her, and she went limp. Captain Vasser slumped to the ground and finally released Delaney’s boot. It had been as shiny as a mirror; now, it was utterly soiled with the wet, slavering proof of the captain’s attention. It was as ruined as she was.

“Wow,” Delaney breathed. She felt almost as aroused as Captain Vasser looked. “I’m gonna enjoy using you, captain.”

Wasp stepped forward, coughing. “You know I’m going to brainwash you too, right? My sweet little pet nerds just finished whipping up a new prototype.”

Delaney noticed she was suddenly holding something long, thin and metal. It looked like a medical instrument.

“I know,” she said. “I don’t care. I just want you to promise me one thing.”

“You’re not really in the position to be making demands,” Wasp remarked. “But I’m feeling indulgent. Go ahead.”

Delaney stared straight down at Captain Vasser. “Just promise me that, in whatever fucked-up pecking order you come up with for this ship, I’ll be above her.”

Wasp threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that one bit. You’ll get your wish. Pinky swear.”

“Good.” Delaney nodded. “Go ahead.”

She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the captain she’d always resented as Wasp held the medical tool up against her ear and injected something cold and strange into her skull. Captain Yvonne Vasser’s hypnotized, blissed-out face was the last thing Delaney saw before everything turned into spirals.