The Girl in the Maze - Rube Goldberg

[SoftGameHunter]

Teaser: A fugitive woman, hiding in an alien city surrounded by uncountable devious and raunchy traps. Their mission: recover her alive for the sake of all humanity. No price, however terrible, is too high to pay.
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The author of this story has read and accepted the rules for posting stories. They guarantee that the following story depicts none of the themes listed in the Forbidden Content section of the rules.
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Title: The Girl in the Maze
Author: SoftGameHunter

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This is a little different from my usual material in that it really is a fan fiction. Not that many people will notice, but the setting and background is heavily borrowed from the Robert Silverberg novel The Man in the Maze. If I tried to market this for money, it would be a copyright infringement. Not that I've ever gotten paid for my pornographic ramblings, but it would be nice. Not this one, though. Anyway, I've certainly put my own flair on it. And if anyone want to read a cool, cerebral short novel similar to this but completely different, I recommend the book.

Oh yeah, this is part of the Rube Goldberg story contest for October, 2025. You can find the contest thread here:
viewtopic.php?p=6448#p6448

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The Girl in the Maze


Ruby could hear the report in her head even as her tent flap opened. She had to laugh. Maybe she was turning into Goldy just by staring into her world from outside the maze. Or maybe the reports were just that repetitive. “We’ve had another failure, Captain,” Myra reported.

Of course they did. Ruby sipped at her non-regulation bottle of gin. “It was Andrea today, right? Sergeant Little?”

“Yes. She’s gone. She made it four levels into the labyrinth but tripped a pressure plate. It was a basic trap door.”

“Dead? Or…”

“Unknown, Captain. We lost her helmet cam in the fall. Something ripped it off her. The biosensors recorded her landing. Some bruising. Possibly a broken ankle. Penetration began before the sensor feed was blocked. Presumably she suffered a Class B.”

Class B. Dragged into the bowels of the alien city to be savaged by tentacles and mechanical dicks. Andrea was the twenty-fourth such victim. Their final fates remained unknown. But it beat Class A, killed in action, a fate share by seven already. “Alright, Myra. Thank you.”

She waited, but Myra did not quickly turn to leave. “Something more, lieutenant?”

“Yes, Captain. We received a communique from Command.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “They’re sending someone from the inspector general’s office to make an evaluation.”

“Well hell,” Ruby grumbled. “Of course they are.”

“I don’t get it, Captain. No one’s found a way into Impregnos in three hundred years. Except Goldy Rodriguez, of course. Why would they think we can do it quickly? It’s only been a month!”

Poor Myra, so bewildered. And so ignorant. She didn’t get the classified dispatches. She didn’t know how badly humanity was losing the war. She didn’t know time was running out faster than they first thought. “Not that many have tried, lieutenant,” she answered. “The first explorers triggered the first round of traps in the maze and got pulled in. Stripped naked and gang banged by the machines and alien snakes. Two were spit back out a week later, covered in bruises and alien DNA, and four were never seen again. It’s not a great enticement for further exploration.”

“I suppose that’s true, Captain. Anyway, they’re sending Director Branson. He’ll be here in three days.”

Ruby’s fingers shook even before she could speak. A weaker glass would have shattered in her grip. “Dan Branson?”

“Yes, Captain. Problem?”

“Not for another three days! Oh, that asshole is coming here! Oh, they just can’t leave it alone, can they!”

“Yes, Captain.”

Fools! Morons! Ruby was trying to extract a psychologically damaged woman from an ancient alien trap-city, a woman who’d been gang-raped and left for dead for exactly the reason they needed her now, and Command was sending a man. A creepy, disgusting one at that. Dan Branson should have been barred for life from entering any room with a woman inside!

“We’re stepping up the schedule, Myra. I want another penetration attempt made today. Before eighteen-hundred hours. Send Tabitha Hendricks.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Dismissed.”

Now alone with her thoughts, Ruby could allow herself some slight indulgent loss of emotional control. She slugged back a swallow of gin and poured another. Dan Branson. The man that raped her and got away with it! In three days. Maybe he could meet with an accident. It would be the best thing she could do for the war effort.

At seventeen-forty, Ruby stood in the command tent, watching the monitors with the surveillance team. On the big screen, Tabitha’s helmet cam showed a high-resolution picture of her field of view. From the ground, it looked like a Medieval walled city. She gazed on it every day, just a little further away than Tabitha now stood. The single way in was just an opening large enough to drive a big rover into. The rest of the hundred-foot wall was unbroken. Nothing from the outside suggested more than an impersonal go-away vibe. “I’m approaching Impregnos now,” Tabitha said. “It’s kind of boring from this side.”

“Don’t get complacent,” Ruby said.

“That’s the last thing from my mind, Captain. I’m stepping around the first sensor zone now.” It would have been a short trip otherwise. No one was permitted in without memorizing all the previous known traps, mapped out by robot probes or by people. Some, like that first sensor zone, had been known for centuries, but her team was breaking new ground. They’d gone further than anyone else. Let’s see a team of men try this! She pushed her stray thought aside. Mostly aside. It was hard not to sneer. The average macho man learned that the traps included ass raping and suddenly they were keen to volunteer in the Crabs Nebula sector instead.

“Can we back the zoombots out another half-meter?” Tabitha asked. The two hovering drones stayed close, as programmed, but it was a new technique. Untested. “The hallway’s kind of narrow here.”

“Back them off,” Ruby ordered. “Give her some space.” They could afford a bit of a field learning curve. Tabitha strode confidently, albeit carefully, down the drab grey concrete passage. Seams every eleven feet told of ancient builders making some use of low-tech. No one had been killed or dragged off to eternal penetration in over a hundred years this far out. Every trap was known, and she stepped around the pressure points, around the infrared beams, and down.

With a cry, Tabitha dropped as the solid floor rotated downward around a pivot point on the right. Ancient mortar broke away as the trap triggered itself probably for the first time ever. But Tabitha’s fall was what held Ruby’s horrified attention. In the brief plunge, one of the drones dropped faster, shorted out and dead. But the other did its job. They’d have to go over the footage later. Only seconds passed. Tabitha clutched her head. Good thinking! Ruby’s sole positive thought was that maybe this time the helmet cam would survive. And it did. For their first time ever, they had video footage at the bottom of one of the many drop traps.

“Agghh!” Tabitha cried out. “My ankle!”

“Can you hear us, lieutenant?” Jan Mackay asked. She led the communications, and she did her job well.

“I… Yes. We’re still connected? I can hear you!” Now the footage showed the woman lying on a ground surface, flat, but surrounded by walls twisted and swirled. The cam fell off, but was intact, and recording from a few feet away. “What was that? Did you hear that?”

“We did not hear anything. Please describe,” Jan said in her cool tone.

“It could be too high to pick up?” Was that a question? “I’m hearing lots of them. Oh crap! I think I’m not alone here!”

“Get her out of there!” Ruby ordered.

“Hendricks, do you see a path out?” Jan asked. “Look around. And pan your helmet cam around. Show us what you see.”

“Right, yes,” Tabitha replied. She grabbed the cam, and for a moment the world swirled as she handled it. But when it stopped, everyone in the command tent saw what Tabitha Hendricks could not. A swirling cluster of tentacles waving about as it emerged from a hole behind her head.

“Check your seven!” Jan shouted. But their comrade’s scream told her enough. The camera footage only emphasized it. In the glaring light with the harsh shadows, it was hard to see, and harder still to watch. Tentacles gushed out of every hole and crevice in the chamber. The ceiling was not even four feet high, and there was no room. The other drone, the one Ruby nearly forgot about, showed only the first few seconds before it was enveloped in writhing, wiry flesh. Its power died in seconds. But the little helmet cam stayed on, dropped now, showing a blurred and grainy horror show as the slimy, shiny flesh vines wrapped around the lieutenant’s body. Bits of uniform flew off, torn or burned away

“Help me!” she managed to scream. “Colonel!” Ruby. But there was nothing to do. Bits of naked flesh, all still attached but increasingly denuded, flashed over the dim scene. Her muffled screams told the tale before her face flashed across the scream, mouth and nose stuffed with flesh vines, wrapped around her neck, her face. They didn’t need the rest of the story. No, they did. For completeness. But that didn’t make it any more palatable when her naked pelvis rolled into view, stuffed to the gills with tentacles in her cunt and in her ass, sliding in, ever deeper.

The camera stayed on, but it stayed unmolested on the ground. Tabitha did not remain. Whatever the tentacles were attached to had ideas. Her nude body slid out of view, down a narrow passage, then up some other unseen route and out of the camera’s view. Her frantic, pleading sobs echoed a few more seconds. But it was silent.

“Keep recording as long as the battery holds out,” Ruby finally said to the assembled and stunned team. It was the most detailed look they’d ever had of what might await the whole penetrative team. Await all of them if they grew desperate enough. The orders from Central were clear. Acquire Goldy Rodriguez from the ancient city known to human civilization as Impregnos and bring her home, even if every last servicewoman on the mission marched in to make the attempt.

“Life signs?” Ruby asked.

“Strong, but with elevated pulse and blood pressure,” Doctor Sylvia McNair said. “Cortisol levels, alpha brain wave asymmetry, endocrine, all off the scale. She’s being raped, colonel! Do you want the vaginal secretion levels?”

There was no answer to that. She could have reprimanded the doctor for her outburst, but sometimes silence was the wiser course. She was just expressing what everyone was feeling, the despair and helpless outrage at losing another one. And if Goldy Rodriguez were recovered now, they would leave the planet behind with no attempt at rescuing the others who might still live. “I want to see a new plan in the morning,” she said. “And find out what the fuck we tripped so close to the entrance! And why! We’ve got resources, ladies. We have equipment. Sensors. Weapons. Armor. We have every high-tech gadget humanity has ever invented, so let’s use them!”

Time to step out of the way.

Inside Impregnos, day and night didn’t matter. The inner city was visible to the sky. Their drones could see down into it, see the ordinary albeit alien structures. They’d even spotted Goldy a few times, waving the drones away. She appeared to be naked, but healthy and fit. Were it not for the incinerating force field covering the city in an invisible half-dome, they could simply land and extract her. But no. They had to go in the same way Goldy did. Until they found the route, they couldn’t even talk to her. Beg her to come out. Assuming she knew how.

At eleven hundred hours, rested physically but far from emotionally, Ruby sat watching the mission briefing. “We’ve determined what triggered the trap last night,” Pamela Hadley explained. The captain advanced to the next slide. “Having two escort drones triggered a new protocol, keyed to the communications frequency we used for the controller. We were able to record and analyze the trap signal, and it looks like there are between four and seven nested levels of contingency triggers.”

Pamela paused for questions, but none came. “It would normally take dozens of new missions to map out the trigger space, each with its own loss of personnel, but as we find this notion repulsive, we’ve rigged up a safety harness. Sergeant Benson will be the next mission commander. She’ll be vertically fortified by four guy wires hooked to compact lifting drones, so any gravity effects should be neutralized. Because we expect new traps, she’ll be in full armor for the mission.”

Lisa Benson was next. Ruby gave a nod. She didn’t know Lisa all that well, but she’d made a good impression so far. Now she stood facing the officers ensconced in so much hardened plasteel plating it was hard to see the woman inside. “Carry on,” Ruby said. At twelve hundred hours, they did.

“Passing the front passage now,” Lisa said. Three roving drones followed ahead or behind her, filming with wide angle shots, while a pair each of the thicker, louder lifting drones stayed close, tethered to the armor. “It looks like the last trap sealed shut again. There’s no sight of broken plaster here.”

“No surprise,” Jan Mackay replied. “They were aliens, after all.” Lisa walked on.

“We’re getting signal chatter,” said Gina Rose, from her panel. “The traps are adapting. I’ve isolated a no-go signal. It’s like they won’t trigger if the trap will fail.”

“That’s consistent,” Ruby said. The aliens were clever. Only three percent of triggered traps had been ineffective. Now Lisa made her way carefully down, past all the known triggers. In theory, it was six levels down, inward, and six levels back up. If there were more rings, they didn’t know about them.

“I’m seeing green light,” Lisa said. They were her last coherent words. With a scream, she shot upwards into a hole in the ceiling, dragging lifting drones behind her. For a few seconds her helmet cam caught walls flying past, and one of the coverage drones tumbled, catching a succession of images of Lisa in rapidly declining states of dress.

“No!” her cry came through. “Not.” “Back.” “No,” again. The images and sound cut off, but the too-familiar biomedical indicators shot upwards. The command staff sat in stunned silence.

“Those lifting drones,” Ruby finally said, staying calm. “Were they, by any chance, programmed to prevent only sudden downward movements?”

“We’ll adapt for the next round,” Specialist Latimore said.

“You do that, Tina. You do that. I think you’re doing the next round,” Ruby ordered before turning and leaving. As she stormed back to her tent, she felt the wave of doubts coming into her head. Was she punishing Tina now for a mistake no different than literally every other mistake anyone ever made trying to enter Impregnos? No, not this time. An upward directed trap should have been obvious. And they were all due to take their chances eventually. Maybe Tina would get the honor of contact.

Now she lay on her bunk, thinking, planning. There had to be a better way. There just had to be. Goldy Rodriguez was just too important for humanity to lose to a bunch of alien boobie-traps. Bad pun. What kind of perverted aliens built this place? Maybe the men were right to avoid it. Maybe their precious butt-hurt fears were keeping them safe. Maybe for once it was the men who were the sensible ones.

“That’s quite a pre-game show.” Ruby sat bolt upright. Someone snuck into her tent, but she saw no one there. It wasn’t that large or that cluttered. There was nowhere to hide.

“Who said that?”

“No one,” came the reply. She couldn’t pin down the direction. A woman, from her team? She should recognize their voices. And she did, but not from her team. From where? “Mission briefings. Ruby, right? Captain Ruby Lamarck?”

“Goldy!”

“You don’t have to speak out loud, Captain. I can’t hear your voice. Only your thoughts. But that’s your call. What are you doing here, Captain Lamarck?”

“We’re on a mission to extract you, Goldy. To rescue you, I suppose. Can you leave voluntarily?”

“You’re here for me? Not for the wonders of Impregnos, a city with all the charm and wit of Wichita? What are you doing here?”

“Listen to me, Goldy, this is important. We need to get you out of there. Humanity needs you.”

“That’s not the last message I received from humanity. You are were quite clear. A telepath has no place among humanity.”

“Listen to me.”

“Think about it. After all those centuries. Fables, myths, theater, psychic hotline frauds, carnival fortune tellers. After all the time people throughout history have put into pondering the subject of ESP, when one unassuming girl from Kansas is born with it, you smacked her down! You dragged her from laboratory to laboratory, jails disguised as hospital. And when she was granted the first glimmer of freedom, they raped her half to death and called it a blow for normals!”

“I really need you to listen to me, Goldy!” Ruby said, aloud. But the words were in her head too.

“No, Captain Lamarck, you need to listen to me. Listen, look, and feel! I insist.”

In an instant, Ruby was somewhere else. Teleported! What the hell had happened to Goldy’s powers that she could do that? Was she back on Earth? It looked like Earth. The architecture had the aged feel to it. And the misty rain leeching out of the air smelled of the Earth.

It even had the danger. She felt it before she saw it, danger. Come from behind. Shouted, angry words, and as she turned, she saw them. Only slowly, as the pack descended on her, did she connect the dots. She wasn’t hearing their voices, only their minds. And she didn’t turn because she wanted to turn. It made sense to turn around, but it wasn’t her.

With full visual, tactile, and auditory sense, with full everything, it was a memory. Goldy’s memory. Everything she saw. Everything she felt. Every telepathic sensation she’d felt on the night she was gang raped and beaten half to death. Only now it was Ruby’s turn. It felt perfectly natural, her turning back to run. She remembered the thoughts and fears as Goldy did. It was easy to miss that she wasn’t in control of the body, one that she now noted was much more top-heavy than hers. Goldy could have been a movie star.

Don’t do this! She couldn’t voice her terrors.

“Relax, Captain. You won’t need months of painkillers. You’re suffering no real injury. Now quiet down and take it. I insist.”

“Hey, girlie!” the men began. She looked back as she ran. As Goldy ran. They were faster, and there were eight of them.

“Oh please!” her non-Ruby voice whimpered as tears blurred her sight. Her final frantic burst of speed failed spectacularly. This part wasn’t in the official records, how she ran so fast she lost her balance and tripped sprawling onto the sidewalk herself, before they even touched her. But they touched her after that. As Ruby tried to crawl away, the first attacker kicked her ass with a flying leap, smacking her back into the sidewalk.

She screamed, hurting from the scraped up torn skin on her hands and elbows and knees. No matter. They were on her, words of mouth and mind flying at her faster than she could hear them. Cunt. Whore. All the usual. They had done this before!

“No, please don’t!” Ruby sobbed as they tore at her shirt. Her skirt. She was so underdressed for an attack! But eight against one was no fight. She was stripped naked in seconds, her torn clothing tossed every which way. One man grabbed her hair and yanked her upright, seated before them.

“You gonna suck me, bitch!” His voice ate into her ears. And she saw his blow coming. As he held her hair with his left, with his right he punched down, hard, smashing her cheek and jaw. She cried out as he pulled her hair harder. “You gonna suck me!” he repeated. Ruby just nodded, whimpering as they pulled her in eight directions. But the cock was there, in her face. Pressing at her mouth. And he was telling her the absolute truth! No, he was silent. His thoughts were there and he was too rabid to even say the obvious, that if she bit him he would pound her teeth with the hammer slung under his belt loop. And he would. She could see his intent in his thoughts. It was right there. And…

And he was hoping she’d try! He’d done this before, and as she took his cock in her mouth, she could see a previous girl, some Italian cunt. She’d bitten, or tried to. And he’d taken that hammer he kept around and smashed her neck with it! But the thoughts faded as her tongue on his cock head snapped him out of that pleasant flashback. She could feel his joy! They had her laid out on the ground, with her neck straining at his cock, but they went at her pussy and her ass, all at once! She lay sideways. It couldn’t be comfortable for anyone. But their satisfaction shone out brightly in their thoughts. The sheer power joy of raping some spic whore on a rich man’s avenue. At least five of them had some variant of that thought. Not the three Latinos among them. Such an integrated pack of gang-rapists!

She screamed. Their arm twisting had broken her right arm. The real part of Ruby’s mind remembered her arm was only dislocated at the shoulder. But in a minute or two…

So gross! Rapist’s cum filled her mouth. Salty, stinking of garlic and other shit. “Drink it, baby girl!” Swallow, and if not, he would use the hammer. She could puke it up later, but she tried swallowing. Coughing. Crying. And the overwhelming satisfaction that came from driving some bitch to despair from his cum. The sensation of a great cum and satisfaction of a job well-done flooded through her. It was good. Yes, good, to rape. So good to track some random cunt walking where she could be grabbed and smacking her down with cock and fist! So awesome to fuck the shit out of her like Jimmy was doing that moment and make her cry and teach the snotty piece of garbage her place! With cum in her mouth.

Everything agonized! Ruby had three orifices, all strained, filled, and she was a virgin in two of them. But no more. Scraped off skin, a busted arm. And such amazing, glorious triumph as they beat down that naked cunt bleeding all over the sidewalk! She saw the next part before it happened, the iron bar. Poor guy, Gene, waiting his turn. What was he supposed to do? Just stand there like a lemming waiting for sloppy thirds from the greasy little wetback? He had an iron bar for a reason, and what better reason than to back her kneecap. She did run, after all. Ruby screamed as the swing played out before the man did it, but he did it.

All the other pain blanched as he smashed her leg. Modern Ruby knew this was a real break. She’d walk again, eventually. But that pain! Just as some guy jizzed in her snatch, another win for the home team. Screams and guffaws mixed, but hers were louder. They could kill her! Another cock in her pussy. They were primed for gold. For Goldy. And one would not be enough. Raping a girl once was such a waste. Rape the bitches until our balls are drained for good. Otherwise why fucking bother? May as well let them walk home.

Ruby wailed as they went at her. And her received thoughts were right. It wasn’t bragging. They could shoot a few loads into her, each. When the engines revved that hard, there was no stalling out. Another cock filled her womb. More spunk. Maybe he’d knock her up. They didn’t. Modern Ruby had that much solace. They knew they were disease free, but Goldy would need tests to verify they weren’t wrong. That she wouldn’t carry a rapist’s baby. But they took their pain. Their cum. Cum in her belly. In her guts. Cum in her mouth, on her face. Cum in her eyes. Cum in her hair, half ripped out by their yanks at it. Cum on her tits before they flipped her on her belly and ground her chest into the rough concrete. Before twisting them, attacking her nipples. That one guy had pliers with him. And he was remembering the pliers. He was grabbing the pliers. He was placing the pliers. Ruby screamed with Goldy as he crushed at her nipple. The left one. He could squeeze with all his might if he wanted to. He could flatten it forever. Ruby cried out in agonizing terror.

Such a gentleman. He would consider it rude. Rude to future men who wanted to enjoy her tits. Rude to future rapists. Every man had a right to her tits. Pain, but no crushing. But let the whore think it would. “Yeah, bitch! Got the nip! Got the nip!” he yelled as he twisted the hand tool with her nipple caught in it. It was so funny! Watching the bloody slag weeping and bawling over her fucking little nipple. Shut the fuck up!

It was one of their best. They left Goldy bleeding outside the jewelry store. Someone would find her. Maybe they’d rape her bloody body. That would be good. Funny as fucking hell. But their intruding thoughts faded. Ruby was left alone with Goldy’s reality as she lay naked and wailing on the ground, crying out for help. Seeped in cum and blood. And what faced her? What would her ‘rescuers’ do to her? Cart her off to some examination? The rain had stopped. Nothing would wash her body. She’d be dirty. She’d stay dirty.

Ruby sucked in a deep breath as she returned to her command tent. She’d been sitting up, but now she fell onto her bunk until her balance returned. Goldy stayed quiet, for a few seconds.

“You were about to explain to me why I care about helping humanity, Captain Lamarck,” she said in Ruby’s head as she lay there.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby gasped. The pain was gone, but even false memories lingered in the brain. “I’m sorry that happened to you. But no one…” She stopped. She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Smart. You’re an intelligent woman,” Goldy said.

“I think your telepathy can go both ways,” Ruby said. “They didn’t know you were you. They were just raping whoever they found. They didn’t know you were the telepath.”

“The telepath. That says it all. No, they didn’t know. I know for a fact they didn’t know. But when they were arrested, they knew. Want to know how that went?”

“I know how that went, Goldy. I’m so sorry it did. They were arrested because you could name them all. And their lawyer challenged the use of telepathic evidence. Called it the fruits of a poisoned tree. But you’re not a cop, so that failed.”

“And was challenged up to the Supreme Court!”

“And at the trial, they argued that they couldn’t trust their own memories because you could have planted images to make them look worse than they are. In the police station, they confessed. They didn’t have the stamina or brains to try to tell a fake story. Their DNA was all over you. But they claimed that they remembered a worse version than actually happened. They claimed you made them think they were much guiltier than they really were.”

“And the jury bought it! Acquittal on all charges! For all eight of them! And the judge went along with it!”

Ruby didn’t say more. Not right away. “I’ve got dozens of women out here, Goldy. Some of them are also rape survivors.”

“Rape victims!”

“Semantics don’t matter. They’re risking, well, you know what they’re risking. What we all are risking to get you out of there. In a few hours, we’re sending someone else it. She’ll be tethered to eight compact lifting drones, with sixteen decoy drones floating around to defuse or trigger traps. She’ll have body armor rigged to incapacitate any electrical or mechanical traps. She’ll be wearing our best EM masking devices to hide her signature from any triggers. And there’s still a decent chance she’ll be dragged into Impregnos to be raped by machines and monstrosities! Do you control them? Can you stop the madness?”

Goldy snorted. “Ha! I control nothing. I didn’t come here to hide, you know. I came here to die! To be killed in a trap or to be raped non-stop until I die of thirst or exhaustion. I just ran in. I ran in on a suicidal death wish! I don’t care, captain! I don’t care about anything! But hey, there’s food. Water. I can be a hermit to a ripe old age. I don’t know the way out or the way in. Go away, Ruby. I just don’t care.”

“Well maybe you should care! Maybe you need convincing!”

“Oh? Really? What, you have some memories to share? Maybe I’m done listening now.”

“Yeah? What if I mentally scream it at you then?” Ruby said aloud. She could feel the connection. They were linked. For how long, she didn’t know. Now Goldy needed some new memories, ones that were not her own. And that meant…

It meant going where she didn’t want to go.

One year ago.

An eternity in the new history of mankind.

At Mission Control, Ruby watched on the big screen as the GHS Explorer closed in on the alien craft. The first alien craft, ever. The first first contact was about to unfold. “Don’t forget to breath, Lina,” Ruby said into her comm link.

“Thank you,” her little sister replied. “I don’t know how I could survive without you reminding me of basic autonomic functions.”

“I’m just saying, you get so focused.”

“I’m trying to focus now,” Lina said. “You know, on the alien vessel in front of us. So stop reminding me to let my heart beat. I’ve got an instrument panel to monitor.”

It was a real score, being teamed with her own sister as the Explorer met the alien craft. Everyone on board was direct linked to a member of Mission Control, for directions, information, and emotional support if needed. But Ruby was supposed to stay quiet unless she was needed. It seemed like she was needed. Lina should need her.

The Explorer’s captain, Henry Blaze, was the real star. He stood on the bridge, facing the view screen. Waiting. Hoping. The computers were desperately churning the translation algorithms, but it wasn’t clear if the aliens were even saying anything. The signals from the ship could have been anything. But in a moment of last, final hope, that one last minute of optimism, the Explorer’s big screen lit up. A video signal? Colors flashed as the computers tried to synch the signals to the correct resolution. A partial picture seemed to be forming. Structures. An interior. Movement. Alien bodies, twisted up in imaging circuitry.

Now sound came through. Garbled, by translation and by electronics. The latter was corrected first. Speech. At frequencies humans could hear. Alien speech. The translators sucked more power trying to run their permutations.

“Hello,” Blaze said. “On behalf of all humankind, I’d like to greet you, our new companions in this universe. We hope to meet in peace and in friendship. My name is Henry Blaze. This is my crew of the GHS Explorer. I hope you are willing and able to respond to us.”

More alien speech came through. The images were clearing. Ruby could see shapes cohering from the noise. Fleshy, but not human. Multi-appendaged beings. But they still flickered too much. The sounds came through clearer. Finally a green light indicated success. The first alien words in history came through.

“Non-sentient. Initiate body takeover.”

Ruby’s instincts were the same as everyone else’s at Mission Control, watching as every crewman on the Explorer stiffened and their faces blanked. “Lina! What’s happening!” she begged. All around her, the others did the same, trying to speak to their assigned double. “Lina? Can you hear me?”

Like robots, the crew stood up or sat down, or did whatever they needed to access the databanks of the Explorer and begin reviewing. “Verbal capacity,” Commander Gina Andrews said, for no obvious reason and speaking to no one.

“Brain functions. Confirmed, non-sentient,” said ensign Lauren Davies.

“Sexual reproduction,” Lina said. As third officer, she had a prominent place on the bridge. She stood up and began removing her clothes. “Unexplained covering. Female and male.”

“We’re still receiving neural telemetry,” someone at Mission Control yelled. Too loud. Too scared. “They’re conscious! They’re aware!”

“Male,” Captain Blaze said. He approached Lina as she finished stripping.

“Female. Demonstration.”

Now Blaze stripped down, and other crew aboard the Explorer did similarly. “Lina!” Ruby screamed. “Lina! Fight them! I know you can hear me!”

“Primitive excitation,” Blaze said as his cock stiffened.

“Mechanical fluid lubrication. Species is capable of sensation,” Lina replied. She lifted a leg, propping her foot on a console as Blaze approached her and stuffed his cock into her.

“Tactile stimulation,” he said. He began thrusting.

“Lina!” Ruby sobbed. She couldn’t guess the far future, but she could predict how this encounter would go. Around them, other crew set about transmitting data to the alien ship and opening all the doors and hatches available, pulling the contents of the ship out for study. Lina and Blaze stood fucking.

“DNA ejection,” he said.

“Fertilization probability inefficiently low,” Lina said as she stepped back. Blaze’s cum dripped from her cunt.

“Lina!”

“Results received. Confirmed,” said the translated alien voice on the comm channel. “Non-sentient species. Suitable for thralldom. Initiated.”

The link cut. The Explorer was alone. If it still existed out there, somewhere, Ruby had heard nothing from it. And she was cleared for such reports, if they existed.

“They’ve cut a swatch through humankind ever since,” Ruby said, still aloud, though Goldy presumably heard it. Depending on her telepathic abilities, she might already know what Ruby was going to say. “One year. Sixty-eight home worlds, including Earth. Eighty-one billion people. Lost. Enslaved. Taken over like machinery. Alive, screaming in their own heads as they’re shuttled off into unknown space. My sister.” She paused. “Your whole family.”

There was no reply. “Goldy? We need you.” Still no answer. Had she disconnected? Did she see any of it? “Goldy, we need you. We need someone to prove to these aliens that human do have sentient thoughts. We need someone who can meaningfully communicate with them! Goldy!”

“Captain?” It was Myra, and now she poked her head into the tent. “Everything alright, Captain?”

“Humanity is dying, Myra. It’s not alright. Nothing is alright. And we’re getting Goldy Rodriguez out of that city if we have to drag her out. I’ll chain her up and dump her in front of the aliens and let her use her mind to beg them for release. This is happening. Assemble the troops.”

***

Tina was going in out of order. They had mission specialists to serve as the first wave. Now she could barely suppress her whimpering as she faced her imminent inhuman rape. The setup was just as Ruby had described it to Goldy. The level of the traps’ ingenuity had gone up, so their response did too. There was hardly a woman in all the gear they had on her, and the layouts for the next five volunteers was being assembled. Now they had two days before Dan Branson showed up with his little piece of paper from the inspector general’s office he could wave around and assert his authority. Very likely he’d calculated the most likely date and time of success and arranged to show up just before that.

“I’m stepping inside,” Tina said as they all watched. She was nearly crying already. Images from dozens of cameras displayed her and her surroundings, and her helmet cam displayed what she saw. She kept her head, though, stepping around all the usual traps. Three times the lifting drones kept her body level with the surrounding ground instead of down, up, or sideways. The trap efficiency rate took a huge hit by the time she reached the spot where Lisa Benson vanished. Was she still alive? Was she alive and still being penetrated endlessly by tentacles and knobs?

“We’re getting infrared,” Specialist Martina Petrov said. She was Tina’s replacement at the station. “Scanning. Be sharp.”

As if they weren’t walking on eggshells already. But Tina continued forward. The suit took care of a lot of things. Trap after trap either did not trigger, or failed. They were making real progress. Ruby could relax. Maybe Tina would make it through, but even if she didn’t…

Most of the feeds cut out. “Massive magnetic field!” Martina cried. “Our drones are crushed!”

“Captain?” Tina cried. She spun around, looking for what was wrong. Her body arm was non-magnetic. But as she tried to get her bearings, hundreds of narrow wires flowed like water out of the walls around her, wrapping around her. Ruby couldn’t smell the sizzle, but she heard it as they cut through the body armor in seconds. Pieces flew outward, leaving just Tina in her underwear, and not for long. “No! Help me!” she shrieked as fleshy tentacles from above wrapped around her, ripping all cloth from her body. Her helmet cam, fallen to the floor, captured it all. The last image of Tina Latimore was an upskirt shot of her lifted up into the ceiling, without the skirt. Her naked body vanished into another hidden alcove of the bizarre and incomprehensible alien city. The bio readings continued for a few minutes. Penetration. The usual. Screams. Her rape was cut short as the readings ended. Short for them. For Tina, it was just getting started. Assuming it didn’t kill her or spit her out, she’d still be getting raped when Branson showed up in two days. Maybe she was the luckiest of them, not having to meet that toad of a man.

“Get some magnetic field generator drones rigged up,” she said. “Next mission is in four hours.”

***

Four hours. And another four hours. And another. Another. Another. It was easy to lose count. Ruby barely slept now. She finally reduced the turnaround time to three hours. Three. Three. Three. Three. She was blowing through her supply of women fast enough to make her dizzy. The statistics were appalling. Of the last ten she sent in, eight were Class B. Britanny Souter was lucky enough to be Class C. Ten hours later, she stumbled back into camp, naked, covered in ooze from head to toe. Her hair was caked in slime. Like a snail, her footprints left a trail of slime back to a spot on the outer wall where she seemed to have materialized, but she reported it was merely a hidden door. Or so she recalled. It was hard to see with her eyes covered in a yellowish glue-like colloid. Her sight would be fine. She could take another turn later. Ruby tried to not think about the Class A. It was the risk.

Time was up.

Not for humanity. Not for the mission. Just for Ruby. As was her duty, she stood waiting as Dan Branson’s shuttle touched down outside the camp. Oh, for lack of a mobile missile launcher. But she stepped up as the hatch opened.

“Inspector,” she stated. “Welcome to Operation Bunnyhop.”

“I’m sure you’ll be as welcoming as always, Ruby,” he said with a leering smile. It had been a few years, but the man was still taller than her, still fit. A bit thinning in the hair. Thinner overall, but food shortages affected everyone, even the leeches.

“If you have something to say, Inspector,” she began.

“I have plenty. I’m here to set this mission forward. That will happen. What I haven’t decided is whether or not to bring you and your little team of Valkyries up on treason charges!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Well, a little. Your team is safe. I’m prepared to comfort them if they feel down,” he said with an even broader leer. “But you, and Admire Beckwith, well, that’s a different story. This secret mission may have cost us dearly in time.”

“It’s classified! Why wouldn’t it be? Kate and I took every precaution!”

“Well, that’s not for me to decide today. Today, I’d like to see your team in action. Ready up your next sacrifice and show me what’s happening here.”

She could have punched him. He’d go down. Probably. Maybe. But she gritted her mind and teeth and nodded. “Right this way,” she said.

In the command tent, Branson and three of his aides stood back to watch. Male aides, Ruby noted. As if Dan Branson would ever trust or grant power to a woman. “You’re seeing lieutenant Wendy Bessman preparing for her mission,” Ruby said. Indeed, Wendy was already suited up. Her body army had the hardened outer plating welded on as they’d worked out. The suit was heavier now, but some powered leg units would respond to her muscles’ flexure to mimic proper walking. It helped that Wendy was a strong woman, a former track and field star. They were attaching the tethering to the lifting drones and prepping four groups of four drones to hold back at staggered intervals to intervene if needed. A buzzing, flying lattice of high-powered magnetic field generators had replaced the lighter observation drones, with cameras fitted to them at the last second. A final drone hovered, prepared to detonate a high-powered EM pulse to deactivate most electronics in the region if needed. Two reinforced oxygen tanks would roll behind her in case the air in the passages was compromised. Six flying drones carried tanks of sulfuric acid, and four more carried hydrofluoric acid to spray at any organic tentacles that might emerge. They still knew so little about the fleshy biology of the tentacled inhabitant of Impregnos, but there seemed to be more than one alien biochemistry involved, one resistant to sulfuric and the other to hydrofluoric. What was next? One immune to gravity?

Branson stood, reviewing the rest of the list of gear on or surrounding Wendy’s body. She was out by the entrance, so he couldn’t examine her live, but he seemed smugly satisfied. “Proceed at your leisure, Rubes,” he said.

“Proceed,” she said into the microphone. She held her breath. It might work. They had reason to believe it would work. There were only two more sections remaining, and the cleverness of the traps had been fading of late. Maybe Dan Branson would be there just in time to see the successful mission, one he couldn’t possibly take credit for since Wendy was already suited up when he arrived. There were so many ways it could go right. And so many more to go wrong. It took time, but Wendy made it to the last known trap, the one that sucked Amy Jensen up into the pit of metal probe rods a few hours ago. Her bio readings had lasted forty-five minutes before being cut off. Was it possible to die by orgasm?

“Passing the barrier now,” Wendy reported. “So far so good.” She took more steps. Then more. More still. “Thirty feet without a trap. Think they gave up, Captain?”

“Their hubris fails against humans, lieutenant,” Ruby replied. “Stay sharp.”

“Rounding a bend,” Wendy said. “Oh, this is. Huh.”

Ruby stared at the wall of flesh in front of them. It blocked the passage entirely. “May have to reroute, lieutenant,” she said.

“Gladly! Wow. This is, odd. It’s not a tentacle. I kind of looks like when you’re, um. Never mind.”

“Like you’re what?” Jan Mackay asked. “Oh, wait. I see it. Um, maybe flee!”

“What are you two seeing?” Ruby asked.

“Well, captain, you know how when you’re about to give head to that special guy, and you’re looking right at the tip of his, you know, like right in front of your eye, close up.”

Indeed. It looked like the tip of a cock head. And there was even a slit in the middle. Magnified. Several feet long instead of millimeters. And it began to vibrate.

“Get out of there!” Ruby screamed. Too late.

Wendy barely turned before the wall of flesh erupted. A stream of white goo several feet wide burst out, smashing into Wendy and knocking her back. Telemetry from the drones, the ones that weren’t crushed, suggested they were knocked back hundreds of feet, caught in a viscous fluid flow impossible to resist.

“Captain! Crushing pressure! Can’t breathe!” Wendy gasped. But she was breathing. Her face mask held.

“Second wave incoming!” Jan shouted. The readings on the screen showed it clearly, though no camera was showing more than blackness. A second spurt came out. And a third. “Captain. There are, there are things in the goo! Living things. I see them hitting my face plate. Oh my god! It can’t be! It…”

Her feed cut out. At least the audio and visual did. Her bio readings remained. Elevated heart rate. Blood pressure. And all the usual indicators. A few minutes later they watched the numbers showing that Wendy was being penetrated. Probed. And fully encased. Her surely naked body swam in goo, and the chemistry was coming in. Alien semen? Very likely. But she lived. Somewhere inside Impregnos, Wendy swam in a vat of cum as intruders poked and reamed her openings without mercy. The feeds cut off.

“Well, that was interesting,” Branson said. “You’ve all put a lot of work into this. I applaud your work ethic. It’s too bad your captain led you astray. I’m suspending this operation effective immediately.”

“Excuse me, but no!” Ruby shouted. “I have authorization from Admiral Kate Beckwith to run this operation to its conclusion.”

“And Kate Beckwith has been arrested for failure to follow proper chains of command. She informed no one above her about this mission! Now I’ll give you gals kudos for thinking of the Goldy Rodriguez solution. Very much so. But if you and the good admiral had not been so close-mouthed about it, we’d have Goldy in custody by now. So, operation Bunnyhug is over. Ruby, walk with me.”

“Alright, Dan, you’d better have a good explanation!” she began once they were in her command tent. He just smiled. And backhanded her across her jaw. She cried out and reeled back. But he stepped in, grabbing her shirt collar, and landing another punch to her nose.

“This is my explanation!” he sneered, flipping her over, and slapping a pair of handcuffs around her wrists.

“Stop that! Let me go!” she cried. But instead, she felt a knife edge at her throat. “Oh god!”

“Oh, quit your bitching!” he said as he cut her shirt away. And her bra. Pants. It all followed. A minute later, Ruby Lamarck, fleet captain, lay naked and chained at his feet. She lay face-down, weeping into the floor rug as the sounds of his pants coming off signaled her future.

“Not again! You cocksucker!” she cried. But he lay atop her, cock pressed in tight. To her ass. She screamed as he thrust inward. He must have come pre-lubed, because it slid in, tight and agonizing. “Gahhh!” she wailed as he began thrusting. Hard. Harder. In. Out. Ruby wailed under him as he ass raped her fast and furious. He must have been holding back for days. She wasn’t really into anal, but she’d tried it a couple times. It was alright, with other men. She might even get off if done right. But Dan just plowed hard and fast, shooting his cum into her bowels in a few minutes. She cried on the floor as he pulled out.

“I should make you lick me clean, but I don’t trust you won’t do something foolish and womanly,” he sneered, wiping his dick off on her pillowcase and then rinsing clean in her water glass. He was naked, but pulled his shorts back on. Only his shorts. He pulled her up, still handcuffed and naked, to stand in front of him.

“You and your buddy Kate had to make this mission your little secret. If you’d reported to Admiral Lopez, you would have learned that our people had recently worked out a theory of how Impregnos works. One that I’m convinced after today’s demonstration is the correct one!”

He shoved her out of the tent and followed. Still wearing only his briefs, not even shoes, he forced naked Ruby towards the outer gate, ignoring the women under her command who gathered in shock at the spectacle. “I’m declassifying this information right now, since there’s no way to hide it!” he announced. “We already figured out how to enter the alien city. In fact, a team of, shall we say, fleet-footed adventurers figured it out a century ago. You don’t charge in loaded for bear! You go in as humble as you can be! It’s like fucking a timid virgin. Go gentle, and she yields like room-temperature butter. Push too fast, and she might resist more than you can handle.”

“Inspector, what are you doing with Captain Lamarck?” Myra demanded.

“Proving what we already know. Return to your posts!”

“This is madness!” Ruby cried. “Stop him!”

“Anyone steps in and it will be a firing squad! This is war time!” Branson yelled. He shoved her further forward. No one stepped in.

“No, you’re wrong!” Ruby continued protesting as they approached the big door. “You men! You think you know everything!”

He laughed. It sounded too genuine. “You dumb bitch. How do you think we figured it out?”

“Not from a man. You all heard ass rape and took off for the hills!”

He laughed again. “Ruby, do you not have gay men in your universe? Kinky gay men? A bunch of them showed up over the years, stripped down, running in giggling like schoolboys. Not a one of them ever reported anything interesting. That was our first clue.” Now he shoved her past the doorway and into the passages.

“There’s a trap door. Right there!” she cried. But he just stepped on it and pulled her along by her hair. And again. And yet again. They knew the passages cleaned themselves up after each trap. The dim light, light that was never there when they brought in lamps, showed the way. Branson pulled her along, ignoring every recorded trap. Nothing tripped. Nothing even twitched. She stumbled along, pre-stripped and utterly helpless, but nothing came of any of it. Impossible! But there it was all around her. Untripped traps.

Without slowing, the total walk took about forty-five minutes. The last ten were through passages Ruby had never seen. They emerged into sunlight, standing in the inner city. The slight scintillation of the force shield high overhead made it clear. They were in the middle of it all.

And there was Goldy Rodriguez. Naked. Standing and waiting. She leaned against a light post about fifty feet away, scowling. But she walked over.

“Goldy Rodriguez, your presence is required for the war effort. I am taking you into custody,” Branson said.

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” she said. She turned and held her hands behind her. Of course, she knew his intent. He took the cuffs off Ruby and put them on Goldy, even tossing the key off away somewhere into a corner for show. Obviously, he had another one in his shuttle, or his pants. Maybe even on his orbiting ship. Ruby rubbed her wrists and fought back tears.

“That’s it!” she cried. “That’s all it took? All those sacrifices! All those losses! And you, Goldy, you knew this! You had to!”

“I ran in naked and ready to die. It was a boring attempt,” Goldy said.

“What about my girls! My people! The ones that were taken! What’s happened to them? Where are they?”

“I have no information on how the traps work,” Goldy said. She scrunched up her face for a moment. “Eleven are still alive, being violated even now.”

“We need to help them!” she shouted at Dan Branson. “We need to rescue them.”

“That’s not a priority, but I’m leaving a troop contingent here. They are ferrying down now.” He pushed Goldy towards the passage, leading her out. “Maybe they’ll have better luck. They will coordinate with what’s left of the team you brought here to their doom. But you’re under arrest and coming with me too. You’ll be tried for treason, Ruby. It’s all over for you!”

“No! No!” she cried. He wasn’t holding her. She turned and fled back to the center of the city. They could come for her if they wanted her. Naked, still dribbling cum from her pussy, she ran from him. Ran from all of them. The place was made up of structures. Former homes? Shops? Too much time had passed. She knew the layout as seen from above. She’d memorized it. She finally stopped, waiting. She heard nothing. He wasn’t following. He was taking their prize and getting the hell out of there.

“Captain Lamarck.” It was Goldy’s voice, in her head. “I don’t think your friend is returning for you, but he means it. You’ll be arrested. He’ll see you hang. I think he’d like to see you impaled on your pussy, and so does a lot of the higher brass. But there are a lot of secrets in that old city. Trust me. Lots of hiding places. Surprises. Lots of stuff I’ve barely scratched the surface of. Some of it is good. And the rest? Eh. Anyway, if a team of unarmed, half naked soldiers come looking for you, well, you have time. Make good use of it. A woman could hide out in there forever. Or at least, for the rest of her life.

“Don’t worry. I’ll try to talk some sense into the invading aliens. After all, I lived in one of their ancient outposts for several years. We’ll work something out. Or not. Good luck.”

[Darinost]

This was a fun story! I enjoyed seeing the different traps, and leaving their victims’ fates mostly to the imagination instead of spelling it all out was very effective. Would’ve been nice if one of Goldy’s reasons for running away was “because after the trial I slowly and painfully murdered the hell out of all eight of those bastards”, but c’est la vie.

Did I miss seeing the reason Ruby and the admiral kept the mission a secret? I would’ve liked to have seen that developed a bit more. There’s a slightly different version of this story in my head that I like, where it’s Branson running the operation and keeping it a secret for entirely selfish reasons, hoping to get all the glory and prestige of having conquered Impregnos. He’s carelessly sending in women to die, probably blackmailing others into sex with him to avoid being chosen. And then Ruby shows up to bitch slap him, strip him, and drag him into the city herself to demonstrate what a fucking idiot he’s been. The story probably ends with him trapped in the city center after the trips have been activated thanks to <insert reason here>, terrified to take even a single step for fear of what’s going to happen to him.

[SoftGameHunter]

This was a fun story! I enjoyed seeing the different traps, and leaving their victims’ fates mostly to the imagination instead of spelling it all out was very effective. Would’ve been nice if one of Goldy’s reasons for running away was “because after the trial I slowly and painfully murdered the hell out of all eight of those bastards”, but c’est la vie.

Did I miss seeing the reason Ruby and the admiral kept the mission a secret? I would’ve liked to have seen that developed a bit more. There’s a slightly different version of this story in my head that I like, where it’s Branson running the operation and keeping it a secret for entirely selfish reasons, hoping to get all the glory and prestige of having conquered Impregnos. He’s carelessly sending in women to die, probably blackmailing others into sex with him to avoid being chosen. And then Ruby shows up to bitch slap him, strip him, and drag him into the city herself to demonstrate what a fucking idiot he’s been. The story probably ends with him trapped in the city center after the trips have been activated thanks to <insert reason here>, terrified to take even a single step for fear of what’s going to happen to him.

Thanks! There are lots of versions that could be told for this one. As I mentioned in my intro, the setting isn't really even my own. I would have considered the premise too outlandish if I hadn't seen a master like Silverberg handle it brilliantly. It's perfect for Rube Goldberg. If you'd care to write your alternate, feel free. You can use these characters if you wish.

You didn't miss the reason the mission was secret. I just didn't want to fill up space with exposition that wouldn't really advance the story. In my head, they were simply being paranoid and seeking glory. They didn't trust the mission to stay secret, especially with a mind-controlling enemy, nor the bureaucracy to approve it quickly, or at all. So they made plans and kept quiet and failed to let people with higher clearances and more information make good use of their idea. The details are vague because I think it works that way.

[RapeU]

This is brilliant. All these methods at memorizing traps and tricks, only to realize later on that the traps learn just like they do, and all when they could have just walked in naked without intending to fight. I haven't read The Man In The Maze, and I didn't need to in order to enjoy this story.

[SoftGameHunter]

This is brilliant. All these methods at memorizing traps and tricks, only to realize later on that the traps learn just like they do, and all when they could have just walked in naked without intending to fight. I haven't read The Man In The Maze, and I didn't need to in order to enjoy this story.

Thanks. That's one aspect of the Silverberg novel I changed. Those traps were lethal and there was no laying down of arms to get around it. I think this was like that episode of Star Trek TNG where they spend the whole episode strengthening the shields only to realize in the end that the key to survival was turning them off. Come to think of it, throwing away your weapons to avoid the alien death ray is a common trope everywhere. Anyway, thanks for enjoying. I was a little ambivalent while writing it, but I seem to be getting a good reaction.

[Claire]

I think you nailed the Rube Goldberg aspect with this one, so kudos for that. I was wondering for a while what it would be, but it really clicked at the end. I think it's perfect to have the reader wondering at first but then it all makes sense.

I did not fully understand why only women went into the maze. I get the "the men don't want to be ass raped" explanation, but does that matter for a military unit? It feels like there's a piece of world building missing here that would help me make sense of this, but maybe that would be clearer if I was familiar with the story this is based on.

What I really like is the idea of a telepath being able to sense what her rapists think and feel why they rape her. I could see a nice story coming out of this where a telepath victim stops being able to differentiate her own feelings and thoughts from her rapists. That could breathe some fresh air into the tired trope of the forced orgasm.

I think overall I could have done with a few less rape scenes and a stronger focus on the remaining ones to give them some more narrative and emotional weight. Especially that final assault felt rushed after you build it up with saying earlier that he assaulted her before. We rarely have stories with victims getting assaulted a second time by someone who assaulted them a while ago already. I wish you would have gone more into the "reexperiencing past trauma" aspect here.

Overall, I liked it! The brutality can be a bit much and will probably speak more to some than it did to me, but that's very subjective. I find the scenario very creative and I really think that you delivered nicely on the theme. And for me, when judging a contest story, theme execution is one of the most important criteria for me, if not the most important one. Great entry for the contest! I can't tell you whether I'll vote for it yet, because I haven't read the other stories yet. But since I got two votes for 6 stories, I think your chances aren't bad.

[SoftGameHunter]

I try to use the writing principle that the author should build more of the world than ever makes it into print. But the downside is that sometimes I'll overlook something important or, in this case, I'll just have a vague idea of why things are the way they are and hope the readers can fill in their own gaps. In this case, it's a little of both. The unit on the mission is all-female because, in-universe, Ruby is not too keen on men lately, is extremely untrusting anyway because of the the nature of their enemy, and just has a large pool of supportive women she can draw on. Walking into an alien rape-trap with a bunch of men watching remotely could be distracting, so a single-gender team has some internal logic to it. And out-of-universe, I wanted a bunch of the ladies to be in sexual peril.

[LaLia]

I could practically copy Claire's post verbatim and agree with everything.

I would have preferred a bit more "plot" and less "sex," but in terms of theme and overall creativity, this is by far the best story in the competition for me.