The future is now. Space travel has long been commercialized, entire planets colonized. A number of societies have risen, as humans began to spread far and wide. In the realm of the Northern Planets, women reign supreme. Gifted with powers beyond any their male counterparts could imagine, a society composed of Queens has taken over.
Today, two such Queens, locked in a battle spanning generations, have finally come to a head. The Scarlet Queen, though the leader of the smaller army, has managed to capture a number of high ranking soldiers from The Merchant Queen, including her pet spymaster due to a mistakenly fired weapon that has activated latent body enhancement coding.
Now, with slave coding running rampant, and obedient to The Scarlet Queen's armies, she may just have what she needs to turn the tide of the war. If she can tame the Spymaster first, that is.
Solomon stood in center of The Scarlet Queen's private quarters and tried to remain still.
Absolutely, positively, still.
The Queen stood across from him, the women born to be his own (former?) Queen's equal in every way. Her movements were precise, her powers just as vast. This was a person who could end lives with a flick of her fingers, and shouldered the weight of that responsibility with long-practiced ease.
Her expression was soft though--tired, but determined.
Solomon didn't know what to make of it.
"General." Scarlet spoke softly, not moving from the spot she'd taken, just out of arms length. "You're safe. I promised you that when this started, and I will keep that promise now. You will not be executed--you will fulfill your function You will simply do everything you did before."
For me
was left unsaid.
Chills raced down Solomon's spine but he nodded anyway. It didn't matter how he felt. Only the slave coding mattered now--newly awakened, attached to The Scarlet Queen and demanding for Solomon to
submit.
He'd been born with it, this coding. Inserted into the chips every human bore, for without them there was no way to live in today's universe. It was coded straight into his brain, allowing for everything from modifications to identification. It was his purpose--to be a highly ranked, absolutely loyal, personal slave. No room for anything but pure obedience. His mid-range telekinesis ability had been a curse that had gotten him booted from the family he'd been born to serve, and he'd wandered the gutters with the coding's shrieking, burning rage for years until he'd stumbled across his AI's, and the newly risen Merchant Queen after them.
They had given him a purpose. Modified and silenced the coding that controlled him. Who worked with him for years to erase all the damage the coding had done. Physical, mental, emotional.
Now, his AI's were gone (fled, as they'd been ordered) The Merchant Queen had likely marked him a traitor, and his slave coding was active, the seething pain already building under his skin.
Submit.
It snarled, low in the back of his head.
Worship your owner.
"I don't know how you got it off to begin with." Raina, The Scarlet Queen's infamous Chief Medical Officer had snarled at the start of it, her medbay over-flowing with soldiers from both sides suffering from all kinds of newly onlined coding. A hand ran down her face, staring in defeat at the quiet before her. "This is a complicated, highly unique program. Individual, probably passed down from a higher caste family. Best we can do is work with it until I can examine it further."
Unspoken was the fact that Raina didn't have the time to examine it now, because she still had others to attend to. Solomon wasn't the only enemy who'd ended up here, abandoned.
He wasn't the only one with slave coding, either.
Nor did he think The scarlet Queen would release him. He'd been shot by his own Lieutenant's experimental new weapon after The Merchant Queen had ordered her head scientist use it before it'd been properly tested. Which of course meant that, rather than doing what it was supposed to do, it'd gone completely haywire. Spinning and firing wildly, hitting everyone who'd been unfortunate enough to get in its way.
Solomon had gone down, blocking a hit meant for his Queen. She had ordered a retreat shortly after and as per Solomon's own protocols, his AI's retreated right with her.
Leaving The Scarlet Queen's soldiers to try and take down the weapon, and Solomon convulsing on the ground, as years of complicated overrides, deflections, and hacks were torn away. He'd finally passed out, only to come to with The Scarlet Queen herself staring him down. The first person he'd encountered since the coding had been activated.
Seconds later his implant chips dutifully informed him that made the women his Master.
Kneel. Submit. Give yourself over.
A flurry of things happened from there, mostly getting everyone up and back to the Ark--The Scarlet Queen's flagship-- captured Merchant soldiers in tow as those with less malicious coding tried to explain what the weapon supposedly did. Chaos had kept Solomon from panicking too hard, until the Queen's rounds had been finished and it appeared no more could be done.
Now two days in, Solomon had been removed from the medbay to make space, and placed in The Scarlet's own quarters.
Was staring down the women his body had betrayed him for.
This was the moment he'd truly dreaded, when he'd realized his former Queen wasn't coming for him. Their relationship had been--turbulent as of late, but even that hadn't prevented Solomon from believing he had been abandoned.
Not at first.
But when no offer or demand came for him after two days, he knew he had been cut loose. It took everything in him not to blame The Merchant Queen--his former Lady and Master, the women he was loyal to straight down to the core of his very being. Their history was so entangled that it was hard not to take this as personally. Even if things had been strained between them as of late.
She knew of his slave coding. She knew what her scientists weapon did.
She knew he was lost, and she made no efforts to try and find him again.
Solomon's only choice now was the one being forced on him. The breathe he sucked in was slight, so as to not be seen, but it steadied him. The coding allowed him no other choice, and it pestered him. Demanded his new Lady and Master verbally lay claim over him. Demand he put his forehead to the floor and let her do whatever she wished. Take whatever she wanted.
Solomon gave in. Knelt. Bowed his head though he kept it off the floor, black hair tickling the back of his neck. Both hands went behind his back, hands clasping to the opposite wrist.
An honorable offering--of his very self.
Solomon knew what he looked like. Tall, at times scarily so, and built like an endurance runner. His hair had grown slightly shaggy, just enough to nearly reach his eyes. His stubble had grown out to shadow his sharp jawline though he preferred to keep his face clean, and his uniform looking a touch rumbled itself as he'd had no other clothes to change into, and had refused any offered to him.
That was futile now--but he'd wanted to be taken as his rank entitled. His uniform helped present that, showed through small strips of ribbon and pressed enamel stars that he was the third in command.
That he was
worthy.
"I Solomon Redd, former General of The Merchant Army, recognize and accept The Scarlet Queen as my Queen, Lady and Master." He said, the words dragged from his throat by the coding, before he was truly ready to speak. "Your whim is mine, your will is mine. I will follow your ever order." Perfect. Formal and polite, submissive without allowing the coding to gut his dignity.
Which of course, it took as a personal challenge.
Something squeezed him, contracting his muscles as though he'd taken a hit. Solomon wheezed in shock, unprepared for the lengths the coding could take. He made a small panicked whine, then a painful admittance, equally forced out. "I
need
orders."
He hadn't expected that either, how close he sounded to begging. Pleading. Laid low with the coding and thoroughly humiliated, he dropped his blue eyes to the floor.
'Fuck.'
"I'm aware." The Scarlet said, voice still so carefully calm, even as she stood over him. Looked down upon him. "What I don't know is what kind you need."
Solomon doubted that--The Scarlet already knew everything her medics had told her involving his coding. She knew it had tied itself to her, that it was wired directly into his brain. That it could punish and reward him, all based on her whims.
What she truly didn't know was the extent of her control. That was what she was looking for here, and that was what Solomon truly feared she'd find.
With the slave coding active, he was truly and inescapably, at her mercy. Something she would test to the fullest degree.
"Any." He said, voice steady even as his body trembled. He wouldn't make this easy. The coding fought him, demanded he tell his new Queen everything she desired before she knew she even wanted it, but he struggled. Withheld, even as it burned him. Red welts grew along his arms, a warning--but one his new Queen couldn't see. For that reason alone he kept up the charade.
He hadn't gotten as far as he had by being weak.
Unaware of his struggles--or more likely, aware and uncaring, The Scarlet Queen asked; "Does this coding have sexual requirements?"
Horror shot down Solomon's spine as a blush blasted across his cheeks.
"Yes." He said, quietly--quietly enough that the coding singed a reprimand for it. The damn thing had many ways to make him obey, of making his own body work against him. Everything from restraining limbs to cutting off air. It was frightening in its efficacy, and when used effectively--
Solomon took another breath.
There was no point thinking of that now.
She had not yet asked for information on the Merchant Queen. No doubt that would come later. Now, the focus was on claiming him.
He wasn't looking forward to it.
"Describe them." She ordered. She strode away for a moment, her heels clicking smartly on the concrete floor. She returned moments later, a chair rolling lazily in her wake, and she spun it to face him. Sat, so that her legs were uncomfortably close, and took up the majority of Solomon's vision.
"The coding requires I be physically claimed." He said, which was better than what the coding wanted him to say. "That I am pleasing you in every way possible."
"How often?"
'Never.'
He wanted to say. The coding punched him, and he grit his teeth against the pain.
"Twice a week, at minimum." He choked out.
