The Last Of The Baraandi Part One free porn video

THE LAST OF THE BARAANDI 10 YEARS AGO, A SMALL TOWN IN WEST VIRGINIA... "KEVIN!" the man called out. "You better get your ass out here, or when I find you, I'll whip it off your body!" Kevin, who was hiding in a cave with an entrance so small that the man couldn't have gotten into it, remained silent. He expected that his father, the man calling out to him, would probably whip him anyway. At the tender age of seven, Kevin already had more scars on his back, butt, and legs than most would have in a lifetime, so the more the man called out to him, the tighter into a ball Kevin curled, hiding his face from the world. Eventually his father called out, "Fine! You can stay out here and freeze to death for all I care!" Although Kevin heard his father stomp off, it actually took a few minutes before he was able to loosen up and sit up. He didn't leave the cave, however. His father had found more than a few of his hiding places by pretending to leave and then grabbing him when he came out into the open. But freezing to death was a real possibility. It was getting dark, and in late autumn without the sun the nights were freezing cold. Problem was, Kevin wasn't sure he cared. As the sun dropped below the horizon and its last light came in through the entrance, Kevin shivered, trying to work up the will to actually go home. Before he made a decision, he heard a large cracking sound and was bathed in a warm, comforting light coming from deeper within the cave. He turned around, saw a near blinding light coming from a crack in the cave wall, and found himself reaching for it... PRESENT DAY, AN INTERSTATE BUS HEADED TO WASHINGTON D.C... April and her younger brother, Larry, climbed on the bus with heavy suitcases in hand. They shook on their feet as the bus started to move before waiting for them to find seats. They quickly stabilized and moved down the aisle until they found two empty seats together. There were three seats on each side of the aisle, and the third seat, the aisle seat was occupied by a pretty young lady about April's age, reading a book. April asked, "Excuse me, but are these seats taken?" The woman looked up from her book and said, "Not at all. Do you need help with your luggage?" "No, thanks. I've got it." April took her own suitcase and shoved it into the overhead rack, then took her brother's and did the same. The woman stuffed her book in the mesh pouch in front of her and stood up, and April and her brother slid in and sat down, Larry in the window seat. After the woman sat back down, April extended her hand and said, "My name is April, and this shy guy here is my brother, Larry." Larry said nothing, but did lean forward and waved a little. The woman took April's hand and said, "My name is Kendall. Pleased to meet you. So where are you headed?" "Up to Georgetown University. Larry and I will be starting classes there next week." "Larry, too? That's quite an achievement for one so young. How old are you?" Answering for her brother, April said, "He's fourteen." Larry quickly blurted out, "I'll be fifteen next month!" Kendall smiled. "Whether you're 14 or 15, going to college at your young age is pretty amazing." Larry said nothing but blushed crimson at Kendall's praise. "I'm headed to Georgetown University myself." "Really? You a freshman, too?" "Yeah, not sure what I'll be studying yet. Probably either business management or political science." "I don't know what I'll be studying either, but my brother wants to get a degree in physics. Were you lucky enough to get a room in the dorm? We weren't, but the housing people at the University tell me they've got some fairly inexpensive off-campus housing. If I'm willing to take on a few roommates, that is." "Actually, I didn't even apply for dorm housing. I hear those places get pretty crammed with people, and I don't do well with that many people around me unless I can guarantee myself some private time. Besides, I'd like to meet the one going to live with before I actually live with them." "So what are you going to do for living accommodations?" "I've already got a nice little three-bedroom house that I picked out. I bought it online." "You bought it?! Are you from a rich family?" Kendall laughed. "Hardly. I came from a dirt poor mining family, pun intended. But I'm a really good salesman. I have an instinctive knack for knowing what people want and need. Over the last few years I built up enough for a deposit on a house. I get a loan for the rest. Whatever roommates I get and I will split the house payment, just like it was rent. Then, when I graduate, I should, barring some huge drop in the real estate market, be able to sell it for a tidy profit." April said, "Wow, you've really got it all worked out," and looked to her brother. After a few seconds of silent communication between the two of them Kendall said, "You'd like to move in with me. Wouldn't you?" "Yeah. How'd you know?" "I told you. I'm good at knowing what people want. I'm also good at being able to assess people with a little bit of conversation, so I'd be glad to have you two as roommates." "You sure? We don't have a lot of money now, and I have no idea what the job market will be like. Because of his age most people won't even think of hiring Larry." "I'm not worried. I'm sure things will work out." The rest of the trip was spent with three of them chatting like old friends. At the bus station they caught a cab to the place Kendall had bought and spent the rest of the day moving in, including moving around a lot of furniture, which had already been delivered to the house. Afterwards they ordered in a pizza and spent a little longer chatting. Before long Larry excused himself and went to his room. Kendall said, "He's going to bed earlier than I expected. It's only 10:00 p.m. Most teenagers I know will stay up till midnight during the summer." April said, "Don't let him fool you. He'll be up to about one or two a.m. reading." "Well, he's definitely smart enough, but he seems awfully shy, painfully so. Maybe he shouldn't spend so much time reading, should try to socialize a little more." "Problem is, those books have come to be his only friends. Kids his own age aren't interested in hanging out with a nerdy genius, and kids of his own intellectual capacity usually don't want to spend time with a kid so young. If it weren't for me letting him tag along with me and my friends, I don't think he'd know anyone outside the family." "That must have caused its own problems. Didn't you or your friends mind him 'cramping your style'?" "Sometimes, but my friends were usually pretty good about it. They knew he wouldn't have much of a social life otherwise." "Weren't you ever jealous of him, of his intellect?" "When I was younger, but when we both got into high-school and I saw how lonely and isolated his genius made him, I was actually glad I wasn't as smart as he was." April looked at her watch. "Look at the time. If we're gonna get up early and check out the campus, we ought to get to sleep." "Good idea." The two of them stood up and stretched their kinks out. April found herself grunting as her muscles protested. "Oh, man, am I sore after all that moving and lifting, and to think I figured that all I'd have to do the first day was unpack some clothes. If I'm this stiff tomorrow the campus visit will have to wait." "If you'd like, there's a massage technique that I can use to loosen your muscles up some." "Do you? Right now that sounds heavenly." "You should probably get into whatever clothes you plan to sleep in. You'll probably fall asleep during the massage." "Well, okay. I mean, it's just us girls. Right?" The two girls went to their respective bedrooms. April got into some panties and an oversized T-shirt she used for sleeping. After just a bit more she heard a knock on the door and called out, "Come in!" Kendall stepped in wearing a sheer pink babydoll nightgown with a fake fur trim on its lower edge that fell just at the level of her crotch. With the exception of what was under that fake fur and the pink panties underneath, there was very little on Kendall's body that was left to the imagination. When April blushed Kendall said, "I'm sorry. Does this bother you? It's my lucky nightgown. That's why I chose to wear it tonight, my first night here. If my being so scantily clad bothers you, I'm sure I can find something else to wear." "No, it's just kind of a surprise, what with us knowing each other for only a day now." "Well, I just feel like I've known you for a lot longer than that, almost like we were sisters." "I feel the same way." "Shall we begin? You need to lie on the bed, face down." "Face down? Why not face up?" April teased. Kendall smiled and playfully replied, "Well, gee, I guess we could do that if you really want to, but don't you think we should kiss first?" April laughed. "But seriously, how do you want me to lie down? Spread eagle? Hands at my side?" "Whatever makes you comfortable. You should try to get really comfortable since, like I said, you'll probably fall asleep during the massage." April climbed on her bed, lay face down with her pillow bunched up under her head, and said, "Okay." Kendall sat on the bed beside her and started to massage her shoulders. As soon as Kendall's fingers touched her, April felt the tension drain from her body. It only got better as Kendall worked her way down April's back getting April to say, "That's nice," with a sleepy slur to her voice. Just as April began to drop off to sleep, she felt the back of her panties pulled down and something shoved into her ass. Before she could even sit up, much less object, the thing in her ass suffused her with a warm, comforting energy, and she immediately fell asleep, quickly falling into a dream. Kendall leaned over and gave April of friendly kiss on the cheek. "I'm sorry. I really am. I hope you can forgive me when you wake up." Kendall returned to her room. On top of the bed was a suitcase. It was unzipped, although Kendall had returned the cover flap to a position where the contents of the suitcase couldn't be seen. She walked over and flipped the cover up, exposing dozens of crystals that lay within. Each crystal was a perfectly formed hexagon, approximately five and half inches in length. Each crystal was also so exactly like the others that it seemed painfully obvious that they weren't naturally grown crystals. Kendall waved her hand over the crystals. When she stopped waving, one of the crystals literally jumped up from the suitcase right into her hand. Kendall reached behind her, tucked the crystal under the elastic of her panties, and repositioned her nightgown so the crystal couldn't be seen, even from behind. She walked out of her room and down the hallway between the bedrooms to Larry's room. She knocked on the door and waited for Larry to call her to come in. When she entered Larry was sitting in bed with the blanket pulled up to his waist, his knees pulled up, and a book lying open on his legs for reading. When Larry saw her in her nearly see-through nightie he blushed a deeper shade of crimson than his sister had and buried his face in the book that he had been reading. "Oh, geez, I thought you were April. I didn't mean to see you in... that. I'm sorry." Kendall gave a light hearted chuckle that helped put Larry at ease. "Don't be silly. If I minded people looking at me when I was like this, then I wouldn't have come in. Go ahead and look. I'm not ashamed of my body. Besides, I'm a bit of an exhibitionist, so you'll probably see more of me than this." Larry began to squirm as he thought about seeing Kendall in even less than she had on. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm making you nervous. You're probably not used to anybody being so casual about nudity." "Not really. So where's April?" "Fast asleep. She was feeling a little tight after all the stuff we did today, so I gave her a massage, and now she's sleeping like a baby. Speaking of which, how do you feel?" "I feel fine. April really wouldn't let me do as much as either of you. Sometimes she..." "She treats you like you're four instead of fourteen?" "Yeah." "Don't worry about it. She's just concerned about her baby brother. Wait until you start dating. Then she'll probably become totally intolerable." "No worries about that. Girls don't want to date somebody as young as me." "I'm sure we can find somebody for a cute, young gentleman like you. We might have to check at some local high schools, but we should be able to find somebody." "I'm not really interested in high school girls. I usually don't have anything in common with them." "Well, maybe there will be somebody like you at the college, a girl genius ahead of her time, or maybe we'll find a younger freshman willing to date someone a few years younger than her." "You think so?" "Anything is possible, but if we really plan to start looking, then we better both get to bed. You going to be able to get to sleep?" "I can certainly try." "Here. Why don't you turn over? I can give you a massage just like your sister." "That's okay. I... wasn't going to go to sleep immediately." "You were going to handle your little guy?" When Kendall pointed at his crotch, Larry turned a bright red again. "You really ought to put that off till tomorrow. It is getting late. Besides, after you see a bunch of college girls, you'll probably have more than enough to fantasize about." "Maybe, but I don't think my 'little guy' is just going to go away on his own." "I bet he will after one of my massages." "How much?" "A betting man, are you? Alright, if you're not asleep after 15 minutes, then I'll take off this top and let you see me in nothing but my panties." "Okay, but what if I lose? What if you get me to fall asleep?" "I'll let you pick, with my approval of course, since I know you're going to have to pay it." Larry thought about it for few seconds, then said, "Okay, how about if you get me to sleep, then I'll wear your panties all day tomorrow." "Does your sister know you're that kinky?" When Larry blushed again, Kendall said, "Just kidding, but if you make this bet, and I win, then you will have to follow through on it, so now is your last chance to back out." "I'm not gonna back out, 'cause I know you're not gonna win." "Okay, but just remember, it was your choice. Turn over and lie on your stomach." Larry got on his stomach. Considering the way he had to reposition his penis, he figured staying awake would be easy, but when Kendall started rubbing his back he immediately relaxed and started to nod off. He became so focused on trying to stay awake that he barely noticed his pajama bottoms being pulled down. He was briefly shocked awake when something was shoved into his ass, but he was immediately suffused with a warm, comforting energy and quickly fell asleep. As Larry began to dream, Kendall went into the main area of the house and stripped off her nightgown and panties. Standing there she wondered what Larry would've thought, would be thinking when he saw it, of her own penis, which was now hanging free. She took a seat on the floor and crossed her legs in a Lotus style position. She closed her eyes and entered a meditative trance. She reached out with her telepathic abilities to lend comfort to April and Larry. Hopefully she might also be able to figure out why she felt compelled to do what she had done. A DREAM OF A TIME LONG PAST... April dreamed. The dream was something she normally never would've thought about, but she dreamed it nonetheless. She was a member of an alien race, traveling through space, and they were in trouble. In that way that dreams have of imparting knowledge without actually explaining it, she knew that she was both helmsman and the second in command to the entire ship. She also knew that they were being chased by the Larkoss. She knew that her race was called the Baraandi. The Baraandi had been the head of an interstellar federation. With their psychic powers they were able to lead in a just and wise fashion, knowing when laws needed to be changed and changing before oppression and stagnation set in. When they encountered space faring races of a tolerant and open mind set, the new race would be welcomed into the federation with open arms. When they encountered space faring races bound and determined to rule through fear and conquest, the opposing race was neutralized and isolated until they became more open in their ways. It was a system that had worked for over 2000 years. Then they had encountered the Darkthet. The Darkthet, like many races before them, were a race of marauding destroyers, conquering what they could and doing their best to destroy what they couldn't. And like the many races before them, when they encountered the Baraandi, the Darkthet did their best to destroy the Baraandi, only to find themselves trapped and isolated in their own system of planets. Normally, after being forcibly isolated, the marauding race would eventually come to a more open way of government. Either exposure to the Baraandi would convince them of its benefits, or the forced isolation would spark an overthrow of the dictatorial governments. It was a process that sometimes took decades, but it had always worked before. But the Darkthet were more belligerent than any race before them. When they found themselves trapped in their own system, the government set their research and development to finding new weapons to allow them to break free. Time and again, they had been foiled, until they invented the Larkoss. The Larkoss were a biologically engineered life form created for one purpose: to destroy anything the Darkthet sent them against. The Larkoss ate anything organic, converted it into almost pure energy, and used that energy not only as fuel, but as an offensive weapon against their foes. They were the perfect weapon against the Baraandi. The Larkoss were too large to be controlled directly, either by Baraandian telekinesis or by bio-manipulation, except when the powers were used in groups, their brains were too simple for telepaths and empaths to even contact, and being organic themselves, the Larkoss were immune to cyber-empaths. Worse yet, the Larkoss always traveled in swarms. The weapons of a destroyer or battle cruiser could do enough brute force damage to deal with a few, but the Larkoss never came a few at a time. Once they were set loose, the Baraandi had no real defense against the Larkoss. With their new weapon the Darkthet might have been able to take over the Baraandian Federation, but they made one crucial error. They were as cruel and brutal towards their creations as they were towards any other race, and the Larkoss, being organic, evolved. The original template for the species included controls hard wired into the Larkoss' neurology that allowed the Darkthet to dominate them, but after just a few generations, those controls were gone. The Larkoss turned on their abusive creators and destroyed them utterly. Then, with no controls whatsoever, they swarmed over all of civilized space like locusts over a field of grain. A thousand races were in danger of extinction from the Larkoss swarm. Knowing they were doomed, the Baraandi and their subject races did the only thing they could. They fled. Using experimental warp drives, everyone fled their home planets in colony ships, each ship with a half- dozen destroyer escorts. Each planet sent out as many ships as it could, but billions still died. The new warp drives traveled faster than anything previously designed, and the Baraandi hoped that they would be able to out run the Larkoss. But the drives had been placed into service before they had been fully tested, and the drives had a small problem. The drives did indeed allow their ships to travel far faster than before, but they also caused the ships they were equipped with to create a worm hole starting from wherever the drive had been engaged, and ending wherever the drive was turned off. When the colony ships and their escorts emerged in new solar systems, they found themselves swarmed by Larkoss who had followed them through the wormholes. The only real advantage to the new warp drives was discovered when the ships tried to get away again. The new drives required a cool down period after being deactivated before they could be reactivated, a cool down period they didn't have, and when one of the destroyer escorts tried to restart the drive anyway, it exploded, destroying the ship, but creating a large field of particulate matter that the Larkoss couldn't enter. The Baraandi fleet of which April's ship was a part used local space maneuvering systems to flee into the heart of the solar system they had arrived at. When the Larkoss gave inevitable chase, the destroyer escorts, one by one, exploded their drives in order to keep their opponents at bay. This went on until there were only two ships left, April's and the colony ship. All this April knew, even before a second of her dream had passed. April was sitting at the helm of the bridge of her ship. The layout of the bridge was strangely similar to a Star Trek ship. Various crewmen at various consoles ringed the backside of the bridge, and the captain's chair and the main helm sat in a recessed pit in its center. At the front of the bridge, taking up the entire wall, was the main view screen, currently showing space around them as they flew through the solar system. The only real difference was that the helmsman sat alone at the front of the bridge, the navigator being one of those positions along the back wall. April's four fingered hands flew across the console as the ship shook from the energy barrage that the Larkoss were spitting at them. After a particularly harsh blast, the captain called out from behind her, "Communications, get me Admiral Keylock." In less than a second the screen switched views to show an image of another alien, thin, bald, androgynous, and big-eyed, an image that April knew as Admiral Keylock, who she knew was aboard the colony ship. Her captain said, "Admiral, have your ship pull out in front of us. We'll start to drop back and then we'll detonate our core at the right time in order to maximize your head start." The admiral replied, "Negative, Captain. I've discussed it with my consultants and come up with a different plan. We will detonate our core. If you fly through the resulting explosion as soon as you can, it will coat the outside of your ship with enough particulate matter to screen you from the Larkoss' senses." "It will also fry every system on the ship." "Yes, I know. My tactical officer is telling me that the fourth planet of the system has life. With your ship temporarily covered, the Larkoss will turn on the planet and strip it bare. Manual controls will allow you to crash into the third planet, whereupon you will need to go completely dead in the water, turn all systems down to bare minimum. The Larkoss, sensing nothing to feed on, should leave the system, and you, hopefully, will be able to repair your ship." April was shocked and could sense the shock coming from everyone on board the ship. The captain asked, "You would sacrifice a planet of life to save us?" "That planet is dead already, Captain. This system is going to be our graveyard, and once they have dealt with us, the Larkoss will move on to that planet. Since there is nothing we can do to save it, we might be able to use its death to our advantage." April had to admit it was a sensible plan, even if every fiber of her being screamed it was a sick, abhorrent thing to do. The ship took another heavy hit, and the captain said, "Then we can sacrifice for you. You can fly through our explosion." "Negative. My engineer informs me that the detonation of your core will be unlikely to generate enough particles to coat our larger ship, and even if it does, we would never survive a crash landing. As it is, it will take every essence of power and skill that your helmsman has in order not to become a smear on the side of the planet." Both ships were shaken by another attack from the Larkoss. The admiral yelled, "Enough! We don't have any more time! Captain, I am ordering you to prepare your ship for the plan I detailed." The captain brought his hand up and spread his fingers wide-open, the Baraandian equivalent to the salute. Solemnly, he said, "Go with God, Admiral." The admiral brought his hand up in a counter salute. "If He will forgive me for what I must do." The screen switched back to local space, and the captain said, "All right, engineer, I need minimum safe distance for when that core explosion occurs. We can't afford to be any further away than we have to be. Helmsman, once you get that distance, coordinate with the colony ship helmsman so that, when the explosion occurs, we can fly right through it and continue on in the safest path possible for a crash landing on the third planet. After we crash, everyone should be prepared for an emergency shut down of all but the most vital systems." April did as she was ordered. As they flew past the orbit of the fourth planet, she yelled, "Get ready!" Suddenly, the tactical officer yelled, "Oh, my God! Captain!" The captain yelled, "Not now, Tactical!" Before anyone could say or do anything else, the colony ship exploded. April shoved the destroyer into high gear, and they lurched forward. Tactical yelled again, "Captain!" Once again, the captain yelled back, "Not now!" They passed through the explosion of their sister ship, and power immediately ceased throughout the ship. Emergency power came back on in a couple of seconds, but that wouldn't be enough to fly on. A couple of joysticks, the emergency manual controls, popped up on the sides of her chair. She quickly grabbed them and devoted everything she had to trying to control the descent of the ship. She was so focused on her task, that she barely heard tactical yell, "Captain!" In angry frustration, the captain asked/yelled, "What?!" The tactical officer, in a voice that cut through all interference, said, "The planet has life!" April felt both wonder and tragedy. Wonder because in the hundreds of thousands of systems that the Baraandi knew about, only a few dozen thousand had life, and none of those had two planets capable of supporting life. Tragedy because the Larkoss would strip both planets, leaving them lifeless hunks of rock. She heard the captain say, "God forgive us. What have we done?" There was nothing really to be done. This close to the planet, the Larkoss had already detected the life. The only reason they had held off destroying the life was because they had judged the Baraandi destroyer a primary threat. But if the plan worked and the Larkoss couldn't see them, the Larkoss would immediately turn to destroying not one, but two worlds. April's ship descended fast. It took every bit of her concentration to keep the ship from shattering into a thousand pieces when they crashed, but somehow she managed it. The landing was rough, but everyone survived. As soon as he could talk the captain yelled, "Tactical, tell me what's happening!" The engineer, thinking that the captain wanted a damage report, which was his province, started saying, "Main power still offline. Shields-" "No! What's happening outside?!" The tactical officers said, "Main sensors are still off. Backups are also down the. Emergency sensors-" "Put what ever you see on main viewer!" The main viewer came on showing a nearby scene. Large, lizard-like creatures were being attacked by the Larkoss, large, crab-like creatures with glowing red eyes. April knew the Baraandi had no word for the creatures that the Larkoss were attacking, but she did: dinosaurs. In seconds, she watched the Larkoss destroy an entire herd and of what she guessed were brontosaurs, although dinosaurs were never her thing. She turned and asked, "Can't we do anything?" The engineer asked, "With what? Almost all systems are down. We've got emergency power only." The captain pondered it for a few seconds, then said, "Engineer, can we set the warp core to explode, then eject it so it blows in the upper atmosphere?" "Yeah, but why?" "If the explosion can send those particles far enough, then maybe we can save at least a little of this planet's life." "But without the core we'll never be able to get anything but emergency power. We'll be stranded on whatever is left of this planet." "To save a life planet? It'll be worth it." The engineer hesitated, but eventually said, "Yes, sir," and set himself to the task. After pressing a bunch of buttons, the ship shook with the warp core's ejection, and the engineer said, somewhat unnecessarily, "It's done." He looked at another of his screens and said, "Core explosion in three... two... one..." The entire ship shook with the force of the explosion, and even emergency power went down. After a few seconds of absolute blackness life support came back with a hiss, followed shortly thereafter by the lights. The captain yelled, "Tactical, can you show me what's going on?" "All sensors are down. I'll try to switch to back up." After a little bit the main screen came back on. The scene was one of more dinosaurs being attacked by the Larkoss. As they watched a wave of purple particles spread over the scene. The Larkoss immediately fled. Of the dinosaurs remaining, many were hurt, some so badly they would die, but without the Larkoss, they at least had a chance. The captain slumped into his chair and said, "At least we saved a portion of this planet." The tactical officers said, "Maybe more. Scanners are showing the particles diffusing themselves throughout the atmosphere. They're showing Larkoss leaving the planet all the way out to the full ten thousand mile extent of our sensors." The internal security officer said, "Now we determine the defense to use against the Larkoss? Why couldn't we discover it before we were forced to abandon our galaxy?" "I'm not sure it's a defense we could've used. Those particles are starting to darken the atmosphere. Not only are they starting to block out sunlight, but they seem to be causing the planet's cloud cover to thicken and darken." Looking up from his display, the tactical officer said, "I think we've started a nuclear winter." The captain said, "The planet will survive a nuclear winter. It would not have survived the Larkoss." The engineer asked, "But what about us? Without a warp core, we won't have the power to survive a nuclear winter." "Let's not start jumping to any conclusions. Engineer, get a full damage report. Get vital systems up and running first, then get sensors up. If the nuclear winter only extends over this side of the planet, we should be able to get engines up, and then limp to more hospitable surroundings." "What do we do if the nuclear winter spreads planet wide?" "Then we'll need to use the life chambers." The life chambers were something April knew about without them having to be explained. A Baraandi would touch one of them and the life chamber would absorb their experiences, emotions, and life energy, everything that made a Baraandi a Baraandi. The theory was that eventually another Baraandian ship would come along to retrieve the chambers and return what was inside to the families. It was the Baraandian way of saving bodies, although the actual bodies would be destroyed. "But... we could be the last of our race. If we use the life chambers, who will be there to retrieve us?" "Possibly no one, but 75.6% of all life bearing planets have at least one species develop sentience. Let us hope that species comes soon and that they develop the technology to properly merge our life forces into this planet's biosphere." "What if they don't develop that technology?" "Then we'll have to merge with that species. Our life force and knowledge will become a part of the beings we merge with. Hopefully, whoever we merge with first will be trustworthy enough and will find others of the same ilk, and then they can help lead their planet into a new era." "What if that species never comes along?" "Well, our scientists say those life chambers are supposed to last almost a billion years. That should be more than enough time for a new species to come along." "But-" "Engineer, if you have a better idea, feel free to state it now." The engineer stewed a bit, but remained silent. The captain placed his hand on the engineer's in a comforting gesture. "I'm not looking forward to death any more than you are. As you said, we may very well be the last of our race. We will expend all other options before using the life chambers. Now let's get to work on those repairs." In April's dream days passed in seconds. They got main sensors up, which turned out to be less boon than bane. They watched as the swarm of Larkoss turned the fourth planet into a barren dust ball. They also found out that the nuclear winter they had started did indeed cover the entire planet. And they also discovered that the Larkoss knew they were there. April, the captain, the engineer, and the tactical officer stood at the tactical display. The tactical officer pointed to a bunch of dots on the screen and said, "The Larkoss have settled in on the asteroid belt just outside the fourth planet and gone into a state of near catatonia. We can barely detect them, and only because we know what to look for." The captain asked, "Why haven't they left yet? If they can't detect the life on this planet, then they ought to be moving on to find food elsewhere." The engineer said, "We can't be sure, but near as we can figure, when the particles from the warp core explosion diffused themselves throughout the atmosphere of this planet, they were no longer thick enough to block the senses of the Larkoss. The Larkoss may not be able to reach the life on this planet, but they know it's here, and apparently, they're prepared to wait." "How long have we got? How long until those particles lose the power to repel the Larkoss?" "For good or for bad, quite a while." The engineer pressed a button and called a number from his own computer, a number in excess of 400 million. "According to my calculations, that's how many yearly cycles this planet has until the Larkoss can land and ravage it." "And the Larkoss are prepared to wait that long?" The engineer waved his hand in a circular motion, the Baraandian equivalent to shrugging. "We don't know enough about the Larkoss to say, and their creators aren't around to tell us." The scene flashed forwarded again. After a few days of trying, they determined that there was no immediate solution to their current condition. Without the warp core there wasn't enough energy to even try to salvage the ship, and with them being at the center of the most severe storm of the nuclear winter, life support would last less than one year, even if they cut it down to absolute minimums. They had no choice but to use the life chambers. April saw a scene where the crew members stepped up to crystals that came up to the waists of the Baraandi. The crystals were perfect hexagons coming to a point on both ends. Each Baraandi in turn grabbed a crystal, their bodies below the, and then the glow traveled through their arms into the crystal. The body then dropped through a trapdoor and out of the ship. Normally the body would be disintegrated, but they needed to conserve power. As the Baraandi went to their final rest, this scene faded as April woke up. AT THE HOUSE, 2:00 AM... April woke and started to sit up, being interrupted by the feel of whatever had been pushed into her butt. She reached back and removed it, being only moderately surprised to find that it was a crystal that looked exactly like the Baraandi life chambers. In that instant she knew that what she had dreamed was real. She had seen the last days of the Baraandi, from their flight from the Larkoss to their final sacrifice in hopes that someone would come along to save their remains. Thinking about the Baraandi life chamber in her hand she got certain impressions from it. It felt empty, hollow. Somehow she knew that there was no longer any Baraandi life force within it. She, on the other hand, felt like she was ready to explode out of her own body. Without any real proof or explanation, she knew that the life force of the Baraandi helmsman had merged with her own. Her memories and abilities were now hers. April stopped, realizing what she had just thought. She was April; she was Quillthana, Baraandian helmsman and first mate aboard the destroyer class starship Orgetlose. No longer was there a difference between the two. Although it would take her mind time to sort and prioritize both lives, both sets of memories were there. She knew that Quillthana and she had just become one person, but at the moment, it felt as though she had lived the life of the Baraandian, then been reborn as April, a human girl. She got up and went over to the mirror. The face that looked back at her was basically the same, although the infusion of Baraandian life energy had made some minor changes. Her skin now seemed younger and fresher. Her breasts also seemed a little "fresher" as well. They rode a little higher on her chest, having reversed the downward pull gravity had exerted on them since they had begun growing in. The most notable change, however, was that the hair all over her body had grown out. The hair on top of her head was almost a foot longer, her eyebrows were bushier, her leg and armpits seemed as though they hadn't been shaved in over a week, and even her fingernails and toenails seemed to have turned into claws. The last seemed a little weird to her, considering that the Baraandi had no body hair, but her Baraandi memories held the answer. Raw life force tended to stimulate growth, particularly of hair and nails. It was perfectly healthy growth. It was just that with the introduction of the Baraandian life force to her body the growth had simply been fast and unchecked. She almost started looking for her nail clippers, but then decided to put some of the abilities from her Baraandi life to work. She lifted her hand and telekinetically clipped and shaped the nail. After she finished her fingers, she did her toes, then she telekinetically shaved her armpits and legs. Finally she trimmed and styled her hair. She left it longer than she had it before, feeling that, if necessary, she could always remove more later. After she finished she considered her new abilities. She had been trained to use all her new abilities, telepathy, empathy, telekinesis, cyber-empathy, and more, to some extent, but Quillthana had really trained her abilities in order to specialize in her chosen career, first as a ship's pilot, then later in command school. The fine control she exerted in order to clip her nails was one of those things that all Baraandi were taught how to do. Her telekinetic skills were such that she could take control of the physical mechanisms of a vehicle, so that if control, or worse yet, power, broke down, she still had a chance of keeping the vehicle from crashing. Her cyber-empathy skills, interacting with and understanding machines with a touch, were also fairly good, as were her telepathy and telepathic command skills. However, her real skills came in the area of sensing the world around her, particularly when it came to sensing large-scale effects. Trying them out she realized she could focus her attention on almost any point within the city, allowing her to peek into any room anywhere. After playing Peeping Tom a few times she extended her senses to their fullest extent. Past the city limits she really couldn't focus on any one particular thing, but large effects were well within her purview. She could sense the way the very atmosphere flowed through the city and over the countryside, indeed over the very planet. She could sense magma flows, solar winds, and even the magnetic field around the planet itself. Pushing herself to her extreme limits she could even sense the movement of the planets around the sun. Mercury and Venus were both easily sensed. Although a good chunk of Mars' orbit was within her sense range, the planet itself was far enough away that it couldn't be sensed. April wasn't sure she wanted to sense the planet Mars. The Sci-fi nuts were right. The planet Mars did once have life, although it had been barren for millions of years now. Sensing the barren dust ball that Mars had become would probably bring back too many painful memories. Then she sensed them. The Larkoss. The asteroid belt was within her range, and, although she couldn't focus on any one particular asteroid, she could sense the life force of the Larkoss throughout it. Although she didn't think that the Larkoss would be able to sense her with her senses has spread out as they were, she quickly withdrew any way, just to be sure. When she got her senses back to a more local level she found that she was most comfortable with her senses a little further out. In much the same way that she used to walk into a room and take a look around to see what was there, now she found herself "looking" at everything in the house, in the neighbors' houses, the street outside, and everything else up to about 60 to 70 yards. Within her house she sensed both Kendall and her brother. She sensed that her brother was bonding with a Baraandian of his own, and she could actually sense that it was the engineer. She could "see" that Larry was actually experiencing the same dream she had, almost as though what thoughts passing through his head were a movie that she could watch. She could also sense a tendril of attention coming from Kendall. Focusing her attention on Kendall, April became aware of the fact that Kendall was a shemale, that Kendall was bonded with the Baraandian captain, and Kendall had been bonded for many years now. April tried to look at Kendall's mind as she had just done with her brother's, but found that Kendall's mind was thoroughly shielded. She knew that Kendall sensed her, and then she heard Kendall's voice in her head say, "I'll tell you all you want to know, but we should do it when we're all together. Your brother is just finishing up now. Why don't you go get him. I'll wait here." April decided that that was as good a thing to do as anything, so she went into her brother's room and waited as he recovered and blinked himself awake. April looked down on him and said, "Morning, sleepy. Welcome back to the land of the living." Larry didn't respond to her, instead reaching back and pulling the life chamber from his rear. Without doing anything more than tilting his head up to face his sister he said, "It was real." The statement held some amazement, but there was no doubt in it. "Yeah, and now Kendall wants to talk to us. She says she's willing to tell us whatever we want to know. Maybe we can get some answers as to why she felt the need to bond us without asking. The Baraandi certainly wouldn't have approved." Larry stood up, and when his sister saw him fully she said, "Holy cow! You've really changed!" "What do you mean?" Larry ran to the mirror in his room to take a look. Like his sister, his hair and nails had grown out, and he immediately knew the reason, but more dramatically than that, his body had also changed a little more than just hair growth. His skin had become a little softer, his face a little rounder, and he now had small bumps on his chest, like breasts that were just starting to grow in. He stared at himself for a little bit, then said, "Great! I'm already younger than anyone else. Now I wind up looking like a twelve year-old girl!" "Any idea why? The Baraandi were hermaphrodites. It seems to me that their life force only should've amplified what was there." "Of course. That's it." Larry started clipping his nails telekinetically, acting as though the issue had been explained. After a little bit, when it became clear he wasn't going to immediately explain, April said, "Want to explain it to me?" Continuing his grooming, he explained, "You said it yourself. The Baraandian life energy amplified what was there. Within the human body is the potential for both female and male development. What develops depends upon the hormones that are released when the male or female sex organs develop during puberty. But the Baraandian species wasn't divided into male and female, so when their life energy entered me, it amplified everything, not knowing any difference between my male parts and my undeveloped female parts. So I wind up getting these nascent breasts, as well as," Larry pulled his pajama pants out and looked inside the, "Yup, my little Larry is a little larger now." April thought about what he said, then said, "Excuse me. I've got to go check something." "Just check here." "Excuse me?" "Just check to see if your clitoris has grown any right here. That is what you were going to do, right?" April was so used to her brother figuring things out from only a few little details, that she didn't even question how he knew what she was planning. Instead she said, "If you think that I plan on dropping my panties right here-" "You don't have to check with your eyes. Use those new Baraandian abilities you have. Look with your mind." As soon as he mentioned that plan she became instantly aware of her own body. Her clitoris had indeed grown out and was now a little more than an inch long. Her muscles were now a little stronger, as well. The effect wasn't all that great, but neither were Larry's breasts. "I wonder why I didn't think of that. Using those new abilities seems so natural most of the time." "Yeah, but they don't blot out 18 years of not using them. When your abilities were fresh and new, you used them instinctively as a Baraandian, but when you got around me, you just reverted to type. You became April, big sister to Larry, and April never had, much less used, those abilities." "Old habits being hard to break?" "Exactly." Larry finished up the last of his grooming, then telekinetically swept up the hair and nails and dumped them in the garbage. "Okay, I'm ready." "Geez, I forgot to sweep up the hair that I cut off. There's a pile of the stuff on the floor in my room." "So much for the stereotype of girls being neater than boys. You can clean up later. Let's go out and talk to Kendall." They started towards the door, but April stopped and said, "Wait a minute. Why did you bother looking in your pants? You may not have the ability to go out as far as I can, but you are certainly capable of looking in your own pants with your new abilities." "Yeah, sure, but that doesn't mean that I didn't want to look at myself." Larry started to walk towards the door again, but his sister pulled back a little bit and asked, "Did you look under my clothes?" Larry put a look of fake indignance on his face and said, "Why, big sister, would I do a thing like that?" As Larry walked away April said, "Yes!" Over his shoulder Larry said, "Yeah, but if I had used my new abilities to look at you, you would've sensed it with your own abilities." April just shrugged and followed her brother. As she walked behind him she noticed that he had left his hair a little longer, just as she had. Currently, however, long hair was not in fashion on boys, and, from behind, his head looked very feminine. From the neck down she couldn't say whether it was a boy's body or a girl's body, but the head definitely looked like a girl's. She decided that mentioning it could wait, particularly since they were walking into Kendall's presence. Kendall stood up and turned to face them. From the front, with the exception of the penis hanging between her legs, there seemed to be nothing about Kendall that was male, from her long, blond hair, through her ample bosom and wide hips, down to her petite feet with painted toenails. Seeing Kendall April asked, "Is my brother going to turn out like that? I mean, you were born a boy, weren't you?" Kendall said, "Only if he wants to. The Baraandi have the ability to influence their bodies' development. If you want to modify your body, you can do it, too. But since you and I are older, closing in on the end of our growth cycle, it's much harder and costs a lot more energy for the same result." Larry said, "It's one of those things that all Baraandi know how to do." April asked, "Next question, how come my brother seems to be using all this stuff so easily?" Kendall replied, "Well, he is a genius. The Baraandian life energy and the abilities that come along with it would be just as prone towards quick learning as anything else his genius intellect helps him with." "I suppose that makes sense. It just feels that there's all this new stuff I can do, but I can't remember how to do it." "I know the feeling. After the captain and I merged, there was so much that I wanted to do, but sometimes the knowledge of just how to do it wasn't there, or more accurately, wouldn't come to me. It's been awhile since I merged, so I'm pretty sure that I've got everything all sorted out now, so I can help you." "Okay, why don't you tell us the story of how you became what you are? How did you come across the Baraandian life chambers, and how did you wind up merging with the captain, and, since the Baraandi can control their body development, why did you..." "Decide I wanted to look like a buxom sex kitten?" "Well, yes." "My story sounds like a good place to start from. Why don't we all have a seat, so we can discuss it in comfort." They sat down cross-legged in a circle. "Before I encountered the Baraandi, I was the young son of an abusive man. Any time something went wrong in my father's life, he would beat on me and my mother, and things went wrong in his life pretty often. "On a bunch of occasions I tried to run away, but there was only so far that I could get as a seven year-old. The only thing that I really managed to do was to find a few good hiding places. In one of those hiding places I first encountered the Baraandi. I was hiding from my father, and although he had gone off, I didn't want to return home, but it was getting really late and I didn't know what to do. "That was when the captain reached out to me. Although his sentience had long since passed, his life energy and mine were sympathetic. The wall between us cracked open, I took the captain's life chamber in hand, and held it to my chest. It was warm and comforting. I fell asleep there, holding his chamber, basking in the glow of the other life chambers, and while I slept, the captain and I merged." Larry asked, "You can do this just by contact? Why did you shove the life chambers up our butts, then?" "It takes a lot longer with just some contact. What took you just a few hours, took me the better part of a day to accomplish." April asked, "So what happened after that?" "I went home to get a bag so that I could collect the Baraandian life crystals." "How did your father react?" "Pretty much like you'd expect. He was fully prepared to beat me senseless." "So what did you do? Telekinetically throw him through a wall?" "No, although I was very tempted, but the fact was, neither the captain nor I had been particularly physical types, even with psychic abilities. The captain, however, had quite a lot of experience in dealing with people. With his experiences I knew that if I got physical, that if I fought back, particularly if it was with weird powers that my father didn't understand, he would just become that much more determined to 'put me in my place'. So instead I collapsed to the ground, and then I tweaked his memory, making him think he had already beaten me. After that he went off, satisfied that I'd learned my lesson, whereupon I went and got a big bag and retrieved the life chambers. "After I got them secure, I did what I could to help mom and me, and even dad, by trying to work with Dad. You see, dad had a flaw in his psychological makeup that made him abusive. I tried to use my telepathic abilities to fix them, to try to correct that flaw." Larry said, "Awfully altruistic. I'm not sure I would have bothered." "Well, that was really thanks to the Baraandian influence within me. Thanks to my telepathy I could just look at dad and see what was wrong with him. After that getting angry with him would have been like getting angry at a person with no hands for not being able to type. So, instead, I did my best to fix the psychological damage inside his head." April asked, "Did it work? Did everything turn out for the best?" "Unfortunately, no. I managed to fix a lot of the damage, but I couldn't quite fix his need to dominate, to force his will on everyone around him. Thankfully I managed to get rid of his need to resort to violence when things didn't go his way, but his absolute inflexibility in allowing other people around him to control, well, anything, made him an incredibly bad father, and an even worse husband." "So what did you do with him?" "I tweaked a few of his sexual desires, and then I sent him across country. Now he directs and stars in a collection of bondage and domination films." "As interesting as that is, what does it have to do with your deciding to look like a girl?" "Well, after dad left, mom wasn't strong enough to make it on her own, despite my trying to help with my telepathy. So I found someone that she could love and who would be strong enough for her to lean on and got them together. That person happened to be a woman. "Now, don't get me wrong. I love my stepmother, and she loves and loved me, but we had nothing in common. I was a little boy whose father had never let him show, or even experience, a moment of tenderness in his life; whereas she had come from a very loving family, but a family of all girls, two sisters, single mother, an aunt who hung around a lot, but no boys. The closest thing to a male influence in her life was a father who, although very loving, had been dead since she was a baby. So when she became the adoptive mother to a preteen boy, she just didn't have a suitable frame of reference to work with me. "We got along pretty well. Love, even in the absence of common interests, can do quite a lot. Then I went through puberty, and the Baraandian life energy affected me as it had you, although with a lot less immediacy. Since I went through puberty with the Baraandian energy within me, I, in effect, went through a combined puberty, both male and female, although without the cramps that would have come from actually having a menstrual cycle." April said, "Lucky you." Kendall just smiled in response. "Anyway, one day my stepmom looked at me and said, 'Kevin, you look like you've got boobs.' I truthfully hadn't noticed. I just thought I had been putting on some weight. Since I knew I could grow my muscles later, I just ignored it. However, once mom got a look at my chest, she dragged me to the doctor." "What did you tell him? Certainly nothing about the Baraandi?" "Of course not. Fact was, I didn't have to tell him anything. He came up with a suitable explanation all on his own. He called it teenage gynecomastia, abnormal breast growth in a male. Apparently a lot of boys go through a period where they have tiny breasts before their own male hormones reassert themselves and flatten things out. My growth was a little more than most, but not so great as to require intervention." "So what happened next? Did your stepmom decide to see what you look like in dresses, and then you decided to stay there?" "Almost, except I had to introduce the idea. After the doctor's visit, mom and Kendra (that's my stepmom, by the way) both wondered what it would've been like if I had been born a girl. Each of them imagined doing various mother-daughter things, going shopping, dressing up, things like that. Now, neither of them would've done anything about it, but I had to admit, their imaginings were making me curious, and the more they imagined, the more *I* wondered what it would be like for me to be a girl. "For about a year, I was stuck on the idea that I had been born a boy, so if I was going to use the Baraandian energy, I had to use it to become a big, strong, muscular boy. Then I realized that thanks to the Baraandian energy, I could be either male or female. So I asked mom and Kendra if they could teach me to be a girl. "It started with just doing stuff at home. That was the only way I could really convince them to try it. I'd come home from school, get changed into a dress, then I'd become Kendall, learning everything I could to pass as female, and the more I tried to do, the more I liked it. I liked dresses and skirts and make up, but most of all, I liked the fact that I was getting along better with both mom and Kendra that I ever had in the past. So I went to them and asked if I could go full time as Kendall." Larry asked, "How did they react? What did they say?" "In a word, no. They figured that it was just a phase that I was going through, and that it wasn't worth the risk of letting me go out publicly as Kendall." "So how did you convince them?" "Simple. The night after they told me no, I went into my bedroom, but rather than going to sleep, I took the time to focus my energy into my body and reshape it into a very obviously female form. I gave myself big D cups, a big, wide bottom, killed the hair on my arms and face, and thinned it out on my legs. Up until that point I could hide what little breast growth I had under a baggy shirt, but after that, there was no way anyone was gonna deny my femininity, even if I did have a cock between my legs." April said, "From what you've described, I can't see either of your mothers reacting well to that." "They didn't. Take it as a lesson. Just because you've got two lifetimes under your belt now, you're still basically the same person, and at the time, I was a silly little 13 year-old. I actually thought that they'd see me and just automatically accept me as a girl, and then we could be a happy family of women together. "Instead, when mom saw me, it was another trip to the doctor's. They poked and prodded me for a while, but none of them could come up with a suitable explanation for why I changed so radically overnight. I got my own name for it though: Spontaneous Hormonally Induced Growth Syndrome, at least that was their best guess as to why I changed. After a while, since they weren't getting anywhere, and I wasn't changing any more, they just kind of sent me on my way. "After they released me, mom and Kendra talked about getting the surgery to get me back to normal, but after I begged them to give me a chance as a girl, they put that aside; I think mostly because the surgery was so expensive, but after they saw how happy it made me, they let me be what I wanted to be." April asked, "Did you say that you grew your breasts in overnight? Can you really just grow or shrink things that fast?" "Growing can be done pretty quickly, it's just a matter of forming the body image and then feeding the right cells the proper amount of energy, but shrinking, getting rid of body mass, can take a while. To do that you form the body image, in effect programming your body to grow as you want, but after that you have to let your body just grow into its new shape. Depending upon the amount of your body you want to affect, that might take a while." "Okay, now the big question. Why did you do this to us? Don't get me wrong. Now that I've gone through it, I am kind of thrilled about everything I can do now, but you really should have discussed this with us. Asked us first." "I know. Normally the concept of forcing changes like this upon anyone would be anathema to the Baraandi, but for the last few months I've had this incredible urge to find hosts for the Baraandi. When I found you, I just couldn't say no to it anymore. I didn't discuss it with you, because that might have meant that you would've said no." Larry said, "It's the Larkoss. The energy field that we, the Baraandi I mean, surrounded the planet with is going to start breaking down soon. If the Larkoss are still out there, the planet is in danger." April said, "That's impossible. You saw the numbers. That field will last for over 400 million years. It's only been about 76 million since the dinosaurs were killed in the ecological disaster caused by the detonation of the warp core." "That's just it. We don't have 400 plus million years. Maybe it's because the Baraandian I'd bonded with was an engineer and had to be more familiar with numbers, but I know that the Baraandi use a base 8 system, where we use base 10. Converting from base 8 to base 10 causes the numbers to become much smaller." "But everything was converted into numbers and measurements that we could understand. They used things like miles. Was it any different for you?" "No, but the numbering system they use, even with the conversions, was base 8. I guess that system they use is too basic to the way they think to convert." Kendall asked, "How can you be sure?" "Remember just after the crash when all that was available were emergency sensors? Well, they said the sensors only scanned out to ten thousand miles. Now, as the engineer I knew that ship, knew all the technologies. Their scanners could go right through the planet. If the ten thousand miles were in base 10, then they could've taken in the entire planet, atmosphere included, but they couldn't. Only when you convert the number ten thousand back into base 10 from base 8 does that make sense. Ten thousand in base 8 becomes four thousand ninety-six in base 10, which would be about half way to two-thirds of the way through the planet, which I know is how for the scanners would've worked." Kendall asked, "So how much does that 400 and what ever million become in base 10 if it is base 8?" Kendall and April felt Larry access his calculator psychically. In just a few seconds Larry said, "It becomes approximately 76 million years." April said, "But the dinosaurs died out about 76 million years ago. That means..." Kendall said, "The field protecting this planet could go down any time now, and if the Larkoss are still out there-" "They are. I extended my senses out and sensed them, still waiting." "Then this planet is at terrible risk. It the Larkoss wake up and swarm this planet, they'll destroy all life." Larry said, "They probably won't just swarm the planet. The energy released from the warp core explosion won't just disappear. Rather, it will dissipate over time. It'll start with just one or two Larkoss sensing a gap and trying to get through it. If they make it to the planet surface, then we're screwed. Most of the core radiation has migrated into the upper atmosphere. Unless the planet's military armadas can stop them, then they'll feed until they are gorged, and just a couple of Larkoss can do huge amounts of damage." "Agreed, and the military might not be able to do much. Near as I can figure Larkoss are as maneuverable as a racecar, can fly like an airplane, and can take as much damage as a full-sized naval battle ship. The American military might be able to handle one, maybe two, but if more then that come down..." Kendall shuddered. April asked, "So what do we do now?" "The first thing we need to do is find out exactly how long we have. Larry, is there any way you could build some kind of scanner to find out how long we have before the core energy starts to dissipate below the level where the Larkoss will be able to assault the planet?" Larry said, "With the right parts it to should be pretty simple. I should be able to get what I need at the campus bookstore tomorrow." "Alright then, since the bookstore won't be open for a few more hours, I guess we're just going have to wait. I guess we should just get some sleep now." "Sounds like a plan. I'll see you in the morning." Larry turned and