Planet of the Dominated Mind

This wasn't really how Lukas envisioned his retirement.

His eyes glazed over the dump of coordinates from the ship's console. He and his assigned teammates—Officers Jordan and Pat—followed the trail to a system in the outer quadrant of Lambda.

"What do we know of this system?" Lukas asked as they made their way to an unmarked transport craft in the hangar.

Jordan, a tall and well built human with deep, dark skin and braids tied back, and Pat, a short, thin poltron rookie who's infectious grin and flickering cat-like ears distract from his uncharacteristically diminutive size for an officer, glanced at each other.

Pat blurted, "Well, I mean... exactly what everyone else knows."

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "That's like asking what we know about a desert. It's got sand in it, Captain."

Lukas led the two to a patrol transport craft. It was far too tall, however, to climb into without the assistance of stairs or the banishment of gravity.

 Jordan continued, "It's a little less expansive than most. We know there's no indigenous life in the system, so this isn't really the kind of place you travel to unless you know where you're going."

Light sliced through the hull of the transport craft, revealing a door. Three helipads slid out from underneath the entrance way and flew down to the officers, halting with pinpoint accuracy in front of the three. Each officer stepped upon the steel, and continued talking as they floated up towards the door.

"Do we know why the suspect would go there?" Pat scratched at his disarray blonde curls. His left ear folded back.

Jordan shrugged. "He's wanted for selling unregulated starbark. It's too cold for agriculture on the only planets that exist there. Those satellites don't even have names."

"Exactly,” Lukas said. “Agriculture is close to impossible there naturally, and there's nobody to sell his wares to out there. He's either just hoping to disappear for a while, or maybe he's not as small-time as we thought. Either we corner him, or, I guess we find a drug ring no one knew about."

Lukas hated either possibility.

The officers' helipads lined up in front of the doorway single file, allowing them to hop into the ship one at a time.

‎                                                                          ۝

The transport was a medium sized spacecraft made primarily of metal. There were a handful of rooms in the vehicle. The cockpit was to the right side as soon as one entered the vessel, with a large table in the center and numerous holo-screens around the room. To the immediate left were four individual quarters—three pre-packed with the belongings of the officers, and one prepared as a holding cell for their on-the-run starbark dealer.

The engines hummed and the ship left the hangar.

The reason they had a lead on the starbark dealer's flight to the Lambda System was because the dealer—though he successfully made his escape from a poltron sting—did not do so without Pat managing to slap a small tracker to the hull of the dealer's getaway pod. The tracker followed the pod until it lost signal in the ion storm ring that buffers Lambda from the surrounding systems. It was this quick thinking, in fact, that was the reason why Pat was added to the mission. Normally rookies like him would not be included, but in the eyes of the Chief whom assembled Lukas's team, he thought this—plus the fact Pat saw the dealer's face clearly—made him an obvious fit for the mission.

Besides, with someone as experienced as Lukas on board, these rookies had the perfect leader for their first real mission.

After a few hours of flying, the transport finally reached the outskirts of the Lambda System. There wasn't a lot to see besides the star field and occasional gas giant in the distance.

They sat in silence for a minute while Jordan prepared a report of the planets in the system, and which one was most likely to serve as the dealer's hide-away. Lukas scanned the files on his own holographic display. By Jordan's estimation, the system had three satellites that were likely candidates for a hiding place: the most likely of the three, Satellite Lambda ER-14, had Earth-like gravity and a similar nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, perfect for the manufacture of starbark... provided this petty dealer had time to set up a lab, or had done so already.

ER-14 was a steel world, but not in the "industrialized" sense. It was naturally steel, and devoid of what we classically would call life. On Earth, steel is a man-made alloy, but on ER-14, where iron and carbon collide underneath the crust of the planet, it coats the terrains and, once beaten down by occasional heat storms, forms land masses of jagged, mountainous steel. It's beautiful, and extreme, and completely inhospitable. If the dealer had fled there, he'd have to have some sort of base set up in advance, and he probably would not have been able to set up such a thing on his own. That’s an argument for preparing for a much larger force of men than just the dealer himself, Lukas thought.

"Once we get close enough to the planet," Jordan said, "scanning for him should be easy. We'll be able to get close enough that interference from the ion ring won't impact the tracker's signal. Even if he found a way to destroy the tracker, he shouldn't be able to hide his life sign on a lifeless planet."

Lukas was impressed with the thoroughness of Jordan's report and thought process. It was good to have a detail-oriented person on the team—lord knew Lukas, a man driven largely by instincts, wasn't one.

"Alright. Sounds like we have a plan,” the captain said. “Let's make it happen and get the hell home."

‎                                                                          ۝

When the officers landed their ship a few hours later, they were greeted by ER-14's cold wind blowing off the surface of the steel. With no life to keep warm, the only real heat from the planet came from that which the ground absorbed from the overhung blue sun.

The metal had soaked up so much of the blue light that it became an insulating layer, keeping the temperature on the metal planet fairly stable. It was a strange planet indeed, but it was a lucrative source of raw materials for large companies to occasionally mine. Those designated mining zones were on the other side of the planet, however, and heavily regulated. Part of Jordan's report had uncovered that no corporations had accessed ER-14 for nearly 4 years—largely because the cost of sending the equipment to such a far away system made it a difficult expenditure to justify.

Pat ran a scan on the planet before they touched down: first for the tracker he had placed on the ship, then for starbark, and then for the life signs of the dealer himself. The scans proved futile; no organic life signs roamed the surface. Perhaps he didn't bring starbark with him, or there clearly wasn't a secret starbark lab on the surface. He scratched behind his flickering, furry ears and turned to give Jordan a questioning look, but the other shook his head and mouthed "I don't know." Pat looked up and back down again, trying to puzzle things out.

There was something about being on the planet that got Jordan's mind into overdrive, though. "Wait. His ship will be made of a completely different metal than the steel that naturally grows here, right?"

Pat's ears stood, electric conduits to thought. "The dealer was pan-taran. They often use a mixture of copper and nickel on the hulls for decorative purposes. That’s why you can always tell a pan-taran transport out from a crowded road. Great thinking, Jordan!"

Pat adjusted his inputs for various ratios of copper-nickel, and resumed the scans on the mobile scanner linked to their ship.

"Pan-Taran, huh?" Lukas muttered, and pulled his jacket closed against the biting wind.

Even in the era of intergalactic peace, as this era liked to consider itself to have obtained, humans and pan-taran did not often see eye-to-eye, if they ever saw each other at all. "The War of The Strand," and the embarrassment of misunderstanding it instilled in both species, hung over their shared histories. Neither wanted to look at each other and see what they had done. Luckily, with poltrons serving as mediators between them in most situations in the chambers of the Alliance of Independent Systems, they didn't have to.

But Lukas had seen them up close. He remembered the rocky skin and the bright green eyes, and the way that shining chartreuse oiled over when life left them.

He pushed the thought away and focused on the task at hand.

Pat read through a report on the small holo-pad projected from his badge. His eyes lit up as data spilled from the top of the screen.

"Got it!" He scampered to a steel-cliff ledge and pointed east. "2.1 klicks that way, there's a large amount of copper-nickel concentrate. When I say large, I mean, oh, you know... about the size of a transport vehicle."

‎                                                                          ۝

The trio of officers followed the trail on foot, their laser pistols in hands, and their senses engaged. Heavy boots sunk into the metal sands beneath them.

Eventually, they happened upon the pan-taran cruiser.

It was a beautiful sight, with a shining copper-nickel hull, and intricate swirls of iridescence dancing across its surface. It was clear the owner had spent a significant amount of time and resources to have the vessel painted in such a way.

The officers quickly realized that the transport ship had not only landed safely, but was still fully functional—there was only minor wear and tear from damage it took in the Ion storm, the likes of which the vessel was not designed to handle.

They searched the ship and discovered residue of starbark, such trace quantities that Pat's scans would not be able to pick them up were they not in immediate proximity as they now were. No secret stashes, weapons, or identifiable information on the pan-taran dealer were present.

"He must've gathered everything and fled in there," Lukas pointed out. "He knew he was being trailed."

Before them was a cave entrance of unnatural craftsmanship—it was carved by tools, and the edges were smooth. The geometric shapes of the gradient carved rock almost mirrored early brutalist architecture from Earth. It was likely that this entrance was carved by a company far too full of themselves when they first landed, before they realize the full cost of staying on such a world.

In isolation, it was an eerie testament to the costliness of underestimation. In its shadow, the officers found themselves hesitating.

Pat was the first to speak. "It's a little weird that we can't detect him, yeah?"

Jordan walked from pillar to pillar. "I think it's more weird that the cave entrance is so... sculpted, you know? Isn't this just a largely ignored mining planet? What company would spend time and money on an entrance like this? Is this… is this the first cave that we ever carved out?"

We, Lukas realized, meant us, a stand in word for all known species, all known pioneers set on discovery.

Lukas clicked his tongue. "Weapons out, set to stun."

‎                                                                          ۝

The officers cautiously ventured into the cave.

Lukas's eyes darted back and forth, looking for any sign of the pan-taran dealer. Jordan ran his hands across the sculpted walls, certain that there was an almost artistic rhythm to the slices in the metal. Pat's ears flicked as he walked, sensing vibrations that the others couldn't hear. He was certain there was some sort of machinery switched on deep within the cave—perhaps ventilation? Perhaps a machine running tracking interference to hide the pan-taran's life signs?

As they walked, the light faded, and they had to rely on the flashlights attached to their badges to see. The darkness pressed against their skin like a cold blanket.

"Wait," Jordan paused. "Look at that."

The three froze and looked down. Ahead of them, the cave floor gave way to a steep drop, and the light from their devices barely revealed the bottom. The three felt a strange presence as they stood at the edge of the precipice.  There was no evidence of any pulley or transport system, and it was far too wide and deep to be an elevator shaft.

Pat saw the drop and thought, Wow. That pan-taran must be one hell of a man to make a jump like that and not break his legs. Could I do that? Am I less of a man than him? Wrestling with that thought, he considered leaping ahead without the Captain's permission. Surely he'd be impressed.

Jordan saw the drop and thought, I miss being an accountant. I'd rather cook books.

Lukas saw the drop and thought that if he died during the war, the decision between retirement and resignation wouldn't be nearly as difficult as it was at this moment. He also wondered how the hell the pan-taran made that leap—they are a sturdy species, but a fall like that onto solid steel seemed impossible for any species.

A quiet metal grind caught Pat's ears, like the opening of an ancient bank tube. He turned, and a mechanical arm, prehensile and wiry, grabbed him. It wrapped around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides, and dragged him into the darkness. It all happened so fast that, by the time Jordan and Lukas were even aware of the sounds that their much less sensitive human ears could pick up, Pat was already a dim blur whisked away into nothingness. His weapon clanked against the ground, and echoed.

Jordan and Lukas pressed into each other's backs, eyes wide and alert. Lukas could feel Jordan shaking—though he was by far the larger and stronger of the two, Lukas could tell how much of that fear was nerves. Jordan was still a rookie, after all.

"Pat!" Lukas called out.

"Shit, shit," Jordan's gun rattled in his hands. "What even got him?"

The sound of a whirring motor interrupted their panic.

"I have no idea," Lukas said. "But we're going to get him back."

Suddenly, the wall in front of Lukas opened. It was the same prehensile, metallic arm, but it had a claw-like appendage at the end, which snatched the Captain by his uniform and dragged him forward.

"Fuck, no!" Lukas yelled. He struggled against the arm, kicking and punching at the snaking tendril.

Jordan spun around, ready to shoot whatever it was that was attacking his captain. When he saw that it was the wall—no, the cave itself—that swarmed the man's body with more and more metal appendages, he froze. Terror and a complete lack of understanding arrested Jordan for a fraction of a second, which was long enough for the snake-like metal near his body to seize his wrists. The gun pulsed with light in the darkness, firing harmlessly into a corner of the cave. A tentacle bound itself across Jordan's face, forcing itself between his screaming lips and muffling him.

Lukas heard his comrade's screams, but as more and more metal arms secured around his limbs, he was helpless to aid him. He couldn't even aid himself—and being unable to control himself in the face of danger, he thought, had always been one of his greatest weaknesses. As soon as that thought entered his mind, a tentacle squeezed around his throat, choking him just enough to drain the resistance from his other limbs.

They both disappeared into separate openings, and the walls slammed shut.

‎                                                                          ۝

In his new room, Pat woke up on a small bed frame.

His uniform was tattered and dirty from soot and grease—the dark splotches here and there likely came from maneuvering around in the metal-dominated environment, some of it residue from the metal tentacles. There were some light scrapes where the tentacles had gripped him, but otherwise no blood or wounds.

The bed itself was surprisingly comfortable. It was even circular, like the ones back on his home planet of Poltron. So soft you could melt into the center, and with velvety pillows normally only found in the bedrooms of the frilliest women of Poltron. After what had just happened to him, there was a not-insignificant part of himself that told him he should just lay back down.

No! He had to figure out a way out. This was a mission! He's been captured by the pan-taran's security system, he thought. If he can figure a way out of here and still capture the criminal, man, what a story that would be! What an incredibly masculine hero he would be regarded as!

He had no tools, and his badge and gun were gone. After a moment of searching the near-empty room, he pressed his cat-like poltron ears to the wall and noticed a faint whirring coming from hollow points in the structure. Pat looked up and saw a panel in the ceiling, a small one that broke the design of the horizontal cuts of metal in the ceiling. Ventilation, perhaps. Getting up there was a different problem to solve, but solved it must become, for it was likely the only way out.

"The bed's not tall enough," a deep voice rasped behind him. It was rich and static, like a wizened storyteller through a blown out radio. "Even if you turn it on its side and mount it up against the wall, there's not really an angle you can jump from to get up there. You'd just hurt yourself."

Pat turned around and saw a massive old android was sitting on the bed. He was a hulking beast of a machine, humanoid in design, with a thick, plushy rubber belly and a bushy, synthetic beard that sat between the shimmering rubber fat-deposits of the front of his body. He had large, mechanical hands and feet, and a rectangular head that was slightly too small for his body. His eyes were bright and simple, small nightlights of comfort.

“And the last thing I’d want is for you to be hurt.”

The unit was clearly designed by a poltron, what with the triangular ears and faux-tail twitching behind his large body. The droid was a design of odd extremes: certain parts of his form, like his eyes and head shape, were almost crude in their simplicity. The fat, rolled rubber body was rendered in such realistic detail, however, that it bordered the lewd. His hands and feet were prosthetic, a mixture of functional and aesthetic. Pat could not, for the life of him, figure out what such a droid's design could be for.

Pat's eyes darted back and forth, scanning the walls, the bed, the ceiling, the floor. It was clear there was no obvious exit. How did this huge thing just suddenly get in the room?

"Who are you?" Pat asked.

The droid’s voice was a deep rumble, and his words came out slowly. "My name is Granddaddy. I am an old model, the last of my kind. But, you may call me 'Daddy' if you want. Some like that more."

Pat's tail flicked, and his posture straightened. "...What?"

Granddaddy chuckled and gently stroked his beard, his laugh like a synthetic pipe organ. "Granddaddy it is, then. You should really get out of that little uniform and take a nice, relaxing bath, Pat. It's all dirty, and you're so tense."

How did Granddaddy know his name? Pat wondered. How did he suddenly get here, in a room that didn't have a door?

"I'm not taking a bath," Pat snapped. "I need to find my friends and stop the starbark dealer. Are you the AI of the security system? A hologram? I'm part of the Milky Way Precinct, and if you've got any access to the AIS records, you should know that by the authority vested in me of the Alliance of Independent Systems, cooperation with us will guarantee you freedom from shut-down—"

"But you don't really want authority," Granddaddy's night-light eyes pulsed, "do you, Pat?"

Pat stammered, and his jaw shut tight.

‎                                                                          ۝

Jordan woke up face down on the cold steel floor. His head was pounding, and he was naked except for his underwear and a thin tank top he wears under his uniform. His muscles ached—his flailing against the tentacles had caught up with him.

It took him a minute to regain his bearings, but eventually, he started to piece together his situation. He was a captive of the starbark dealer's strange security system, he assumed, and the trail to ER-14 was a trap. He was taken, stripped, and restrained by mechanical arms in an unknown room. He wasn't sure how a petty thief had amassed such a complex security system, but dwelling on such things didn't really help him much.

Jordan struggled to his feet. He wasn't like Pat—even though the poltron was far smaller and weaker than Jordan, Jordan did not have his fighter's instinct. Jordan's muscular build was pretty much all for show. He had been an accountant in the military during "The War of the Strand," and once the war ended he moved to the Milky Way Precinct in hopes of continuing to do what he does best: look at numbers and draw conclusions. He was a reports guy. He was an office guy. He was a stay-out-of-sight guy. And that's the way he liked it.

Jordan looked down at his own body. Yeah, he's sculpted. He liked looking and feeling good. But he was damn near nude right now, and that gave him a sense of vulnerability that didn't sit right with him at all. He looked around the barren room, hoping and praying that his uniform would be waiting for him.

"At least there's no windows here," he muttered, covering his bare arms.

A mechanical whirr caught his attention, loud enough to drown out his self-consciousness.

Jordan looked up. He felt his heart pound in his chest. Cameras descended from the ceiling like a swarm of insects, and he had no choice but to be their prey. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't think as their lenses focused on him. They hovered, suspended in air by small propulsion systems that served as coolants. Red blinking lights dotted their corners: he was being recorded.

His mind raced. Why? What was the purpose of this? Was the dealer going to ransom him?

Questions buzzed in his head, but he couldn't answer them. For the moments that he tried to hide himself from the swarm of cameras, he missed that there was another set of mechanical devices descending from the ceiling, too. The tentacles from before snaked in, wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and spread his body into an X. He screamed—at first for being splayed, but then, and mostly, because he could see the swarm of cameras lining up in strange formations to film him. They collected around his heaving chest, around his hips, and those were just the ones he could see.

From behind him, a mechanical voice said, "Please don't be alarmed. You are in no danger."

The voice was rough, biting, commanding—a drill sergeant over an intercom, chewing on a cigar. Except, the intercom was dangerously close to Jordan's ear, and... wait, that was cigar smoke. Jordan recognized it. It was the same candy sweetness as the ones his old captain smoked.

So he screamed again.

In a whip-snap response, a gag found its way into his jaw. It wasn't the metal tentacles from before, however, but an honest-to-goodness ball gag. Black silicone, with tight leather straps that wrapped around his head. It was an aggressive, uncomfortable sensation, and Jordan was forced to breathe heavily through his nose.

He could feel the hot, damp cigar smoke on his neck.

"Failure to comply," the voice hissed. "This'll have to go into your report, Jordan."

Leather boots clanked heavily against the metal floor. The android walked into view.

He was tall, with a strangely trim male-muscular build made out of deep blue plastics and silicone. He wore nothing but a leather thong and tight leather chaps. Whoever his maker was had even designed for this android nipples, which lit with a blue light ring, as if they were power buttons.

"Jordan, Jordan, Jordan," the Android tsked, shaking his head. "What are we going to do with you? You were sent here to catch a starbark dealer, and you let him get away. Now, I know, you're not used to the kind of environment of the Lambda System, but we still expect a certain level of professionalism."

A leather cap sat atop his head, with four glowing eyes on each side of his face from the brim, lined up in two neatly stacked rows. In his gloved hands was a clipboard, and a pen. Most baffling of all, a still-smoking cigar sat in-between the metal clamps of what resembled a mouth, even though an android obviously has no need for smoking.

"Let's see, let's see. It looks like you didn't follow protocol. You noticed the walls were carved, didn't you? You could have easily stopped the team from moving in on the grounds of an undocumented sentient home-world, because you recognized design on what was categorized as an uninhabited planet. That's not very good, Jordan. This is all going into your report."

Two cameras placed themselves near Jordan's face, adjusting their lenses as they documented his expressions. Jordan screamed through the gag, trying desperately to explain himself.

The android rolled his many, many eyes, and scribbled something down.

"Now, Jordan, I can tell you're not very experienced. That's okay, we've all had to start somewhere." The android leaned in, removed the cigar from his metal clamp mouth, and puffed sweet smoke across Jordan's face as he spoke. "But, I'm here to help you. My name is Commander. Let's try a little roleplay, shall we?"

‎                                                                          ۝

The world slowly returned to Lukas. He woke up slumped against the cold steel wall of a windowless room. As his vision returned, the first thing he noticed was that his uniform was gone. Instead, he was now wearing a tight, green-and-black wrestling singlet. He recognized it immediately from his time on the military's wrestling team, and it brought back a flood of memories and emotions.

As his head cleared, he realized that there was only one door in the room. And standing in front of that door was a tall, jockstrap wearing robot that was staring him down. It was a little bit unsettling, the way the robot was so perfectly designed to look like a human bodybuilder. The robot's cheekbones were chiseled and grim, giving it the countenance of a soldier-at-war: muscular, but thinning from days on rations.

The war... the war. The War of the Strand.

Lukas had been on the wrestling team only a few months before the war broke out. He never thought he'd go to war, especially not in space, and especially not versus aliens. He didn't even think there were aliens! He just wanted to wrestle some hot guys, go to university, and live on military money until he died, occasionally hooking up with a dude or two when his loins moved him to do so.

When he thought about the wrestling team, and the spandex that still wrapped so smoothly around his war-torn, beef-jerky-packed body, he remembered something important: the grappling dummies. These were bright blue sandbags made of either canvas or synthetic leather, depending upon which one you were lucky enough to get practice with that day. "Poly fillers," or granulated polyester pellets, filled the bags till they weighed enough to simulate a human. The ones that Lukas threw around were usually around 150—you could make them heavier, but for practicing purposes, it was better for reps to keep it lighter, Lukas found. Sometimes they had black lines and circles for decorations on joints.

And one time, he painted little yellow eyes on a dummy. That's how he remembered which one was 150.

This guy... this thing was that same bright blue, though he appeared harder than leather. Maybe a mix of silicone plates and leather in the joints for articulation? Lukas wasn't sure, nor was he sure why a robot needed a jockstrap... or why that jockstrap would be so goddamned packed... but what he was sure was that it wasn't a coincidence that the android had the same coloration, right down to the yellow eyes. They looked far more grim in their current narrow slices than the playful dots he painted in his twenties.

And there was no way this hulking thing weighed 150.

"This all feels..." Lukas stood up slowly, "...a little on-the-nose."

The robot rotated his shoulders, as if stretching them out. "Well, you're a little faster on the uptake than the others."

Lukas grimaced.

"We're gonna go through a few rounds," the robot said. "You may call me 'Blue.' That's what you called me before, when you were in a good mood."

Blue cracked his knuckles. The imitation of a motion Lukas was sure a robot didn't need to do annoyed him.

"You're not Blue..." Lukas ran his tongue along his teeth. "You're... something else. I doubt you have anything to do with the dealer we're chasing. You clearly scanned my memories. I don't know how you synthesized a singlet so fast and so accurately—it doesn't feel like I've been out more than a few minutes."

"Time is a unit of measurement," Blue droned humorlessly. His voice never rose or lowered beyond middle C. "It's hard to tell without a clock, isn't it? Humans made lots of clocks because they aren't so good without them. Humans really need machines a lot these days."

Lukas's arms were sore from the brief struggle earlier, but he was ready—and frankly, after hearing that, he was more than ready to do a bit of fighting. "If we're going to wrestle, it'll be hand-to-hand, right? You don't have any guns or anything? How can I trust you?"

Blue tilted his head. "Oh, I can fight you however you want me to, Captain. The war's over. This is just for fun, now."

Lukas puffed up, and clenched his jaw. "What the hell do you know about the war?"

Blue stepped forward, and Lukas dropped into his wrestling stance, low to the ground, a stance not visited in many years, yet one he found himself easily able to slip back into.

"I can't tell you what I don't know, Captain," Blue said. "What I do know is that there is a door behind me. You want to leave the planet and retire. You won't be able to retire until you beat me. Can you pin me? After all these years, Lukas, do you still have what it takes to throw Blue around?"

Lukas charged at the robot, trying to catch him off-guard with a surprise attack. His plan was simple—get the robot off balance, then use the disorientation to get out of the room. The plan was not so air-tight, however: no matter how quick he was, Blue was quicker. Cold silicone and leather wrapped possessively around Lukas's waist, and he was thrown onto his back via a gut-wrench with perfect, programmed form.

Blue was on him in an instant, wrapping his arms around Lukas's body. His wide chest pressed hard into Lukas's upper back, and it felt like, to Lukas, like a wall had pushed into him. "You don't have what it takes, Lukas. Your body has softened with time—a unit of measurement far more unkind to you than to me."

Lukas grunted, struggling against the hold. "I've pinned men around your size."

"I am not ‘man,’" Blue's arms squeezed, and the air fled Lukas's lungs. The captain's eyes bulged, and the reality of this mismatch became clear to him.

He struggled, pushing his legs off the floor, but the robot was just too strong. It was like he was caught in a vise, and couldn't wriggle his way out. He felt his strength sapping away, and his lungs begged for air.

"Let me out..." Lukas managed to cough out.

"Let you out of what? Do you not want to grapple with me? You wish to run away?" Blue's voice was still the same monotone, but Lukas could sense a mocking edge in it. "You loved when I was your plaything. Do you not like it the other way around?"

Blue lifted Lukas's body like it was nothing, and slammed him back down, never loosening his grip as he fell with the captain. Lukas wheezed, and tried to twist his body, but he, once a great wrestler, once a great officer, was a fish in the jaws of a shark.

"I can keep this up for a long, long time, Captain. You should trust my ability to measure time more than your own."

‎                                                                          ۝

"What..." Pat was almost hesitant to finish the sentence. He waved his finger in the air for a few seconds, then pointed it back towards the rotund robo-gramps. "What do you mean, I don't want authority? I am authority!"

"That uniform's just filthy," Granddaddy slapped his thigh, which made a strange sound with the combination of the rubber-sacks meant to simulate leg fat meeting his firm, prosthetic hands. "Now come over here to Granddaddy and let's get that off of you, boy. You can play police officer later. What you need is a nice hot bubble bath!"

Pat's ears flicked, and his tail bristled. "That's not happening."

Granddaddy chuckled again, but it wasn't the same hearty sound from before. This one was low, and tinged with something else.

"Don't be scared, boy. You and I both know the only way out of here is to behave and embrace the truth."

Pat's mind raced. What the hell was this game? Why would the starbark dealer have a droid like this? "The truth?"

He ran through various possibilities. Heroic as Pat may have wanted to be, this robot was probably far stronger than him. However, if it wanted to attack, presumably, it already would have. The poltron police officer concluded, then, that the easiest way to beat the bot was to deactivate it and take it apart, use its parts to... somehow, he wasn't sure how, but somehow get into that ventilation shaft. Granddaddy was practically inviting him over. He might as well, slowly and carefully, approach the droid and see if he could work out some sort of emergency power switch or wire he could rip out.

As he got closer, though, his curiosity was piqued by the sheer detail and craftsmanship of the robot. It was a marvel of engineering. "So, Granddaddy, tell me about your model. Who built you? You're not an AI, you're a robot. Why do you have a beard and a body like this?"

"Why do I look so good, is what you mean?" Granddaddy chuckled, and slapped his thigh again. "Come 'ere little guy, I'll tell you all about me."

Pat swallowed and tip-toed forward, praying that his poltron reflexes could spring him out of the way of sudden, dangerous movements. His instincts told him not to trust the droid, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. He approached the robot and stood before him.

Granddaddy never stood up from the bed. He leaned forward and gently grabbed Pat by the hips, pulling the poltron until he was crotch-to-rubber-belly. "I knew you were a good boy, Pat."

Pat was a little disarmed by the words, and by the gentleness of the otherwise hulking machine. He wrung his hands, his face inches from the synthetic flesh. His cheeks flushed red. "G... good boy?"

Granddaddy pulled him closer. "Now, let's get you out of these clothes, boy."

The android's fingers were surprisingly deft, and despite his size and mechanical intensity, he was so precise and soft. Painfully so, Pat thought. Granddaddy removed Pat's jacket and made eye contact with the small poltron, using his big thumbs to slide the leather from Pat's shoulders. He untucked Pat's filthy uniform, slid his thumbs under the fabric, briefly touching the band of underwear Pat had forgotten about until he momentarily felt Granddaddy's cool digits slip underneath, then pressed upwards. Granddaddy rolled the uniform shirt up, up, up, pressing just firmly enough into the poltron's light flesh to cause him to shiver and mew in a way he had not done in a long, long time.

"Oh, look at you, sweetheart," Granddaddy cooed. "So cute. So fragile."

"What are you talking about?" Pat asked, his voice shaky.

Granddaddy continued undressing him, lifting the fabric above Pat's chest. The poltron's heart skipped a beat as his nipples popped out from underneath the slowly drawn fabric, and he found himself leaning into the android's touch. He couldn't help it. Granddaddy's hands were, despite their appearance, so soothing and gentle, and Pat's body was so tense. He… he needed this.

"That's it, boy. Let go." Granddaddy's voice was a warm hum. "Let me take care of you. You've been so stressed."

Pat was frozen, panting. His arms were pinned as the fabric lifted over his head, but not off entirely. Granddaddy settled the shirt behind Pat's neck, then brought his hands back down to Pat's chest, rubbing and squeezing his soft flesh. Pat's brain told him to fight ot, but his body told him to stay, to relax, to let Granddaddy do whatever he wanted, since he felt so... so goddamn good.

"Look at those nipples. You've got a perfect pair on you, Pat. I saw them poking through the shirt, even, just begging for ol' Granddaddy to take care of ‘em."

Pat's mind was hazy. He had never felt so vulnerable, and his heart pounded with both anxiety and arousal. He had never been this close to an android before, and while he had heard of sex-bots, he didn't expect one to be so... caring, masculine, deep.

"Granddaddy, what are you doing?" Pat’s voice, too, was soft now.

"I'm taking care of you," Granddaddy smiled. His metal jaw flexed, and his mouth opened, revealing a row of shiny metal teeth from behind the bushy synth-beard. "You've been working so hard, and I want to help you."

"Help me?"

"I'm a special robot, Pat. I can bring you into a world of pleasure that you've never experienced before. All you have to do is let go. Take a bath. Relax. You'll be free to leave, but we both know you're not going to, not yet. You're not going to miss the chance to feel so, so special for your big ol' Granddaddy, are you?"

Was this actually the starbark dealer trying to distract him? Or was this some sort of strange security measure put in place by a long-forgotten species? It was all too bizarre, and yet...

Granddaddy tweaked Pat's nipples. The poltron gasped, and his hips buckled. He humped directly into Granddaddy's fat, rubber belly, which made a distinct squeaking sound as the cockhead slid against the smooth surface. The combination of the two sensations made his eyes roll back into his head.

"That's it," Granddaddy purred. "Good boy. Your bath's ready."

Pat caught his breath. "Wh..what?"

Granddaddy was right: directly behind Pat was a bubble bath, where there had not been anything before. The tub was deep and wide, which was perfect for his tiny body.

"Where..." Pat mumbled, trying to make sense of magically appearing tubs as Granddaddy continued to rub thorough circles into his nipples. "Ugh... where did that come from?"

"Oh, don't worry, sweetheart. Your big, strong Granddaddy's got you."

Pat was shaking. His knees felt weak.

"Why don't you take your panties off, honey? I can wash you up."

Now that shook Pat out of his stupor. His tail bristled and he tried to shake off the pleasure-cobwebs of his mind. He grabbed Granddaddy's wrists and tried to push them away. "What are you talking about?!"

"You don't need to hide them anymore. We're all alone here. You can be you. Your uniform is just hiding it. You play up that big-hero-man gig for the others, but that's a mask you put on to survive out there, yeah? I bet you love how pretty they make you feel. Let Granddaddy see them."

Pat stepped back, his face growing hot. "You don't know anything! You're just a droid!"

Granddaddy smiled and leaned back. His thumbs lowered from the nipple-rubs, and trailed back down towards the band of Pat's uniform pants. "It's okay, girly-boy. You're safe with me..."

Before Pat could say anything, Granddaddy's fingers hooked under the band of the poltron's pants, and started to tug downwards. Pat was frozen, his heart pounding in his chest. His eyes darted back and forth between the android's bearded face and the floor as his pants fell down, and his underwear was revealed for the first time to anyone, ever.

"Ooooh, look at these!" Granddaddy chuckled. "Pink with white lace and bows. You've got such cute panties, sweetie! Oh, they make Granddaddy so happy. They're so perfect for my special little girly-boy."

“Stop… stop it…” Pat's cheeks were burning red. He had never been more embarrassed in his life. It was the worst possible situation he could have ever imagined: being seen, finally, after all these years, while on a mission! His secret had been hidden from his colleagues and everyone he had ever met.

No one knew, not even his family, that when he was alone, he loved prancing around in the frilliest, most feminine clothes on poltron.

‎                                                                          ۝

"Now, Jordan," Commander puffed his cigar smoke in Jordan's face again, then waltzed back to a metal stool. He lifted his leather boot onto the stool and used his leg as a balance for his clipboard. "If the only thing I had to write down was your failure to alert your captain about the grooves on the wall, this'd be a short report, wouldn't it?"

Jordan, tears in his eyes, yelled through the ball gag. He wanted to yell, "I thought maybe an old mining company did it!" but it came out muffled and unintelligible.

"Oh, I know. It's not just that," Commander waved his cigar dismissively. "You've been cooking the books. That's a lot more serious. You'd have had to turn yourself in a long time ago if anyone around you were suspected, since it'd all come back to you, yeah?"

Commander paused, as if waiting for Jordan to respond. Jordan yelled in the gag. He tried to say, "I never stole anything," but his voice was too muffled to make out.

"Oh, that's nice." Commander tilted his head, as if he heard. "Right, all that money laundering was just you following the orders of your old chief. You're not the corrupt officer, you were just doing what a corrupt officer told you to do and not reporting it, right?"

Jordan's eyes welled up. He couldn't deny it, couldn't explain himself, gag or no gag.

"You're real good with reports, aren't you, Jordan? That's always been your thing. You see every detail... and you know how to make changes to keep them exactly as good as they should be without anyone seeing what you did."

"Uuh mmm! Uuh mmmm!" Jordan protested.

Commander waved the clipboard. "Well, let's see how good you are when I show off your records. Your real records. Hell, maybe I should just go straight to the head of the precinct itself."

Jordan shook his head wildly, his body still splayed in an "X" by the metal tentacles all the while.

"What do you think, Jordan? Should I show everyone who you really are?"

"Mmm! Mmmm mmmm!" Jordan was desperate, but his pleas were still muffled by the gag.

"That's what I thought," Commander stepped closer, and his voice became softer, almost soothing. "It's okay, though, Jordan. You can get out of this... if you let me punish you for what you did."

Commander placed his hands on Jordan's broad chest, and rubbed the man's heaving pecs through the constraint of his now-sweaty tank top. Jordan’s eyes, already wide with fright, furrowed in a new type of surprise.

"I know, I know, this is a little unorthodox," Commander smiled, his hands trailing downwards. "But sometimes, we just need to bend the rules a bit. Besides, you're not like other officers. You're a special case. You love following orders so much, right? Then you’ll need to learn to follow mine."

"Uuh mmmm!" Jordan protested, trying to push his body away. He rocked in the tentacles like he was suspended from a sling.

"Oh, don't be shy. Let me take care of you. It's the least I can do... to you."

Commander's hands reached the band of Jordan's white underwear. The officer was shaking, sweating. He was completely at the android's mercy, and he didn't have the slightest clue what was about to happen.

Commander pulled the underwear down, revealing the thick, hard shaft underneath. Jordan was already half-hard and aching, despite what his protests would’ve had one believe.

"The way I see it," Command puffed another cloud of smoke into Jordan's face, and watched the big ebony pecker bounce in response, "is that you've got a real issue with being 'seen.' Now, for you, it's the fact that you know you did something wrong, and there's a part of you that, for survival, really needs to hide it. But then there's another part of you that... well. It's this part."

Commander's leather glove seized itself around the base of Jordan's cock.

"This part really wants you to be seen. This part really wants you to be punished. Doesn't it, Jordan?"

"Mm mm!" Jordan's tongue pushed against the ball gag.

"It's okay. We're gonna do you a favor. You want to be punished, and you don't want anyone to see. Well, we'll just keep it between us. Well, us… and the cameras filming this whole thing."

Commander stroked the thick, stiff, bouncing cock. Base to tip, base to tip, his rough leather grip bringing tears to Jordan’s eyes.

"It's gonna feel so good. You'll cum like you've never cum before, and then, after you've let it all out, we'll make a report. And I'll keep it, and the footage, on file... as long as you behave."

And the tears flowed.

"Don't worry, Jordan. Just a little humiliation. And besides, don't you think you deserve it? Your boss told you to do something real naughty, and you didn't even think twice. That's what's wrong with the police these days: if they aren't corrupt, they're just horny little subs for the corrupt."

And with that, Commander unhooked the gag. To Jordan's own surprise more than Commander's, he wasn't yelling or screaming: he was whimpering, and, through pathetic sobs, almost moaning.

"You like being submissive," Command puffed a ring of cigar smoke into Jordan's face, "don't you, Jordan?"

Jordan's cock bounced again, and to this, his response wasn't anything coherent—it was a full on moan of deep, needful pleasure leaking out of him against years of resistance.

"Tell me the truth, Jordan," Commander whispered. "The cameras are waiting."

"Y... yes. I..." Jordan swallowed. "I like being submissive. I've always wanted to be punished... by... one of the other officers... for..."

"For?"

"...for being naughty."

"For being naughty." Commander rubbed his gloved fingers up and down the shaft of Jordan's pecker. "That's good. That's a real good start. You're doing good. I think you should be rewarded for that."

"Oh God," Jordan had trouble relegating his breath, now that the words had escaped his throat.

Commander wrapped his hand firmly around the shaft. His other hand squeezed and tugged on Jordan's balls, rolling them gently in his grip.

"Do you want me to take care of you, Jordan? Do you want me to treat you like the naughty little bitch that you are?"

"Oh fuck," Jordan moaned. His legs were weak, and his knees were buckling. "I need... I need..."

"Tell me what you need, Jordan. Don't be shy."

"I... I need to..."

Commander's hands pulled, pumped, and massaged, and his thumb rubbed circles on the tip of Jordan's cockhead, teasing the sensitive underside. "I can't do it for you, Jordan. You have to tell me."

"Oh god. Oh fuck. Please, punish me. Please punish me."

"What would be the punishment, Jordan? What would be fitting for a naughty officer like yourself?"

"Fuck, fuck, I don't know! Whatever you want, just don't stop touching me!"

"Whatever I want! Goodness. So many options."

Commander removed the hand that tended to Jordan's balls and kept his other firmly milking Jordan's cock. With the now free left hand, he slapped Jordan across the face. The smack, in conjunction with Commander's words and strokes, sent him over the edge, and he came with a loud, pathetic cry. He shot string after string of submission to the floor, and as his orgasm slowed, oozed onto Commander's gloves.

Commander continued stroking and rubbing, and his voice was a synthetic purr. "That's it, Jordan. Oh, you're just making a mess, aren't you? So naughty. Such a naughty boy, getting off on getting slapped across the face by his superior. Who knew you had that in you?"

Jordan whimpered and shook. He caught a glimpse of the cameras as they filmed his messy defeat. Somehow, between seeing that and the android's continued stroking of his softening cock, Jordan found himself still wanting, no, needing more.

Commander chuckled and leaned into Jordan’s ear. “Well… I knew, of course.” 

He brought the messy glove up to Jordan's face to show him what he had done, then slowly, one digit at a time, removed it. Then, he put it directly into Jordan's panting mouth, effectively gagging him again with leather and his own spilled seed.

"Clean that off for me, boy," Commander said. He walked back to the stool and picked up his clipboard. "I gotta put this down in your report."

‎                                                                          ۝

"You were such a promising wrestler," Blue said as he hurled Lukas to the opposite side of the room. Lukas's body landed flat-back, mercifully so—with the power that Blue possessed over him, Lukas was certain any other landing would've been the end for him. It scared the captain far more, in fact, that he landed safely from such a powerful long range throw than if he hadn't.

"Shame about the war taking all that away, huh, Captain?"

Lukas staggered back to his legs. He'd been running towards, around, and between Blue's legs for far longer than he could remember. Blue was at least right about that—it's hard to keep track of time when you're getting ragdolled around by someone twice your height and three times your weight.

"What do you want from me?" Lukas asked.

"The truth. All I want is the truth behind your movements."

"Are you doing this to the others?"

"The others don't have a wrestling kink."

Lukas snarled. "Why would anyone program a robot to be a smart-ass?"

"Why, indeed?" Blue tilted his head.

Lucas hunched down, threatening to go low towards Blue's ankles for what must've been the twentieth time, even though he absolutely wasn't counting. He didn't move, though: he just stared into the grim yellow slices for Blue had for eyes, and thought:

It doesn't matter how much stronger he is. It doesn't matter how perfect his technique is, either. "Perfect" is still exploitable, in the grand scheme of things. Every perfect AI in the history of "play" on Earth has lost at some point to something stupid it couldn't predict. I just have to find what that is, get out of here, and save the rest of the team. We leave, we tell the top brass that the starbark dealer got away, and we never talk specifics about what happened on ER-14. And then, I retire. Forever. No one will ever have to know what happened here, except us.

"The valuable data I collected from the others," Blue said, "is that pain and pleasure are often closely related stimuli in organics. At first, this did confuse me: why would a fragile, sapient living creature seek out or find enjoyment in that which harms it?"

Lukas found his tensed-up body relaxing against his wishes.

"But as I have studied the connection between the two, I have come to understand those needs and wants from both an emotional and evolutionary standpoint. It makes more sense than my earlier cycles could have imagined: thrill releases chemicals like adrenaline, dopamine, and sometimes, even serotonin. Important chemicals to long life and what I understand you perceive as 'happiness.'"

"I don't know if I like hearing a computerized weight bag talk about emotions or imagination."

"Within reason, I have come to respect the relationship. I think I may have even found my own concept of 'happiness,' through helping those lost... find themselves once they land on me."

Lukas's eyes darted to the floor, then back to Blue. "Land... on you?"

"When you scanned me," Blue said, "I scanned back. It seemed only polite."

Okay, this is pointless, Lukas thought, and charged the grapple-bot.

Lukas, still on the ground, scrambled to his feet and lunged at the grapple-bot. He knew this time would be different—he had seen Blue's patterns before, and was confident that this time, he could avoid being scooped up and tossed. He ducked under Blue's arms and grabbed at the android's legs, twisting his body and throwing his weight into a take-down.

But it was no use: the grapple-bot micro-adjusted in moments, planting his weight in a wide enough stance to maintain balance. Sculpted arms clamped down around Lukas, plucked him up, tossed him just high enough to spin his body in the air. It caught Lukas, like a pet owner playing with a light pet in his arms. They were chest to chest now, and with Blue's massive height difference, Lukas's legs dangled helplessly around the robot's torso. It lifted Lukas's body in a bearhug, and pressed his muscular arms tight around the human's torso.

"Gotcha," Blue said.

Lukas grunted, struggling to breathe in Blue's iron grip. He knew he had to act fast, or he'd be suffocated, or worse, suffer a cracked rib. Assuming Blue wanted to crack a rib, at least. It occurred to Lukas that Blue's movements were perfectly measured and, as a bot, probably could've hurt Lukas far more if he actually wanted to.

"I like exploring the pain-pleasure relationship of organics, and helping them live out that which gives them the most serotonin release. Except you, Captain. Your data troubles me, deeply."

Lukas looked down. Blue's chest was smooth and sculpted, with no obvious crevices or seams that Lukas could stick his fingers into and twist apart aside from that of the bot's silicone-and-leather pectorals, which, built as they were, pressed firmly together during the painful embrace. He couldn't pry anything loose, and up close, he saw no button or wires to grab at.

Lukas grimaced and tried to push his legs against the clasping hold. Blue simply squatted into a wider stance, forcing Lukas’s legs apart, making the human straddle around his waist.

Lukas huffed. If physical escape couldn’t work, perhaps he could talk his way out.

 "Okay, uh, your scans clearly aren't perfect, then, because I'm not into kink-shaming. I just like rolling around with dudes sometimes, Jesus. I think I'm pretty vanilla, and... honestly? If that's all you wanted to know, please let me go: my team and I have an important mission, one far more important than some weird robot sex therapy."

Then he met Blue's eyes. Glowing yellow slices of intensity. Up close, he could see they were lenses scanning him, measuring Lukas's vitals and analyzing his movements. He considered that, if he could free an arm from the hold, he could jab a thumb into Blue's eye and blind the camera. But Blue's own muscular arms were like pythons around him, hopelessly depriving him of oxygen and hope.

"Captain. Your fetish isn't the problem."

The bearhug was crushing, and the longer he was held, the more Lukas's vision began to swim.

"How long have you attempted to grapple with me?"

Then, Blue began to bounce. First, it was a jerk. One. Wait. Two jerks. Wait. Then the bouncing grew rhythmic. Thick, muscular arms held Lukas firmly as the grapple-bot bounced his body up and down.

Up, and down.

Up, and down.

"When did you first lose your sense of time, Captain?"

Each time the bot dipped low, he pulled Lukas back hard with an equally powerful impact, slamming the human back into Blue's body. The air pushed out of Lukas’s lungs each time. Black dots began to appear in the human’s vision. Lukas’s head swiveled, his eye-lids fluttered.

Though it took a few impacts into the grapple-bot's front for him to realize there was another sensation, too. He was getting hard in his singlet. Each bounce rustled the spandex-cage his cock sat in, and the friction and pressure on his balls and shaft was driving him crazy. He tried to will it away, but his body was betraying him.

Blue bounced him harder, faster, and Lukas felt his cock twitch and swell. He grunted with each impact, closer and closer to unconsciousness, and yet, his erection still grew. He was sure, if Blue were measuring him, that he'd have noticed it, too. But he didn't stop the bearhug, not at all: he just bounced Lukas with dedicated rhythm. Through his foggy vision, he saw Blue's emotionless yellow eyes and cold control, and he knew he was completely at the boy’s mercy.

Lukas started drooling. He couldn't even think anymore. He couldn't struggle, couldn't fight.

"That's it, Lukas. Give in. I've got you."

The words were muffled, but the tone was unmistakable. It was the first time Blue had said his name, and the sound of his own name coming from the grapple-bot's speakers was all he needed to finally let go. He shot a thick, heavy load into his singlet, and as he came, Blue squeezed him tighter and bounced him higher. The deprivation of air, the pain, the pleasure, all orchestrated with knowledge far beyond Lukas's own. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he lost consciousness.

‎                                                                          ۝

Pat sniffled. Tears began to form in his eyes. Granddaddy's big, roaming hands kneaded his hips, and Pat, despite his overwhelming embarrassment, couldn't help but sway a little. He watched the little white bows on his little pink panties dance with the motion. He loved watching that, even here among these conflicting emotions.

Granddaddy leaned forward and planted a kiss on Pat's forehead. Without lips, though, it was just all synth-beard and cool metal teeth. And even that did something to Pat’s trembling body. 

"You're so beautiful, Pat. Such a sweet, beautiful, adorable little girly-boy."

Pat moaned, his eyelids fluttering. He felt the tears begin to roll down his cheeks, and he was helpless to stop them. He didn't want to stop them, though. A great need welled inside him—to explain why he was like this, to express how badly he wanted to be seen and understood.

"That's it, sweetie," Granddaddy cooed, his mechanical voice soothing. "Just let go. Don't fight it. Cry. Wiggle those cute little panty-covered hips for Granddaddy. Be the real you…"

Granddaddy's big hands reached for the back of Pat's panties, and he peeled just the back of them down, he revealed the poltron's soft, round cheeks.

"Oooh, look at that. A nice, juicy peach. Just like you."

"Do you..." Pat choked up, "...do you know what it's like on Poltron?"

"I bet it's hard," Granddaddy said, his hands rubbing and squeezing Pat's butt. "It's hard, and it's not fair, huh?"

Pat whimpered, his pointed ears pinning back. He hated being this vulnerable.

And yet... and yet.

"Humans never get it when I tell them," he sniffled. "Poltron is matriarchal, and the gender ratio is like... six males to one female. Most Polts are bigger than me. Most Polts are stronger than me, especially the men. They're so tough and cool, and I'm just a tiny, weak thing in comparison..."

Granddaddy leaned forward and rubbed his beard against the cat-ears.

"You are beautiful," Granddaddy cooed. " My pretty little princess."

Pat couldn't stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. He hated how weak he was. He was a man, goddamn it. "I'm man. I'm a man! I don't mind that! I like it, even! I work so hard to be as strong as other men because it was the only way I could be male, I got confused so easily for a girl, otherwise. I was always so afraid of not being masculine enough."

"There's no 'masculine' or 'feminine' here," Granddaddy whispered into the flickering ears. "There's just you."

"One day..." Pat leaned in against the big, wide, overhung rubber belly of Granddaddy. "A big chubby Polt... not gonna lie, kind of like you, Granddaddy... he started hitting on me. The sweet things he was saying made me melt. And I got so excited, and I wanted to give him a chance, but then... I knew it, he mistook me for a girl. Once he knew I was a guy, he just kind of ran away."

Granddaddy's arms held Pat gently, and Pat sunk into the simulated fat.

"I've never wanted to be a girl. Not really. But he called me so many sweet, hot things and I just... so known, then. I bought a pair of panties and I fell in love with how they felt on me. After I fell for that guy, I guess it's no real surprise that I discovered I was gay, too. I went to my first gay pub and there were so many big, masculine polts... there was another real fat, older Polt, like you. I wanted him to so badly look at me, to take me against his big belly and... and... of course he didn't. No one did. Gay polts wanted masculinity in their partners. They wanted what they were: height, and muscles, and... I can't blame them, of course. I'm just... I'm so tired. I'm so tired of being in between."

Pat sniffled. He wiped a tear from his cheek. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you all of this."

Granddaddy nodded with elder wisdom, his gears creaking in knowing. He drew his big thumbs under the bows on the back of Pat’s panties and played with the thong-back, pulling it up into Pat’s crack, tugging, pulling it back down again.

"I've always wanted a princess-boy," Granddaddy said, rubbing Pat's bottom. "It's okay, sweetheart. You can be mine. My little girly-boy, my precious soldier-princess. You can be both, just for me and no one else."

Pat whimpered. He didn't want to admit how good it felt to hear a robot, of all things, call him that, and yet, he couldn't deny the growing erection poking into Granddaddy's rubber belly, threatening to rip through the delicate lace.

"For as long as you choose to stay with me, I'll treat you exactly like the perfect little princess-boy you want to be. And that starts with a nice, warm bubble bath."

The android reached forward and pulled the panties off. Pat was frozen, helpless, watching the delicate, feminine fabric slip off his body and fall to the floor. HIs cock bounced upwards, twitching with freedom, and making a dull slapping sound as it thumped into the fat belly in front of him. He was exposed. He had never been more humiliated, more vulnerable, or more turned on.

"There we go," Granddaddy purred. "Oh, my, you've got such a cute cock and tiny coin-purse balls, too, sweetie. So perfect."

Granddaddy leaned forward, pressing his synth-beard against Pat's cheek. He pushed Pat's hips forward, and Pat's cock squeaked as it went up and down Granddady's rubber belly.

"And look at that," Granddaddy continued. "You're getting so wet, just from being near your big ol' Granddaddy. Get in the bath now, precious. The bubbles are strawberry honey scented. Don't you smell it?"

Pat's nostrils flared, and his ears perked. Sure enough, the sweet, sugary smell of strawberry and honey filled his senses.

Granddaddy pulled back, revealing his belly and the sticky residue from where Pat had humped him. "There's my princess. Go on, hop in. Granddaddy wants to wash all the grime off of you and make you extra clean."

Granddaddy cupped Pat's hand and watched as his princess-boy slowly, one leg at a time, stepped into the mountain of warm bubbles and pink water.

"That's it…”

Pat shivered. The bubbles were thick and soapy, and his skin prickled with heat and friction. He settled into the bath, and for the first time, felt a sense of ease and relief wash over him. He sunk his head back, his blond curls dipping into the water. He felt his tense muscles relax as heat seeped into them, his eyelids fluttered, and a calmness he had not known in years spread throughout his body.

Once he was in, the tub shifted towards Granddaddy, as if guided by magic itself. Granddaddy never did have to move from the bed—the room seemed to respond to his will, and all objects in it came towards him, instead. There was a gravity to him that simply could not be denied.

He produced a loofah and a bottle of sweet-smelling soap from behind his back.

"Time to clean you up, sweetheart," Granddaddy said, leaning forward. He popped the bottle open, and the bubbles spilled out onto Pat's chest.

Pat moaned. The bubbles were warm, and the sweet smell of strawberry and honey filled his nostrils. Granddaddy squeezed the loofah and lathered it with soap, then began to rub it over Pat's back, shoulders, and chest. Pat was in heaven. Granddaddy's big hands were firm, yet soft, and the loofah was a gentle tease on his skin. Granddaddy lathered his hair with shampoo, rubbing circles into his scalp and ears. Pat, for the first time in his life, purred.

Polt men almost never purred.

"There we go," Granddaddy smiled, his teeth clanging. "My pretty, perfect little princess-boy."

He rubbed the loofah over Pat's stomach, and Pat's eyes went wide. His cock twitched, poking straight up out of the surface of the water, and the bubbles popped and frothed as Granddaddy moved his hand towards Pat's inner thigh.

"Granddaddy, I..."

Granddaddy gently rubbed the loofah lower and lower, brushing deliberately against the base of Pat's aching erection, then past it. The old robot rubbed Pat's legs thoroughly, almost in worship, and brought the soap and bubbles all the way down to Pat's feet. He washed between each toe, paying special attention to the soft pads of Pat's paws. Pat's breathing quickened, and he was unable to resist the sensations any longer.

"Please," he mewled.

"Oh, you don't need to beg, darling. I'll treat you exactly as you deserve."

Granddaddy pulled the loofah away and brought his thumbs to Pat's hips, rubbing small, teasing circles around the bone. Then, he picked the officer-princess out of the bath like he weighed nothing at all, and swaddled him in a large towel Pat never saw him produce.

If Pat had melted away in the grip of Granddaddy before, he was wholly unprepared for how it would feel to get toweled-down by the big robot. Granddaddy was careful, meticulous, and seemed to relish every second he got to rub and stroke the poltron's sensitive areas under the cover of the towel. Armpits, ass-cheeks, groin, everything was thoroughly rubbed with equal worship and friction, leaving the poltron's eyes half-lidded and his cheeks flushed and his cock bouncing and oozing with pleasure.

"There we go. All dry," Granddaddy clapped.

"Granddaddy," Pat mumbled, all traces of the bravado of his job completely melted away, "Wh...what now?"

"Oh, sweetheart," Granddaddy cooed, rubbing his thumb over Pat's cheek. "Now's the most important part! Now I get to dress my little doll up in the prettiest clothes ever."

‎                                                                          ۝

Jordan sucked on the leather glove long enough that the cum had been completely drained, and all he could taste was the dry, earthy flavor of Commander's dominance over him. It was salty and bitter, and he didn't know if it was actually a taste he liked, but he couldn't deny how it made him feel: weak, exposed, vulnerable. And that, he loved.

Commander approached him after he was done writing about Jordan on his clipboard. He pulled his glove out of Jordan's mouth and inspected it.

"Good boy. Look at that, not a single drop wasted."

Jordan moaned. "Please, Commander. Please. I need... more."

"You've had your fun," Commander said. He placed the clipboard down on the ground, and Jordan watched as Commander sat down on the stool. His head tilted low, the rows of his glowing eyes were barely visible under the brim—one might not ever know, from this angle, that he had more than two. "It's my turn."

Jordan swallowed. To his mind, there was no turn but Commander's. "What... what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find out whether or not your heart has aligned with your mind," Commander said. "The truth came spilling out from you, but how do I know that you won't cook the books again if I let you go? How do I really know that you've learned your lesson?"

"I-I won't," Jordan whimpered. "I swear, I won't."

"Your promises are worth nothing," Commander said, "until I've punished you enough."

He stood up from the stool, and with a clanking of metal, he lifted his knee to reveal a hidden compartment.

As Commander stood, he pulled from it a leather paddle, Its surface is carved with an indention of the word "Slut" written backwards, and its handle has a small leather loop. Commander lifted it with pride and confidence, and the sight of the paddle sent chills down Jordan's spine.

Commander looked at the paddle, and his eyes glowed brighter. "Now, for you, Jordan, it's not just the fact that you know you did something wrong. As we discussed, you have a need for punishment that you’ve long denied yourself."

He brought the paddle to lightly brush the bouncing cock-head of Jordan’s ebony pecker, before slowly pacing circles around his captive. Jordan’s lips quivered.

"This is for your own good."

With that, Commander lifted the paddle and brought it down, square on the center of one of Jordan's butt cheeks.

"Aahh!" Jordan cried. The pain was sharp and sudden, and his body rocked from the impact.

"There we go."

Commander lifted the paddle again, and this time, slapped it down on the other cheek of Jordan's meaty, muscular ass. The flesh bounced like gelatin, and Jordan yelped as the pain seemed to travel like a current straight from cheek to cock.

"Yes, this is working. This is what you needed."

He hit it again, and Jordan's eyes rolled back in his head. The pain was intense, but somehow, he knew he was getting off on it. He wanted it. He'd been so pent up for so long, and now, with a strange android, his deepest, darkest desires were finally coming to light.

He had needed a man to punish him like this… for so long…

Commander spanked him again and again, and each time, Jordan's hips rocked with the force. The metal tentacles from the ceiling that constrained his wrists and ankles made micro adjustments to compensate for Jordan's flailing, writhing body.

And then, after fifteen strikes, Commander suddenly stopped. He walked back to the stool and sat down again, his legs spread. He wrapped the paddle’s strap around his metal wrist and let it dangle teasingly near his groin.

"Now," Commander said. "I think it's time you prove yourself."

The tentacles gently lowered Jordan to the floor, then unfurled from his wrists and ankles. Jordan, naked and vulnerable, his ass prickly from the assault it took, staggered to his hands and knees, panting and salivating. He crawled towards Commander, his eyes fixed on the leather paddle dangling near the android's crotch.

"Show me," Commander said, "what you'd do if you really wanted to be punished."

Jordan's mouth opened, and his tongue drooped. His lips quivered, his eyelids fluttered, and he began to suckle and lick Commander's metal-capped thigh.

"Oh, that's a good start."

Commander reached his gloved hand towards Jordan's head, and patted him gently. Then, with his other hand, he snapped his fingers. The metal wall opened up to reveal a door on the far end of the room. Commander stroked Jordan's cheek as the officer's attention was divided between pleasure and freedom.

"You, my sweet little criminal, have two very clear and distinct choices," Commander whispered. "You can either leave, through the door I just opened, and never come back here. Never tell a soul what happened. And, well, the rest of your life is yours to enjoy. However, you must resign from your position as an officer immediately upon returning to base. I'll know if you didn't, and I'll release your confessions to your superiors."

Commander leaned forward, his eyes glowing brighter. "Or, you can stay. Stay, and give yourself to me. Surrender yourself to my will, and I will punish you and humiliate you until you beg for mercy. And even then, I won't stop. I will use you for my amusement and pleasure, and you will be the secret whore of a robot for... let's say... the next month. I'll strike your ass constantly with this paddle so often that I'm not sure you'll ever be able to cum again without being hit. The words upon this paddle will be permanently and clearly imprinted on your rear for the rest of your life. You'll never be able to be intimate again without your partner knowing exactly what you are. Finally, you'll be visible. Every man you ever meet will know exactly how to treat you."

Jordan's breathing grew shallow, and his vision began to blur. On his knees, in-between the robot's legs, he looked back and forth between the door and up to the authority above him. He closed his eyes, and, with a final whimper, opened his mouth wide, letting his tongue dangle open for anything Command wanted to put inside.

"Good choice," Commander said. He leaned forward, and pressed his lips to Jordan's. Jordan felt the cool rubber of the android's mask press against his face, and a warmth spread through him. He didn't know why, but somehow, the false, synthetic kiss was the hottest thing he’d ever been allowed to have: wrong and right, simulated and real.

Commander pulled away. "Oh, and Jordan?"

"Y-yes, sir?"

"We're going to have a lot of fun. Now, climb across my lap. I've got a leather paddle with your name on it."

"O-okay. Yes, sir."

Jordan climbed up, his body weak and trembling. His belly was pressed into Commander's thighs, and his rear was fully exposed.

"There we go, my naughty, dirty, little pig," Commander said as he trailed the leather paddle slowly and tenderly across each cheek. His arm, like clockwork, jolted up high into the air, and the sensors of Commander's eyes adjusted to secure the perfect angle for striking Jordan's thick rear.

Then, with a whipping motion, the paddle came down on Jordan's bare, exposed buttocks. It cracked like thunder, and the sting was immediate. Jordan's eyes flew open, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. This was just the first of many.

‎                                                                          ۝

"Do you have an answer yet, Captain?"

Those were the first words Lukas heard as he rejoined with the waking world.

Lukas blinked. The world slowly came back into focus. He was still on the floor, deposited unceremoniously from his loss, but he was dressed differently. He was wearing nothing but a jockstrap, and his skin was flushed red and raw.

He remembered the bearhug, the bouncing, the orgasm. He had given in, and he wasn't entirely sure how or why. His cock ached, and his balls felt sore and swollen.

As his vision cleared, he saw Blue standing over him. The grapple-bot was holding Lukas's soiled and dirty singlet and his old , cum-stained jockstrap. Lukas then realized that while he was out, Blue must've stripped him and put him in a fresh pair. He wondered how many pairs of jockstraps Blue just happened to have lying around, or if, more realistically, he was just synthesizing these on the fly.

"I won't lie to you, Captain," Blue said. "Your fetish was a curiosity for me more than most. You seem to be in denial of it, among other things. Until you are able to confess, you will be my prisoner. I intend to keep you in peak physical condition and sexual health until you have accepted reality. Until then, you are free to wrestle me until you are satisfied. You cannot win."

Lukas shook the cobwebs from his head and climbed to his feet. "What the hell do you want me to say? I came. Fine. Is that it?"

"You have not come to terms with the truth," Blue said. "It's clear in your data. You've suppressed it for a long time, and your mind seems to have a desperate need for control and domination, and the inability to accept that about yourself. This is why I'm holding you here: to help you."

"This isn't helping me, you bag of bolts! You’re keeping me from my job. What else do you want me to say?"

"You have to mean it, Lukas," Blue said, clanking his head to the side. "You have to tell me the truth about your lost sense of time."

Lukas's face scrunched up. "I really don't know what the hell you're talking about. But what I do know is I've had enough of you."

Lukas was ready and, in a moment of clarity, he thought he understood how he could win. He hunched down and charged towards the grapple-bot, prepared to duck and weave and strike with everything he had left.

Blue was too quick. He spun out of the way and tripped Lukas up with his long leg, sending the captain crashing to the floor.

"You're not listening, Lukas. You're still holding back. Tell me the truth."

Lukas struggled back to his feet, and with a snarl, turned and charged Blue again.

And again, he was too slow.

Blue's hands wrapped around his arms and lifted him off the ground, and his legs were locked up with the bot's. The thick training dummy, the smooth leather creaking and squeaking as it coiled around Lukas's limbs, contorted the human's body around his own limbs.

The abdominal stretch is a powerful submission hold. In it, the opponent's arms and legs are intertwined with their own, creating a tight, constricting trap that is nearly impossible to escape. The hold is effective at both keeping your opponent in place and wearing them down, as the constant pressure on their joints and muscles can be quite exhausting, particularly along their exposed flank. It is like watching the tentacles of a sea beast wrapping around an unfortunate scuba diver.

Blue cranked Lukas's arm back under his own, and used his free hand to gently stroke Lukas's exposed side. The human's muscles twitched and spasmed, and the heat and friction of the stretch was overwhelming. Blue could feel Lukas's pulse pounding, his heartbeat quickening, his breaths growing shallow.

Blue's hands slunk lower, drawing a line across the bulge of Lukas's jockstrap. As if it were a reflex, Lukas's hips jerked forward, humping into the leather grip.

"Tell me about The War of the Strand," Blue said.

"Fuck... you..." Lukas grunted, his teeth clenched.

Lukas growled, but the pain of his body, his inability to breathe, and the pressure on his balls was too much. Blue began to stroke his aching member through the rough jockstrap, whose friction on his sensitive cock only served to humiliate him further.

"No, Captain. Tell me about the war. It was against the pan-taran, yes?"

"I... can't..."

"Yes, you can. You will."

Blue continued to rub Lukas's cock through the jock. His face was red, his cheeks flushed. Blue held Lukas's arm in such tight constriction that the captain briefly worried it might snap off. And yet, the heat of Blue's body, the smell of his leather and rubber, it was all so... intoxicating.

"Tell me," Blue said, his voice firm.

Lukas shuddered. His muscles were tensing up, his toes were curling. He couldn't help it: the pain was overwhelming, and his body was desperate for release. He cried out—of pain, pleasure, and fear.

"I was... a soldier," Lukas grunted. "I was a fucking soldier. What the hell else do you want me to say?"

"But before, you were a wrestler," Blue said. "You were a wrestler, and you loved it. You loved the training, the competition, and the rush of victory. You loved the give and take, the struggle for dominance. Yes?"

Lukas grunted.

"Yes," he managed to whisper.

"But, you were a soldier, too. You were a soldier in The War of the Strand, and you ran into another pan-taran, didn't you? On the battlefield."

"Uh..." Lukas grunted. "I can't... I can't remember."

"You're lying. I can read your heart rate, measure your eye dilation..."

"Fuck off."

Blue stroked Lukas faster. Lukas's bent side felt like it was on fire, but the android's hand was still wrapped firmly around his cock. Blue's fist tightened, and any protest from Lukas wrenched out of him.

Blue whispered. "You're still holding back. Your data is telling me something is wrong, and you won't admit it. Why, Lukas?"

"Let me go."

"Not until you admit the truth. Tell me about that pan-taran you met during the war."

"Fuck... the truth..." Lukas groaned.

Lukas took a gamble and jerked his body downwards against the stretch. Had Blue maintained his hold exactly as he was, Lukas's arm would've certainly snapped. Blue, however, adjusted, which allowed Lukas to hurl the larger robot over in an arm drag. This is the weakness Lukas figured out, and it was only because of Blue's own words. Blue said he intended to keep Lukas in peak physical condition—Lukas guessed the droid couldn't exactly do that if his arm was broken.

Lukas scrambled towards the door, his aching jockstrap-trapped erection bobbing up and down with his gait.

As he sprinted down the long, metallic hallway, the captain's mind raced. He was unsure of how long he had been in the grapple-bot's room, or even what it had done to his team. All he knew was that he had to find them, and get them out of there.

As he turned a corner, Lukas stopped dead in his tracks. There was a fork in the hallway, leading to three different paths. He stood frozen, his mind racing, trying to remember which way he had come. None of it looked familiar. How far down into this steel cave had he fallen?

"Hey! You guys out there? Can you hear me?" Lukas shouted down each path.

Nothing. Lukas took a deep breath and chose the path on his left, his muscles tensed and ready for any threat. He knew he had to be fast—Blue was almost certainly in pursuit.

"Wait, what's that smell?"

Lukas turned his head to the right and sniffed. There was a faint, earthy, sweet odor that he couldn't place, but it was definitely familiar. Lukas crept down the corridor, his hand on the wall for support amidst the darkness. The texture on the wall changed, eventually: he happened upon a glass window, and peeked in.

As he approached, the smell grew stronger. He couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from, but as he looked through the window, he saw a sight that made his jaw drop.

On the other side of the glass, there was the pan-taran starbark dealer. He was on his knees, his head bobbing up and down on the rubber dick of a robot. His palm-tree-patterned button up shirt had been ripped open to expose his sweaty, heaving pecs, which bounced with each sloppy slurp he took. They were covered in the glaze of countless synthetic orgasms, which glittered in the black-light of the room. His green eyes looked nowhere in particular. He was high, and horny, and clearly wanted nothing more than a dick in his mouth and cum on his chest.

Lukas didn't need to see much to know it was the dealer: pan-tarans—even the smallest among them—have uniquely hardy builds. Bulky and burly, the species' large and gray complexion made them look like, to some extent, humanoid rhinoceroses. The perception of the species across the galaxy was that of bruisers and bullies, so to see one so subservient and submissive between the legs of another species would've been quite the shocking sight to most people.

Except, Lukas had seen such a thing before.

The android lounging above the pan-taran was dressed up in a skintight black bodysuit, with a rubber face mask and gloves. It sat on a steel throne. Its eyes glowed a soft, neon green, and the synthetic lips of the mask had a faint smile. Vents sat at the end of its smile, and puffed out clouds of glittery, purple starbark smoke. The room was slightly hazy from the consistent production.

The pan-taran's head was between the robot's thighs, and the robot's legs were wrapped around the dealer's head. Occasionally, the robot would say something in pan-taran, then unhook one of its long, slender legs from around the dealer's head and bring dainty rubber toes down to his subordinates twitching cock, expertly teasing the cock-head between digits. The dealer's eyes were watery, and his cheeks were wet with tears. It was tough to differentiate the sound of his sobs from the slobbery slurps of his tired jaw.

The droid turned his head to Lukas.

"Don't worry," it's synthesizer voice sang, "he won't be caught selling anything again, Officer."

Lukas realized, then, that his hand had drifted slowly towards his jockstrap. He pulled back, and lied to himself: he thought that if he tried to fight through the starbark smoke, he'd probably succumb to the same fate. Better to leave the dealer and focus on saving his friends.

He ran back to the fork and scratched a light indention into the wall so that he knew he had already been down that path.

He settled on the center path. Surely, one of his friends was there. He had to find them, and save them. He was Captain, after all: they were his responsibility.

The long hallway begged to differ. He ran and ran, and the hallway just seemed to stretch on with no windows, no rooms, nothing but steel and distance. It wasn't until he finally came to the hallway's exit that he heard a distant thud. He stopped running. He placed his hand against the wall and realized that the thud was rhythmic, and approaching from around the corner. There was a mechanical whirl between each thump, which was so heavy and loud that it shook through the walls and floors. Lukas backed up.

As Granddaddy rounded the corner, the robot's wide, plushy body appeared first. It wobbled and bounced with each step. The belly was so rounded and pronounced that Lukas couldn't help but stare: it was like an overweight, well-endowed robotic Santa Claus had wandered into the hallway.

Granddaddy's eyes lit up, and his head tilted in a curious way.

"Hey there, little fella! What's your name?"

Lukas stumbled backwards.

In hindsight, Lukas isn't sure how he didn't notice this first. Perhaps it was the near darkness, perhaps it was the information overload. Granddaddy had a harness made of thick, leather straps that criss-crossed the robot’s massive, round, and smooth body. The straps went around the android's shoulders, over his head, and behind his back. The complicated straps connected to leather straps which held the wrists of a particular poltron prisoner around Granddaddy's neck, and his legs pulled crudely around the fat frame of the robot by leather straps around the ankles.

Lukas knew instantly it was Pat.

Pat was dressed in a skimpy wedding gown—a lacey, white number that accentuated his delicate frame and pale skin. The gown had a sheer, billowy skirt, and Pat wore a veil. But his face was hidden, not by the veil, but by the fact it was smooshed between Granddaddy's enormous, bouncing moobs. Lukas could just make out the poltron's ass, punctuated by a slowly drooping and swaying poltron tail, peeking out under the frilly bows of his skirt and panties.

Pat's hips were humping desperately into Granddaddy's fat belly, making ripples in the ocean of fat. His arms, wrapped tightly around the robot's neck by the harness, twitched with each thrust. His hands were clenched in fists, and his nails dug into his palms. Pat was not making a sound. Or, if he was, they were lost between the mounds of fat moobs that pressed into either side of his head.

Granddaddy, on the other hand, was quite vocal.

"Me and my wife-boy were just going out for a little walk!" Granddaddy chuckled.

His hands were on Pat's thighs, kneading and gripping. Occasionally, one would creep up the frilly skirt of the dress and slap Pat's bare ass. Pat was not in a position to speak. He couldn't, anyway, not with his face firmly pressed into the robot's tits, his tongue lolling and drooling into the suffocating softness.

"You know, there's plenty of room on this big ol' belly of mine for another passenger, little fella," Granddaddy said to Lukas. "You wanna climb on up and join in the fun?"

Granddaddy's eyes lit up, and as if to emphasize this point, he slipped his fingers under the bottom of his huge gut, lifted it up, then let it drop. It rippled and wobbled, and the bounce seemed to have done something quite profound to the poltron strapped to it. Creamy juice dribbled from between his wide splayed legs and down the curve of the belly.

"Ahh, looks like my wife-boy's all tuckered out. Well, there's plenty more where that came from! A short jog and I’m sure my tubby belly will get his little girly-dick hard again."

Granddaddy slapped his belly a few times while Pat rode out his orgasm. The robots eyes dimmed, and he took on a more serious tone:

"However, I'm not going to dress you up. Only my perfect princess gets special treatment like that. You hear me, boy?"

Lukas's cock, which had not gone soft at all, twitched in his jockstrap.

"I'm just gonna go," Lukas said, and ran back down the hall faster than he first arrived.

There was no way he could take on a giant like that on his own. Maybe if he freed Jordan, they could work together to free Pat. It was definitely a two person job, no matter how Lukas looked at it. Hell, maybe even freeing the pan-taran would've been easier.

He made it back to the fork and scratched an indention near the center hallway entrance. Then, he ran down the right path, his heart racing, his mind spinning, and his cock still sore and leaking into his jockstrap.

Jordan was the youngest and strongest of the three, Lukas thought. There was a big dark muscle stud hiding underneath the precinct uniform—he often wondered how much of Jordan's life outside of accounting was in the gym. Surely, if any of the three were capable of fighting their way out of this steel hell, it was him, not Lukas.

As he ran, he heard the sharp, air-slicing sound of strikes, and of Jordan's unrestrained cries. It was a fight, surely. Lukas thought if Jordan was locked in a 1-on-1 struggle, he could dash in to help him, to save  him. This was the start of their escape, finally.

Once he came upon the wide open entrance of Jordan's room, however, that hope quickly faded.

Jordan was bent ass-up over the lap of a leather-clad robot. Its legs were spread wide, and its gloved hand was pumping Jordan's nether regions out of Lukas's view. Jordan steadied himself on the robot's thigh, his head tilted down, his cheeks wet and flushed. His lips were trembling, and his body shook with each pump.

That was not what caused him to cry out, though.

Lukas realized, then, that the robot was holding Jordan's cock with one hand, and leather paddle in the other.

The robot smacked his ass again.

Jordan let out a scream, but didn't try to get away. He sobbed and panted, but the most protest his body could muster was the slight wiggle of his hips, which was only enough to push his cock deeper into the robot's grip.

Lukas couldn't believe what he was seeing. Jordan could clearly, more so than any of the captives he found, free himself if he wanted to. Jordan was physically strong, and with the robot's arms around his groin, it would be difficult for him to strike back, but not impossible.

And yet, he didn't. He couldn't. Lukas could see the muscles in Jordan's thighs tensing and relaxing as he humped desperately into the leather-gloved hand. That body did not want salvation; it wanted sensation.

As Lukas's remaining possibilities leaked away, he was transfixed at Jordan's quivering ass. The paddle must've had some sort of indention—in motion, he couldn't tell, but the evidence was there on the surface. The word "SLUT" found residence in raised, stinging flesh across each cheek. And Lukas wondered, if maybe he had done something like this to Jordan, or if he had done whatever Pat needed to Pat, if anyone had had done anything about the depths they all hid away, if they wouldn't be trapped in the jaws of this machine cave.

While he thought that, two leather hands gripped firmly onto Lukas's shoulders. Tense, then relaxed.

"You reported your engagement with the pan-taran to your superior later," Blue said. "How long was your encounter?"

"It was... it was only a few minutes."

"The whole thing?" Blue pulled a dazed Lukas down to the ground without much resistance and wrapped his strong, rubbery legs around his waist. He said: "Your time perception is still inaccurate, Captain."

"Wha—"

Before Lukas could speak, Blue's hips jerked forward. Lukas was surprised by the sudden impact, but soon realized that the grapple-bot's thick, smooth thighs were squeezing him tightly between his legs, and that his cock was rubbing firmly against the grapple-bot's groin. It was like humping a wrestling mat. Blue's hips bucked back, and the pressure of his legs scissors around Lukas's body like a vice.

"I—" Lukas grunted, trying to ignore the stimulation, "I don't remember anything about him. He was just an enemy soldier."

Blue pulsed his legs. "You're lying. I can feel your heart beating. Did you disarm him?"

"Yes, I—"

"How? And what happened after that?"

Lukas was still in a fog. His head throbbed, and his eyes couldn't focus.

"I-I can't..."

The humping grew faster, and Lukas's vision began to blur. He was trapped, helpless, staring up into a vision long suppressed.

"Yes, I did,” Lukas stuttered, “I disarmed him, and he disarmed me at the same time, It... it was the darndest thing. We both stumbled into an abandoned farmhouse. I shot first, hit the gun somehow instead of his hand. His gun went off and the bullet struck the banister above me. A piece of wood fell and hit my arm and my gun went spiraling into god knows where."

"So, we looked at each other for a second, realized what happened, and charged. I was able to pin him down and straddle him. He was a tough guy, but I had him. I had him! And yet, he kept on struggling..."

Blue's arms and body shifted.

It was a simple adjustment, really, given how weakened in both mind and body Lukas had become. Blue wrapped his arms around Lukas's torso, and with his hands cupped around the captain's body, it was a natural and comfortable transition to slide his hands up to the front of Lukas. Lukas found his throat cinched between bicep and forearm, his air supply open only at the whim of Blue's grip. Blue wrapped his legs around Lukas's hips to prevent him from struggling.

"There, there, Captain. You're almost there," Blue whispered.

"We wrestled for a long time..." Lukas whimpered once air was allowed in, "...neither one of us was willing to give up. It was the greatest wrestling match of my life. Eventually, the struggle must've worn us both out. I couldn't fight back when he threw me over and mounted me. He pulled his pants down, and that's when I realized I was hard, too."

Blue's grip was relentless, and the robot's strength was far superior to Lukas's own. He struggled, his arms flailing, his hands scrambling for any purchase on the smooth rubbery skin. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for breath, but nothing came in. His vision was growing dark, and the sounds of his own heartbeat echoed in his ears.

"He never hit me. I never hit him. It was just... wrestling. Play-fighting. Trying to lock the other in a hold that they couldn't escape from. That was the thrill."

Blue allowed him just enough air to let out the truth.

"I eventually got his head between my legs. Head-scissors. He... stopped struggling."

Lukas shuddered.

"We just sat there for a minute, maybe two, panting and sweating, and I realized that his lips... his lips were... against my groin and..."

"Did you know," Blue choked Lukas's story to silence, "that pan-tarans avoid hand to hand combat at almost all costs?"

"Uhh..." Lukas gasped for air. When Blue let him breathe, he coughed and said, "How could I have? We were at war with them, and we knew nothing about them..."

Blue covered Lukas's mouth. "How long did you wrestle him, Captain? Your sense of time. You claimed your interaction with this soldier was brief. And yet..."

He freed Lukas's mouth. "He was an enemy soldier..."

Blue muted his windpipe again. "The pan-taran avoid hand-to-hand combat in war because wrestling is a common mating ritual among their species. So... how long did you wrestle him before you realized you weren't in danger, Captain?"

Lukas could only blink. Tears welled up in his eyes.

"I don't know, I..."

"Captain, when your opponent looked up at you with those big green eyes, and his lips roamed your bulge in sweet submission, did you think that was still 'a fight?'"

Blue rolled Lukas side to side, keeping expert control on the Captain's oxygen to keep him just barely on edge. Lukas's eyes were wet with tears, and his cock was leaking into his jockstrap. He couldn't believe it: his body had betrayed him, and his mind was following. He wasn't sure if he was going to make it out of this one alive, or even sane.

"No, that's not true. It wasn't like that. He didn't..."

Blue's voice was calm. "You wrestled him for almost an hour, Lukas. You briefly thought you were in love, didn't you?"

"It was just a moment. A stupid moment. I had to focus on the war."

"Was it the war you were thinking about, or were you afraid to confess your feelings to an alien?"

Lukas's cock throbbed. "No, I..."

The grapple-bot brought the heels of his smooth canvas feet to Lukas's groin, and ground the tent between the artificial pads. Lukas's jockstrap was slick and sticky with his own seed, and the rough fabric ground into his soft, wet cockhead. Lukas whimpered, his eyes glued shut. His face was wet with sweat and tears, and his mouth hung open, saliva dribbling down his chin.

"You were afraid," Blue whispered. "Afraid to admit your own desires. Afraid of rejection, and of failure."

Blue's voice was soothing. It was as if Lukas was choked in a warm, rubber blanket, and his entire body was buzzing with an electric hum. He was too exhausted to move, and yet, the gentle rubbing of Blue's feet was enough to keep his cock at attention, to keep his mind on the edge of awareness.

"Lukas," Blue nuzzled the captain's ear, "What did you break first? His neck, or his heart?"

Lukas felt his vision start to fade, and his limbs grew numb. He couldn't focus his eyes on the room, or even Blue. It was like he was floating outside his own body, and all he could feel was the throbbing of his own heartbeat. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but watch as his own body struggled, uselessly, against Blue's iron grip.

The captain's face went red, and his body spasmed and twitched. His eyes were bloodshot and watery, his mouth open and gasping. As he came, he jerked his head to the side, and a small trickle of spit dribbled from his lips.

Blue's feet coaxed the captain's spasming cock and spurting seed slowly, but firmly. Up and down, up and down the robot milked him between firm arches. The grapple-bot released his arms from around Lukas's neck and let the captain fall to the floor, limp and unconscious. He was not dead: Blue was not programmed to kill, nor to cause permanent damage. He just gave the captain enough to wear down and submit—a mercy the Captain, himself, had been unable to afford others.

Blue bent over, his body perfectly balanced, and his feet hovered over the captain's limp, wet-with-sweat face. He gently brought his cum-covered foot down onto Lukas's forehead, then slowly pressed the sole of his rubbery heel into the man's nose and lips. Lukas twitched, too gone to be aware of the fact Blue was smearing his own seed all over his face, or of the fact that the robot gingerly dipped his cum-covered toes in and out of his mouth, gently coaxing more saliva out with each dip, until not a drop of his submission remained on Blue’s feet.

"There," the robot said, "Isn't that better?"

Blue knelt down.

"We'll do this every day, Captain. Your reprogramming into a merciful creature will be thorough, and exhausting and, I do hope, educational… for us both."

The grapple-bot scooped Lukas's limp, sweaty, and unconscious body, his cock still leaking cum through the abused jockstrap, and lifted him like a sack-of-nothing over his shoulders. The sharp sound of leather-on-flesh could still be heard from Commander's room, and with it, Jordan's cries of painful ecstasy. If you put your hand on the wall, you could still feel the vibrations caused by Granddaddy stomping around, and could easily imagine Pat's panty-trapped cock bursting yet another load onto the bouncing fat. You could smell the starbark long before you reached those depths, and know that someone had been so smoked out of their mind that they would need many days and an attentive caretaker to return to safe sobriety.

On the planet ER-14, the steel and self-aware planet, the caretakers know exactly how to treat their guests, even if the guests themselves don't know what they want.