...she desperately pulled at thechain securing her by the neck to the bare deck, as he entered.

Andactivated the collar around her neck, making her scream, twitch,bleed, and soil herself.

“Disgusting,”he told her, watching her with narrowing eyes the entire time,”allof your subsentient breeder kind are truly disgusting, and all theliesyou tell yourselves and us through the media youcontrol,and the so-called educatorsin your schools doesnot change thatoneiota!”

“You,”he hissed,” can pretend all you want you’re not a carnal,subsentient creature controlled by its depravities and perversities,but you cannot, can neverfool the One True Godand those He Above has chosen to rule in dominion over the worlds ofHis Creation!”

“You,”he added, spitting on her,”will notbe able to fool me,one of HisChosen Few, whoyour obscenity of a race tried their best to seduce and break, but Iam proof against your wiles, and I willnot be broken!”

He then whispered:

“Youare nothingbut gyntand vog,and gyntand vogare allyou will everbe treated as...all even youwant to be treated as, especially by her...intime, this truth—your truenakedness—willbe allyou will be left with, for I willstrip....“

AboardASW Unbroken

4.2 millionkilometers from Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:31:09

"...not your fault,godsdamnit!” Pruewhispered through clenched teeth, wishing she could unbuckle herrestraints, walk over and hold Stephanie tight 'til she stoppedblaming herself for ever godsdamned thing those rotten Marziebastards had ever doneto every one around her.

Not that such a thing would ever happen,she thought to herself, without bitterness, because she knew herSteph could not stop feeling for every one around her, no matter howmuch that hurt, and Prue knew she loved her for that.

"Not yours either,hun,” Stephanie managed to croak out.

"That’s right,luv,” Prue asserted, smiling in spite of herself.

"It’s hisfault,” she said, with total certainty,”and we will make himpay.”

"Nukes,” shethen asked Ariel,”is the auto-destruct armed?”

"Affirmative,Pilot Major,” the young woman replied. "Set for voice commandfrom either the weapons master, the surgeon major, or any of thebridge team.”

"AI netself-preservation protocols have been overridden,” the engineerlieutenant then said, with as much determination as the ship’spilot major.

Ready as we can be,Prue observed to herself, as she sipped at the coffee in herself-heating cup, her left hand firmly grasping the stick, thumb andforefinger prepared to trigger the ship’s arsenal the instant theenemy appeared to block Unbroken'sentry into warpdrive.

The tacticaldisplay appeared in her Link, relaying the passive sensor andwarpdrive radar telemetry from Meliza’s station to a holoprojectiondirectly in front of her right eye...the Sand Creek-classbattleship Okinawa—carryinghis flag—wasboosting on an intercept vector from the Sixth Fleet’s primaryanchorage, some 15 AU ahead, while a single Zumwalt-classheavy cruiser(probably the one they’d initially bounced)wasboosting on an intercept from Colorado orbit.

Both ships would be ontop of them in another four hours, eighteen, assuming theircommanders chose to override common sense and the safeties on theirwarp engines, as both their psych profiles, Stephanie, and she allagreed they would.

Prue initiated anotherseries of weapons checks, querying Ariel as to the status of thearray of diamagnetic-field generators embedded in the ship’sspaceframe, and the close-fitting deflector field they generated,knowing the ship’s navicomp and engine computer would automaticallyshut down the deflectors the instant before the warp engine’sRittermark generator wrapped the ship round its own drivefield andshifted it into warpdrive.

The very instantUnbroken would be ather most vunerable.

Suppressing a shiver,the ship’s pilot major queried her weapons master.

...byall the holy gods, he barely recognized her, as she stumbled on thederelict Marzie warship’s bridge, towards the gods damned thingtearing through her with a thermal whip, licking its lips, cluckingher tongue, mockingly calling her baby girl, before grabbing at thering in the collar round her neck and pulling her towards it, aboutto shove its tongue down her throat, before an inhuman scream of rageforced the thing to turn around, face the woman screaming andcharging at it.

The thing, of course, wore the fleshof the woman comingtowards it, the abomination having time enough to laugh at her once,before a blast from Pilot Lieutenant Rhoads’ FRG157 tore herdoppelganger to shreds....

AboardASW Unbroken

10.84 millionkilometers from Azul(Isabella V), Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:38:11

“...all sectionsreport ready,” Jesse said over his Link in response to Prue’srequest, as he stood at the head of the three-being triang hecommanded directly, weapons aimed dead at the ventral airlock’sinner hatch, anti-boarding RMGs mounted in quad turrets directlyabove his head, while three sections’ worth of combat bots stooddirectly behind the three sections of Riflemen covering thatparticular hatch.

Out of the corner ofhis eye, the ship’s weapons master noticed Kritzteena at the headof the reaction-rifle lance’s remaining three sections—coveringthe dorsal airlock—even if the stubborn Anazeen should’ve beenflat on her back, by all rights.

And, because she wasa damn-fool stubborn hootowl of a bloody Anazeen, hismaster chief of rifles merely nodded her fine-feathered head in hercommander’s direction to indicate she was more perfectly fine thanthe med team claimed she was.

Same with the otherfour who’d been wounded in the dustup on planet, only one of whichwas Anazeen(a first-named Staphenye of Clan Zawnee, as indicated bythe coloration of her feathers), the other three all too stubbornlyHuman, same as their shipmaster and pilot major.

Theirweapons master as well, truth be told,he chided himself, nodding his head in approval, in spite of hisbetter judgement.

Becausethey were all Watchmenof the Confederacy of Anacreon, by allthe holy gods, and they knew theirenemy entirely too well to simply lie in bed waiting to be takenwithout a fight.

...thistime, no hesitation, not even the briefest moment of pity.

Thistime, there was only the pleasure and the righteousness of theEternal Hunt.

He smiled,as the filthy little piece of gynttried entrapping him with the perverse and, ultimately,limited amusements ofits flesh.

He smiled,and he laughed at it.

Just beforethe chainblade in his hands rendered it a bloody spray of flesh andbone....

AboardFSSLewis B. Puller

7.5 millionkilometers from Colorado, Isabella System

05/04/70, 08:44:00

...and,because he had not hesitated in the service of the Master God, andHis Great Cause, Jomal char-Briathu emerged from coldwire andvirtsim, howling with the spirit of the hunter that burned throughhis veins.

His sergeant, uponseeing this, simply nodded his approval.

“I would’veexpected you to wallow in your descent, Private,” he said, as theAbysar hunter, fully detached from his coldwire chamber, swung hisbare feet onto the deck and stood tall before his sergeant.

“Instead,”Halfacre added, awed(as mere pinkstink should be)at the prowress of atrue alpha,”you have embraced your fall, using yourpunishment as an opportunity to transform yourself into a betterservant of His Great Cause.”

“As it should be,Sergeant,” Jomal humbly and simply replied, bowing his headslightly towards his immediate superior.

“Learn fromPrivate char-Briathu’s example!” exhorted Halfacre tohis squad’s five other Marines. “He stumbled, and he fell,but he did not allow the procreator and the fornicatorto lay him low, he does not make excuses andblame others for his fall, as only one of them would!”

“He hasaccepted his punishment!” Jomal’s sergeant then said. “Hehas accepted responsibility for the weakness which ledto that punishment, and he has accepted the opportunity givenhim by that punishment to overcome his weakness andmake himself a better instrument to be wielded by the True God in theexecution of His Great Cause!”

“Righteous andpure is His Great Cause!” intoned Lance Corporal VincentLawrence as he stood at the end of the line of Marines.

“Righteous,”echoed Jomal and the others, crossing their fists over theirchests,”and pure.”

“Never forgetthat,” their sergeant instructed them,”not even for a moment. Donot make the mistakes of showing them mercy, as Privatechar-Briathu did.”

“’For mercy,”Jomal said, quoting from the Tome of the Commandments,”isthe weakness through which the fornicator and the procreator hope toseek dominion over His Chosen Few and make slaves of them.’”

“Yes, it is,”his sergeant half-whispered, as he stared ceilingward.

“Yes, it is!”he repeated in a thunderous roar, as he stared down his Marines.

“Rememberthat!” he commanded.”Keep that wisdom close to your heart,and let it guide your hands, when we fight them in the nextthree hours or so!”

“No mercy,”he shrieked,”for the procreator!”

“No mercy!”his Marines shouted as one.

“No,” Halfacreechoed his men through clenched teeth.”Mercy!”

No mercy,Jomal thought to himself.

Neveragain.