Cognomen

Author : Rick Tobin

Clear crystal ramparts allowed olive sky radiance to cover his skin laid bare to her tentacles. Ritual torture or not, it compelled. Her siren songs rattled the open room making walls whisper back, back over Jack Strendon’s tortured sinews, rattling beyond his screams. The alien’s sojourn through his agony was transported telepathically to all two-leggeds originating from Earth. After a blue planet’s challenge warrior fell defeated in single combat, the Altairans could continue mastery of the helpless world without restriction for another decade. An entire race was forced to sense the captured warrior’s violation and ecstasy as punishment for daring to confront its conquerors. Strendon was the fifth combatant excoriated, layer by layer of skin, while the pleasure monger drove his manhood to rapture against his will.

Gurgling rose from turgid folds of scale and flesh hovering over Strendon’s face. Mosha, the Queen of Altair Prime, left his larynx and eyes free, unharmed, so the sight of his flailing was visible, projected on the ceiling above the long table where magnetic ties bound him to metal plates. With his eyelids removed, there was no escape from observing his own filleting.

Her meanings invaded his burning consciousness. “You are old, tough and hardly worth my efforts. I am only to your third layer. No contender before you has gone beyond four. It will end soon in a glorious orgasm with rushing blood spewing into me from every capillary.”

Doctor Clemson held onto Strendon’s hand as injectors descended to penetrate his tissues. “You can change your mind, Jack, but once we install the virus in the fatty tissue there is no going back. You won’t be able to stay here, even among your own kind.” Clemson scanned the monitors for pulse and blood pressure. High, but acceptable, considering.

“Go, Doc. I’ve waited a lifetime for this. If it works, Altair is finished. They’ve scanned every warrior before. We’ve never succeeded in releasing a weapon. If I can hold out until they get to the adipose tissue, we have a chance. Just do it.”

Spittle kept Strendon from screaming aloud as Mosha slavered, probing deeper with sandpaper appendages ripping away each stratum of his trembling frame. The shredding continued, as he began to bleed out. Post hypnotic suggestions barely kept him conscious. Humans trembled through the galaxy as all with human DNA felt his entrapment of pain and death.

“Surprised me, old one. Like no other, you. Now to the lowest level and still you survive. I will honor your name with…” Mosha stopped. She flailed her mountain of slimy limbs uncontrollably against the crystal cell. All of Earth felt her excruciating shock and fear as her own skin dissolved into puddles of glistening goo, spontaneously drying to microscopic spores that spread far and wide from the containment.

Soon whistling winds of Altair Prime spread glistening virus through olive skies, making octopi armies helpless to defend the approaching Earth fleet. Phillip Strendon led the final attack, releasing Boson particle bombs into the heart of the Altairan system. As the blue star retracted inward, it drew Dark Matter into a solid, ever condensing core, crushing the empire into a singularity. Once a powerful blue empire enslaved thousands of worlds, but now merely filled a black pimple in an empty quadrant.

Phillip would carry the honor of that day, and of his father’s sacrifice, with the final title Phillip Strendon Citizenare, as beings thousands of light years apart hailed the Strendon victory over their brutal tyrants.