Cerule

Cerule, Beginning

Chapter 1

 “It's too early, Admiral, there is a substantial probability that not all of the Cerule doner memory ingrams are printed deeply enough…”

Oh boy, that didn’t sound good. I’d actually been awake for several minutes but couldn’t seem to open my eyes. But I could hear, dammit, and what I heard didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. My superiors were in a rush over the procedure, and I was non to happy about what that meant for me. The sound of monitors in the specialized sick bay where I was encased in a life support bed, vied with the voices arguing over my present fate. 

“It doesn’t matter. They are in there, even if dormant, they will just have to emerge with time in the experience."

"Admiral, I can't guarantee he will have a chance for success on that world without fully integrating who he is as a League officer, with the memories of dead young man the Ral retrieved for us. Those memories were damaged to begin with and..."

"Commander Pareldon will just have to make due with what he has."

I recognized the Admiral’s voice even with my eyes closed. Admiral Fentin had a distinctly commanding alto, but in it I heard no great confidence in my abilities, not that I blamed her. I'd always been a bit of a fuckup. At ninety four, I was still a Commander, my peers who were still in the service were for the most part two or three ranks ahead of me.  My wife, Angie, who was half my age, was already one full rank above me.

"Admiral, we are showing energy signatures at the system perimeter. It's the enemy, Mam."

"Doctor, bring him out of it, now."

I didn’t feel the wake spray zip my bicep. But I felt the adrenaline charge, so powerful I sat right up in bed with an ease that nearly catapulted me to the floor. As it was, I was standing on bare feet off the bed, much to the startled yelps of everyone hovering around me.

My eyes were open at least. I looked around me, taking in the room, the people, a mix of physicians, junior officers, and a few senior officers. The Senior officers but for the Admiral in their midst were quickly scattering, no doubt back to stations to oversee the ship's defenses. I was vaguely aware that I was naked, but was also feeling really good, if disoriented as if my balance wasn't quite right.

I looked away from the Admiral, searching for something reflective to see myself with.

“Commander Pareldon!” The authoritative snap brought me around so fast I felt my cock swing from left to right to slap against my right hip. I looked down and damn. Oh fuck that was a big juicy sexy piece of … wait a minute! What the hell? When did I ever look at a cock like that?

Admiral Janet Fentin looked down and back up… quickly. A tall, elegant woman with wavy silvery hair tied back in a fleet pin, she was ice cold beauty in her pale blueish silver uniform with its black and gold rimmed rank markings. Though considerably older than me, I’d always admired her gorgeous looks and had secretly envied her husband, ok well, her several x husbands. She went through them fast enough.

But now there was something different.

Before I had time to analyze whatever that was, she snapped. “Get him dressed in Cerule garb, quickly. We have no time to lose.”

Instantly her minions were on me, helping me into white leggings that fit me like a dancer’s tights, even though they were distressed, with some odd rips and tares in them, a silk shirt, left unbuttoned, possibly because half the buttons were missing, and the shirt was a ripped and torn mess. Then they added a navy jacket of some period thing that looked like nothing so much as something a navy Lieutenant might have worn a thousand years ago on Earth… and all the while the Admiral was speaking in a flood as I dressed.

“Commander Pareldon, as you see you are in the bio-tech body for the Insert operation for the planet the Ral call Cerule."

What body? I thought, looking down and blinking. My hands, legs, feet, looked familiar somehow, but only as if I had seen them in a holo-pic at some point. They were darker than I remembered, a sort of coppery tan, and longer, thinner... I looked around and down at myself, trying to get a look at my ass as she went on. "

You’ve already been briefed. What you don’t know is that Captain Evan’s ship was destroyed. He was our first candidate. For our sins, your incompetent ass is our second, so you're going instead. Your wounds weren’t life threatening, in fact you really didn't have any, but we really have no choice." By the stars, her voice was scathing. I was vaguely remanded that Admiral Fentin was not one of my favorite superiors, or maybe more accurately, I wasn't one of her favorite junior officers.

"Hunh?" I heard myself utter in a voice lower, deeper and huskier than I remembered. 

“The Xetods are right behind us, but with any luck they will chase us and miss your stealth pod. But we have to get you off of this ship now.”

I had boots to put on and I was helped into them by a lieutenant, while the Admiral tugged my arm forward. She really seemed to be in a panic.

Once underway, she continued on in a torrent. “Your Gollum body is made with a heavy percentage of Elliumite Crystal in its cellular structure. You several times stronger than a human, your brain is equipped with a biocomputer that is impervious to damage unless something every manages to get through your Dimond Titanium Elliumite, alloy skull. You are as close to immortal as we can make you. But take care not to show that off in the relatively primitive society we are dropping you.”

“My wife!” I blurted, suddenly thinking of Angie. Captain Angie Pareldon Saunders, Fleet Logistics, was my young sexy, love. I would do anything for her. The thought of leaving her jerked me to a stop in the corridor.

“Your what?” The Admiral said, looking at me incredulously.

“Angie, has anyone told her?”

“When we get back to Bertrum Base, she will be notified you died.”

“Shit! Aww, Angie…”

“Commander, don’t be an idiot." Admiral Fentin looked at me with no sympathy at all, and her voice was scathing with contempt. "Your wife was cheating on you. You know that. You apparently walked in on her fucking my husband four different times, including the one time I was with you, buying her silly excuses for why he happened to have his cock shoved up her far too eager cunt. That’s one reason you signed up for this at the time, remember? And there is no time for second thoughts."

“Well, I know, “I said, feebly, “but, I loved her… we…”

Maybe I was still weak, but as she and her aides dragged me down the corridor to the lift, I didn’t put up much resistance. Instead, my eye fell on the ass of the young male Lieutenant leading our party along. Fuck that was a hot ass, all jutting out like two working melons just waiting to be plundered… He was obviously fit as hell, and that uniform fit him like a second skin. Wait!

“What the fuck? When do I look at a male ass that way?” Shit! Did I say that out loud?

Without stopping our progress the Admiral wrapped out, “Stars save me from idiots! Commander, our Cerule subject was extremely homosexual. If you return to his life, and your orientation were switched, how would that be convincing? And do I need to remind you that your Bio-tec body, while enhanced, is not programmed to sire offspring, which considering the father is probably a damn good thing. Now come along. I don’t plan on dying out here due to your silly questions.”

“Admiral, usually bio-tech patients are a bit disoriented.” This from the Lieutenant who was glancing back at me shyly, and cheekily at the same time, the sexy cutey. I wanted to kiss him and slap him at the same time. Ok, well spank him then…

“Oh, My STARS!” I squawked, again. Out Loud.

We hit the lift and were deposited moments later in the pod bay. The Admiral watched as her people practically threw me into the nearest pod, buckling me into my harness. The Lieutenant leaned way in to check things out and winked! Such a cheeky little shit. I started to have truly erotic thoughts about him…. He must have caught something in the way I was gazing at him like the drooling idiot I was, because he winked and subvocalized, "Shame your leaving us so fast, Commander. Your new body is hot."

The Admiral smiled. “Good luck turning that world around, Commander.” Why she almost sounded sweet just before she slammed the pod door, but I still heard the muffled, “Now get the fuck off my ship!”

“Sigh”, I said out loud to myself as the Admiral’s enormous League Flag ship dropped away on the single view port and swung us around so that a huge blue planet loomed into and passed my view.

Without thinking I reached for the controls and said, “Commander Jake Saunders Pareldon, call sign zebra alpha seven six, niner five zebra. Taking active control.”

“Pod 35F, recognition, control given.

I could have let the pod do it, but despite my own implants and a lifetime working with the digital world to do anything, I did not trust AI and never would. Hah, in fact, on this mission, a mission I had never really thought I would be doing, I probably never would.

I put the pod on its pre-determined course, confirming it. After all I had no idea where we were going, except down.

Trying to relax as the pod zipped away from the swiftly vanishing bulk of the enormous flag ship, I said, "This is the last Log entry of Commander Jake Saunders Pareldon, Humana Star League.

For anyone reading this, I am a Commander in the Humana League Fleet, a military body that encompasses a quarter of a million ships, any one of which, with a little work, could probably destroy an entire planet. For centuries the League, whose dominant species is Humanoid, origin, Terra, Mother Earth, has defended League Worlds from a variety of foes and questionable friends, keeping a sort of shaky peace. 

However, there is a zone in Galactic Space that had been cordoned off from any space power but the region’s overlords, otherwise known as the Ral. The Ral are one of the oldest still corporeal beings still on the planet and they claimed as special world called Cerule, a world mostly populated by humans, but also by descendants of the Ral called Elldin, shape shifters and mentaths of various sorts and strengths. The human population of Cerule have mixed over thousands of years with the Ral, interbreeding as the Ral seek to uplift a descended race of human Ral mixed race who can, in time, reach out to the stars as the Ral once did.

The Ral have brooked no interference in Cerule but their own, from time-to-time transporting humans form old earth or Terra's hundreds of colonies to Cerule. Unfortunately, their own interference, was their undoing. As they had explained it to the League. The hybrid blooded Ral / Elldin they had installed on the world Cerule to guide their offspring, had corrupted himself, using his vast powers to build an empire. Instead of guiding, he had opted to rule. He had made himself into a sort of Priest King Emperor and was in virtual control of half the planet.

It is my job to take on the appearance and memory of a deceased aristocrat, to work to counter the long arm of Zorath. 

That sounded simple enough, right? Well not if you didn't remember the life I was supposed to replace. What if I couldn't remember a damn thing?

I really had not expected to be dropped here. I had expected to somehow survive the Xeltod attack on our squadron. I had expected any other candidate for this mission but me. But nooooo! The attack caught us, our little task force was a struggling wreck, with even the flagship damaged, and any other candidate for this mission, this lifelong mission… VERY life long, provided I survived…,

I suddenly had an awkward thought. “Ah, we are in stealth mode?” I said to the pod. Now ya see? Here I was, several minutes into this drop, an enemy fleet on the way, asking for manual control, essentially ceding it back and not checking to make sure this pod was in stealth mode until now. Typical idiot. Typical, fucking Jake Saunders Pareldon, not checking to see if his own ass was attached.

“Yes Sir," the pods mechanical voice responded.

“Just checking.” I gushed with a sigh of relief.

I leaned back, figuring I had time until the next course correction. My thoughts drifted to my beautiful wife that I was leaving behind. Angie, my wife. I wasn’t sure she would grieve that much. Not really. I liked to think she would, but then slapped that thought down as being very petty of me. She had a right to be free of me, to find her own happiness. My career hadn't exactly allowed us all that much time together, anyway.

She had told me right off when she married, that she was chasing rank. She was in a noncombat support role, but still, she wanted those Admiral Stripes even if it was about Logistics.

So, when I found her in bed the first time with then Commodore Bill Fentin, after coming home from the gym, I’d gawked in the doorway, watching the Commodore’s ass hunching away and hearing my wife’s coos. I remember thinking my superiors physic was damn good and fit. Of course, he was younger than me, but with all the extend treatments, he didn't look more than thirty, and those were firm flanks. Wait a minute was that my recent newfound appreciation for the male physic affecting my memory? As I dictate this log, I am confused. Those buttocks in my memory didn't seem particularly attractive. But now, I was stirring in these shredded ripped tights just thinking about what a hot ass the man who seduced my wife had. 

I remembered as if yesterday, standing in the doorway to our bedroom, saying, “Unh, Angie? Babe? What is this? Ah, er hi Sir.” I had added to the Commodore as my brain scrambled with what I was seeing.

My wife stared at me wide eyed and gave me a wide smile. “Jake, darling, Vice Admiral Fentin’s husband, you know the Commodore. He was just teaching me a massage technique.”

“A oh, a massage technique.” I had said, stupidly.

“Mmmhmm, for when your away on assignments. You know how lonely I get. Well with technique I can relax and my yearnings are eased. Isn’t that wonderful?”

I loved Angie. I wanted to believe her, so I said, “oh, a massage technique. Well, that’s great honey. Hey, Thanks Sir, for helping my wife out."

The Commodore had turned his handsome face to me, looking a little flushed and had attempted a weak smile, "Hey, my pleasure."

And Angie had chimed back in, "Darling, I am glad you're so understanding. You see why I love my Jake so much, Commodore?”

“Ahh, umm er, I suppose I do.” The man said, through a deep grunt as his buttocks flexed.

And I had left them to it, retreating to the kitchen, grabbing beer and chased by moans and coos that sounded far to sexual, I’d gone out onto our terrace to listen to the seagulls. I told myself that just because it looked like sex didn't mean it was. After all it wasn't as the Commodore was actually inside her, right? I mean that was our honeymoon, we'd been married for only a few days and Angie and I had taken the invitation to honeymoon at the Fentin villa on Maui.

A few days later I walked in on them in the shower. The Commodore had my young beautiful wife up against the wall under the spray, humping away. Angie had explained that the massage technique had some subtle differences in water.

Well that time, even though the spray fogged up glass somewhat hid things, I glimpsed the physical connection going on, but I tried to tell myself it was just part of teaching my wife how to fill her needs while I was away. 

After that the Commodore was always around, exchanging hugs, and cuddling with my Angie, often sharing a lounger with her, exchanging kisses which I told myself were just affectionate displays of friendship. From all of this, I would retreat out onto the beach, where i quickly walked down into the water to cool off. Funny how one part of your brain can acknowledge that your wife might be cheating with someone, but the other side can deny, deny, deny and think up so many excuses for what you're seeing.

 The Third and fourth times? Well, the third time was when Angie and I agreed to go to a party at the Club put on by the Admiral and her husband. Sometime while dancing, I guess her husband slipped away with my wife, and when the Admiral went to look for them, she took me along. The Admiral found her husband in Angi and my hotel room, but he was lying on his back with a young Ensign, a male, officer doing something to him. I figured it was that massage technique thing. Two guys though, ugh, I didn’t want to watch. But now my memory was spanking me for not lingering to do just that.

(About this time I considered ending the official log but then thought. what the fuck, why bother?)

While they squabbled, the Admiral damn near shrieking, I found Angie hiding in the bathroom, naked. Hearing the Admiral and her husband finally give up their squabble and leave, I took my wife to bed, and was surprised by how feverish she was to make love. That massage technique the Commodore kept teaching her so thoroughly, wow, I was really going to have to learn that one if it got Angie this excited.

All seemed well until the fourth time… The fourth time was at the Star Base as I was awaiting orders to ship out.

Angi told me she had a meeting with her commanding officer, whom I later learned was Commodore Fentin. I learned that because when I went to wait for her, the commodore’s aide sent me back to his office, the door of which I found was ajar. Angi was on her back on the Commodore’s desk, with her superior pressing in between her legs, her heals over his shoulders, his bare butt banging away.

“Honey, that really doesn’t look like it is just a massage.” I finally heard myself say. Yes, I was recognizing the seemingly undeniable fact, that my wife was having an affair with the Admiral's latest husband.

She looked over at me, my lovely wife, her uniform shirt open, her big breasts splayed out as the Commodore nuzzled into her cleavage. She looked at me, almost lovingly, and sighing, or was it moaning, or was it exasperation? It was hard to tell. But she said, “Ya think?”

Ok, I know what you're saying to yourself. Maybe Jake Saunders Pareldon isn’t the brightest bulb in the world. Well…

So, leaving that alone for now, let's just say, the Humana League was asked to volunteer a candidate who was strongly resistant, and completely unmotivated by lust for power over others. In exchange the Ral would provide an artificial bio'tech body that would be next to indestructible, and inherently talented, to implant the memories of a dead Cerule native. The Ral had retrieved that said native Cerule from the seas after a sea battle, and made a replica, with certain various upgrades. And I was that replica, but with my own memories and … well I wasn’t sure the native side of me was exactly there. Except it had to be because I was apparently crushing on memories of a male Commodore's ass. Leave it to sex memories to be imprinted first.

That was what the Admiral and the Doctor had been arguing about, the lack of time for the Cerule memories to print themselves into my bio-tech brain.

Funny thing about Admiral Janice Fentin. Maybe it was because I knew about her husband cheating on her, or she was pissed at my wife and was taking it out on me, but I had this really strange feeling she couldn’t really care if I survived long enough to succeed at this infiltration mission. As long as she got me off her ship and her task force out of here safe, I was someone else's problem. Only, there was no one else, just me. Ugh.

Anyway, that said, it was time to put thoughts of Angie and her big boobs away from me. Hunh, funny thing. Her big boobs weren’t tugging at me. They used to. But now my memory of them was… I don’t know, kinda gross.

Alone in that pod, poised to shut down power but to anti grav and gently let myself drop into the Cerule Atmosphere, I gasped as I again, remembered. “Oh yeah. I like men, now.”

Several minutes later it hit me again, “Fuck.”

Then I said “Fuck” again. Good word, fuck. Sort of all purpose, but this time it wasn’t about me having a newly implanted taste for male ass and cock, it was about the fact that the pod's anti grav bubble, the part that would allow the pod to slip gently down through the atmosphere... was gone. It was not coming on.

I looked at all the indicators on the holographic control shield. Wait, there was no holographic control shield. Wasn’t that the last thing to go if everything else was fried? Tried to click on auto control, Nothing. We were in free fall.

“Um, Computer, I know I said manual, but um, you can forget that now. Take over?”

After a minute of nothing and hearing the sound of a roar rising outside the pod and feeling the heat rising inside, I came to a reluctant conclusion. WE were not in free fall. Nor was there any "WE" about it.  I… was in free fall.

Now I tried to calm myself by saying, “Ok, the hull on these pods are tough, well able to withstand free fall. It will arrive perfectly intact.”

But was I? Somehow, I began to realize that I was going to end up a crispy wad of burnt out bones and crap. I was going to die and I hadn’t even started yet? Really? Oh, fuck it was really getting hot in here.

Just before everything turned to agony, I screamed, “Angie, you bitch, why the fuck did you have to fuck the Admiral’s husband!!!!”

End of Log