The Warped Drive

===

Mankind entered the last third of the XXI century. Civilization had survived the world wars and crises that reshaped the world order, with sentient AIs and robots taking over most of the jobs and creating thousands of new ones, with the ecology nearly crashing and then recovering, with the first colonies firmly established on Mars, the Moon and orbital habitats. The human race was spreading its wings, ready to dominate the Solar System and take a leap to the stars.

Then the Alliance ships arrived. They were huge, gleaming, and impressive. The Masters (we did not call them Masters yet, they called themselves Luminarchs, as you know) wasted no time in making contact with humanity.

"Hello, humans," they said. "This star system is now officially claimed by the Alliance."

"Wow!" said the humans. "Are you going to invite us into the Alliance? Or to enslave us? We will fight back in the latter case!"

"Actually, neither," the Masters replied. "You are far inferior to us, and we can take whatever we want because your resistance would be puny and futile. But your skills could be of great use to us, so we have a proposal for you..."

===

A shadow fell on the page. I raised my eyes and, of course, it was Jed, right out of the pool, drops of water glistening on his naked body.

"Whatcha readin', baby?" he asked.

I showed him. He chuckled.

"Still going through the kids' textbooks?"

"It's really interesting to read them now, to see how the emphasis is placed, what messages are conveyed. It feels very different from our childhood, you know. You should read them again sometime."

"No, I mean, if you are interested in history, you could read the really serious works."

He sat down next to me. I leaned against him, felt his skin against mine, and my heart melted. We had been in love for two years and it showed no signs of cooling off.

"I read them too. But it's still interesting how complex things are explained to children."

We kissed. Nancy approached, her little Stacy and Mike following her on unsteady feet. She was nursing little Lily.

"Hi!"

"Hi Nancy! Sit down."

Mike looked curiously at my open book. "Oh! Masta's ship!" he exclaimed, pointing to the picture.

"That's right, Mike. Same as ours."

"I know!" he said proudly, and wobbled off to other toddlers playing by the water.

Nancy followed him with her eyes, smiling. We were the same age, but the Masters thought she was better suited for motherhood, so she was assigned to breeding. She already had three children and would have about fifteen in her lifetime.

"How does it feel to dedicate your whole life to the children?" I asked.

I was still not sure if I would ever want to give birth myself. It's good that the Masters thought the same and kept me infertile. The Masters understood, of course, that we weren't a hive species like them, but it was still the most natural thing for them to divide us into several different working castes.

"Feels good!" Nancy replied. "I'm doing something important for the Masters and the ship. And raising children is fun. Besides, my partners have been assigned to fatherhood, so we spend a lot of time together. There's a lot of work, of course, but nothing I can't handle. And no generator assignments unless I volunteer for them. I still love sex, you know!"

We laughed. That was our usual conversation. Yes, the breeders weren't usually assigned to the generator chambers, and never at peak load. Of course, in a serious emergency, we would all be there, and even the Masters would join us to generate, but I personally had not seen those emergencies yet in my life. Well, to devote one's whole life to the children and to joy and not to any pain looked tempting... But so far I have preferred some pain to bringing up children.

"Mike!" Nancy jumped up and ran to stop a fight. Stacy followed her. In four generations aboard the ship, the Masters have made great strides in transforming our primal agression into expanded sexuality, but our youngest children still showed signs of our ape ancestry.

"Twenty minutes to Warp," the loud broadcast said. "First stage of generators to warm-up. Second stage, standby. Third and fourth stages, sleep mode."

I felt a tingling sensation and looked at the flashing light on my wrist, the same as Jed's. We were in the first stage, as usual. Not bad. I like the littoral Warp, there is rarely a need for peak load.

I pulled up my ponytail. We stood up and walked to the nearby chamber. Behind us, people were leaving the pool, and it was slowly covered by the moving lid. You don't want a large open water surface near you when you're in the Warp, believe me.

***

===

"So how can we be of use to you?" the humans asked.

"We need the power sources for our ships," the Masters replied. "We have other inferior races that serve us as well, of course. But you could be a great addition. We need your sexual energy, and sometimes the energy of your pain."

There was an awkward pause.

"Are you kidding?" the humans asked. "There is no such thing as sexual or pain energy. We've explored that area long ago. Only crazies and freaks claim that."

"In the physical world, yes," the Masters said. "But not in the Warp. We need you as Warp generators."

===

We have entered the generator chamber - a nice, quiet place with soft floors and walls. We've been here hundreds of times, doing our job, fulfilling the purpose of our lives: to be the Warp generators, to give the ship the energy of our intense bodily sensations and emotions. Because the other energy sources do not work in the Warp, you know.

"Ten minutes to the Warp. Ten minutes chamber warmup. Stand by for generation of cruise power."

Dozens of naked men and women were still entering, hugging and kissing like me and Jed. (Did I mention that there is no human clothing anywhere aboard? Because of my interest in history, I know there were such things on Earth. But we don't need clothes here.) The air was filled with the spicy scent of aphrodisiacs, as if we needed any kind of arousal boost, but that was the protocol.

Of course, soon the vortex of the Endless Orgy will separate me and Jed, but we loved to start it together. We kissed passionately, hugged tightly, stroked each other, then I moaned softly and began to breathe faster and faster as Jed entered me, thrusting deep.

By the time we entered the Warp, we were already warmed up as hell and generating. In a few minutes I screamed in my first orgasm of the day, tensing and pressing my body as tightly as I could against Jed's. We held each other for a few seconds, then kissed, separated and went to change partners. The generator chamber was on steady drive, people breathing hard, moaning and screaming.

As always in the Warp, the chamber changed shape, its walls bending and pulsating like the insides of a giant body organ. The air became thicker and filled with a light mist. Of course, we never saw our ship from the outside in the Warp, but we saw many recordings. The strict, precise shape of the hull was also changing, it was bulging segments, sprouting long gnarled antennas and several pairs of miles long transparent rainbow wings, becoming similar to a giant insect. Much like the things we encounter in the Warp.

I nodded to a free man - it was Thomas, we knew each other a little - and we entwined in a passionate embrace. Very soon I stopped thinking and surrendered completely to the sensations. I stopped counting my partners and orgasms, I stopped looking at their faces, I stopped caring about poses. I became a primal animal, a perfect generator, flooded with maximum pleasure, emitting it to the energy collectors.

I lost track of time, and only the increasing buzzing and tingling on my wrist brought me back to my mind. Time to get out and make room for the fresh second stage. I climaxed for the last time, sighed with disappointment - I would like more! - and walked out unsteadily, finding my way more by touch than sight.

In the dry ion shower I looked at the clock. Two hours had passed. Each of us could endure up to eight hours of the Endless Orgy if necessary, but in this quiet space there was no need to overexert us.

***

On my way to the dorm, I stopped by the pool hall to pick up my book. As usual in the Warp, some disturbing shapes were moving in the water, pressing their faces and tentacles against the transparent cover from below. I told you, the free water in the Warp is dangerous, right? The ship does her best to keep us sane and coherent, but there is no way to completely isolate us from the Warp.

I went to the dining room for a snack. The corridor changed shape twice on the way. Hatches opened and closed unexpectedly in unpredictable places. Shapes crept out of the ceiling or the floor, dissolved into thin air, touched me, flowed through me, made me tremble with waves of excitement and pleasure. It all felt like being in a dream - a sharply focused, lucid one, but still a dream. The Masters say that we humans, like some other sentient species, touch the Warp in our dreams, and this is the ability that makes us useful in the Warp.

The food synthesizer, however, worked normally, thanks to the Masters. I ate and read my book, enjoying the afterglow of many orgasms, with my fellow humans around me.

===

There have been more than seven billion human beings on Earth, and from that number you can always pick out a few tens of thousands of volunteers for almost any task. The Masters have filled their on-board wards without any problem. Although the Masters were open and honest about the future of the chosen humans - forever controlled, naked, no privacy (you can read about the concept of privacy in another chapter), breeding on board, probably never returning to Earth - the volunteers were still willing to trade that for the opportunity to see the galaxy.

Being kind and helpful, the Masters had left the Earthlings the basics of space travel, so that if the humans proved worthy, they could further develop the theory by themselves and build their own Warp capable ships. Until then, those who wish to skip the wait may join the Masters on their next visits to Earth.

===

I went to the dorm - a large open room with transparent folding screens, only for noise reduction - picked out an empty mattress (hmm... the concepts of privacy and personal space... they are so un-Masterly) and slipped out of the dreamlike Warp into my own dreams.

***

When I entered the generator chamber on my next shift, our ship was already in deep stormy Warp. The chamber was humming with moans of men and women. The power requirements were higher now, so the setup changed. Instead of the free orgy, there were rows of stimulator chairs. I took the nearest female one, still warm and wet with the sweat of previous woman, who was now heading for the exit.

I lowered myself carefully onto the vibrator heads, tightened the straps and leaned back, feeling the electrodes sucking on my sensitive areas. Then I closed the circuit and shuddered as sharp jolts of pleasure shot through my body. No jokes, now the ship needed the full and stable generation. I groaned against my will and closed my eyes, feeling hot from the blood rushing to my skin.

I lost track of time even faster than in the first stage. The orgasms rolled through my body in regular cycles, followed by rest and relaxation, and then the cycle repeated itself, gradually building with each passing minute. My legs shook uncontrollably as if I was having a seizure, my abdominal muscles spasmed, my back arched involuntarily, my fingers gripped the armrests tightly, sweat ran down my chest and back, and my breasts trembled under the electrical stimulus.

Then - I couldn't tell how much time had passed - the loudspeaker sounded the gong, followed by words: "Hostile Warp lifeforms on intercept course. Prepare for peak load." And the whole chamber screamed as the sudden pain added to our still sharp pleasure.

I screamed my lungs out, struggling to catch my breath between the electric shocks running through my body. The pain in my stretched joints, twisted muscles and burned nerve endings mixed with the pleasure, amplifying it. Deep in the Warp, the ship was firing barrages of battle wasps, fighting the native Warp life, and our pain and fear were her only energy source for that.

The gong sounded again. "Peak load reached. Hold on. Emergency shift on the way." And the pain, which seemed to be at its peak, increased even more.

We screamed desperately, jerking helplessly in the restraints. It was very easy to pass out during the peak load - you just lose conscious control of your body and slip into merciful blackness. But we humans are trained to resist fainting, at least for an hour. We must provide the Masters and the ship with maximum psychic energy in the need.

Someone disconnected my chair and helped me to my feet. I almost fell to the floor, catching my breath. A dark-haired, plump woman took my place, strapped herself in, closed the circuit and screamed: "Yes! Yesss! Gimme more!" And she laughed hysterically. Some of us like pain more than others, you know. They are the best peak load generators.

***

And so our journey continued for a week, mostly pleasurable and sometimes painful, until we dropped out of the Warp back into real space, close to our destination. Everything returned to normal. The corridors reverted to their usual shape, the hatches appeared in the expected places, the stimulator chairs folded away, the weird Warp creatures retreated to our dreams, and our minds found peace.

I left the generator chamber for the last time on this voyage and went to the dorm. Still shaky on my feet, I fell exhausted onto my mattress and tried to recall the recent events. Nothing unusual. The Masters haven't revealed much about Warp life, we humans understand almost nothing about it. The Masters say that if we try to understand the Warp in detail, we will go mad, or worse.

I remembered the chapter in the book about the old Earth game Warhammer 4000 and chuckled. Its creators must have spent a lot of time dreaming with the Warp when they came up with the Warp concept for the game. Well, maybe we humans are really talented in this area.

When I woke up, our ship was about to land. I smiled, stretching and spreading my toes. We were told that the planet had a suitable atmosphere and other conditions. I was looking forward to going to the city on my leave and meet the locals!