Now, this is a story of steam. But it starts in the stars. Allow me to bring y’all up to speed

The history of Mycel began with a blowjob. A pretty damn good one, too.

Not to be too much of a downer, but the humans had wrecked their third planet and were once again hoppin’ celestial bodies to start the whole colonize, monetize, pulverize cycle on the oh-so-creatively named Earth 4. Since this was the third such apocalyptic evacuation, they were gettin’ pretty good at it.

That leads us to a cryoship named Pegasus 9, containing approximately two hundred thousand humans, or abouts 0.05% of the human population. The ship was automated. But for reasons that could be described as nostalgia, they liked to keep a small maintenance crew of two livin’, breathin’ people. Every year the old crew went back under, and a new pair was un-thawed from their icy slumber for a stint of janitorial services.

It seems Lady Luck had taken a shine to Private Luca. The year of service generally is spent dustin’ monitors and checkin’ boxes with a randomly selected partner. And Luca, much to his astounding delight, was doin’ his time with the curvaceous Private Ramirez. Now one’s paring could make that year fly by or a crawlin’ hell. For instance, last year’s crew consisted of one fella who loved playin’ chess and another who hated it. Bad luck for them. It was a long year.

Which brings us to the aforementioned blowjob and the good fortunes of Private Luca.

“Oh, Grace! Fuck… oh… FUCK!” Grace Ramirez didn’t care for chess. Neither did Winston Luca. You see, Grace had a passion for one thing and one thing alone. Suckin’ cock. And private Luca had a nice, fat cock to blow. Those two kids were gettin’ along just fine. They were about eight months in, still fuckin’ like hounds in heat.

Ramirez licked her sticky lips and looked up at Luca. “Oh, Captain! How could you make your prisoner do such a thing! Right on the bridge, in front of all these people!”

They liked playin’ games, you see. Blowjobs are nice, but to keep them interestin’ for a year, you need to add a bit of spice. The empty bridge, though strictly off limits, was a helluva lot of fun for kinky roleplay. And the Captain’s chair was Luca’s favorite place to get his knob polished. “Wretched alien bitch! The crew will see your sexy kind are only whores fit to serve us humans!”

“Oh no! When your big human cock is in my mouth, I can’t help but sucking it! I’m so ashamed! How could you do this to me? I’m a virgin, after all!” They both had a giggle as he tugged on her hair and planted her face back into his lap.

Now Ramirez considered herself as a provider of artisan fellatio. And never content restin’ on her laurels, she was always lookin’ to improve. During this fateful solo on the skin flute, she was tryin’ out a careful combination of scraping her teeth up slowly and plunging her head like a duck divin’ for bread.

“OH! OH FUCK! GOD FUCK!” Ramirez was most pleased with her results, the newly minted technique was some of the best knob slobberin’ she’d ever done. Luca gripped the arms of the Captain’s chair, his hands squeezing the arm wrests and his palms jammin’ about every god damned button on the emergency system controls.

Ramirez, pleased with herself, decided she had earned a few fingers in her cunt (somethin’ the gal honesty found more pleasurable than Luca’s overly-quick cock in her hairy cunny). She edged him close and came up gasping. “Mmm! Oh, Captain! Don’t cum on my face! Not in front of all these officers! They’ll make me blow them too!”

“Just… just… fuck. Keep sucking.” Poor boy was just strugglin’ to catch his breath. Watching her delicious tits press together as she was plungin’ her digits in her honeypot. Her thick and curvy body seemed to jiggle all over as she was gettin’ them both closer and closer to the Elysium fields of sexual bliss. And that lovely sight was making it impossible for Private Luca to concentrate on other things.

For instance, the boy had no idea he’d been, by pure coincidence mind you, enterin’ the codes in to the Captain’s control pad to initiate an emergency evacuation of two hundred thousand souls into the black void of space.

“Captain, how could you do this to your helpless prisoner!” Ramirez gave him her telltale wink and snicker that meant she was goin’ in for the kill. As the exuberant young lady mashed her lips down to the base of his cock. Her throat convulsed, and she gagged on Luca’s chubby head.

“ffffFFFFFUUUUCCK!” Private Luca slammed his hands down onto the arm rest. Poundin’ the large red ‘CONFIRM’ button over and over as the boy plummeted over the edge of sexual climax. Ramirez felt a familiar throbbing in her mouth and pulled her head back, lowerin’ her accommodatin’ lips over his balls and milkin’ him for every drop.

And as his sperm covered her hair in hot, sticky ropes, another sort of ejaculation was taking place. One much more fruitful than the wasted seed that would be washed down the drain when Luca would later gratefully wash his cum from Ramirez in the ship’s communal showers.

The cryopods detached and burst from the ship, spraying its human load all down the face of Mycel. And it was there that the strange fungal spores in the air kick-started changin’ the survivin’ humans. Mutations of the latent Earth animal DNA began to warp them. Soon, the wild child genetic offshoots outnumbered the ‘pure’ humans.

There, they were stranded. With no tech and the spaceship flyin’ onward, blissfully unaware of the missing children of Earth 3. Later, the government of Earth 4 declared the lost to be well within the margin of acceptable fuckups.

Now that’s enough about space and science fiction bullshit. Because like I told y’all, this is a story about steam. Long after the Pegasus 9 and that lucky shit Luca blew their loads over this here world.

———

It was an unofficial tradition of the steamship Jitterbug. The two-person crew would get together in the cramped dining area to ‘clear the pipes out’. Of course, this ritual was driven more by scarcity than preference.

Captain Beau was stroking his cock, studying the fascinatingly sensuous curves of the snake woman clad in nothin’ but her smile. She stared back at him as he beat his meat. She remained perfectly still, as drawings tend to do. But he imagined her slithering up and down his cock. Longing for the texture of her red, yellow, and black scales dragging across his skin as she rode him. “Mmm, that’s right, Cherry. You know what you’re doin’, don’t ya?”

“Her name’s Lilith, ya fleshy little fuck. Now move over and keep them fuckin’ eyes pointed straight ahead.” Maizy joined Beau on the cheap sofa they used almost exclusively for communal self-abuse. The springs creaked under her weight as she pulled down her pants, spread her knees, and plopped down next to him. “If I catch ya lookin’ at me gettin’ off, I’ll jam a claw into your pervy fuckin’ eyes.” She grabbed the metal dildo she kept on the side table and began flushin’ her feline faucet.

They bumped arms as they attended to their carnal needs, both vigorously attempting to calm their distractin’ libidos. “Her name is Cherry, and you don’t need to tell me every god damned time. I know the rules well, love. You won’t catch me lookin’ at that hairy cunt of yours. But I’m the fucking Captain of this here rig. And unless you’re willin’ to put aside this whole silly ‘lesbian’ thang and replace that fake cock with mine, I’m pullin’ rank and I get to name her.”

“Fuck you, Captain.”

“Fuck you, Maizy. Now let’s bust a nut then get our heads together. Gotta big paycheck comin’, you can guarantee that.”

The hand-painted poster of the snake woman that hung on the break room wall was the only pornographic material to be had. You see, after the pods had crashed into the great swamps of Mycel, people were stranded with none of that fancy pants space tech. They had to reinvent the wheel. Survival was hard. Damn hard. Luxuries on this particular tub were especially scarce, and none more so coveted as the portrait of Cherry. Or Lilith. Really depends on who’s gruntin’ her name as they rub one out.

They had often fought over who got to have the poster and when. After guns were drawn one drunken evenin’, they had agreed Cherry/Lilith stayed in the dining room. It had been Maizy who suggested the rule of keepin’ their eyes pointed forward. And as Maizy stood a head taller and was built like a brick shit house, Beau had accepted her terms in order to keep the peace and keep his eyeballs in un-punctured.

Sure was temptin’ though. Tall cat woman with ample tits, a thin, warm coat of striped fur, the sort of sexual aggression Beau found quite endearing. Beau was helplessly smitten by her bulgin’ arms and thick, muscular thighs. Still, he might not have been allowed to look, but he sure could listen. Between the squelchin’ of her metal cock jammin’ away and her loud, growlin’ orgasm Beau was given ample resources to facilitate his own messy petite mort.

They got along well enough. Both had the same simple interests. Cash, snatch, and cash to buy snatch. It had been the basis for a good friendship. Beau had, admittedly, often spent lonely nights in his quarters doing just the solo tango while contemplating the various ways he would give it to his first mate/engineer/hired muscle if she suddenly woke up in the morning with a hankerin’ for a skin-clad dick.

Maizy stood up, pulled up her leather pants, worked her tail through the hole in the back, and walked over to the poster while Beau was wipin’ his belly down with a dirty rag. “Thanks, Lilith. Damned fine work.” The bobcat-woman leaned in and gave the parchment a kiss.

“Hey, hey now! No slobberin’ on the lady. You’ll make her paint run.”

Maizy sighed and stretched. “Captain, if you don’t sail this barge to an unsavory house of ill repute after this job, I’m gonna shove that poster up my cunt and fuck myself with it. I need me a pretty little face to wrap my thighs around. With a nice, warm mouth. Ya hear?”

“Oh, I hear ya, darlin’. And I agree. I was thinkin’, with what Frankie is offerin’ us, what do you say about poolin’ our money? Let’s buy ourselves a soft girl to accompany us for a while and see to our needs? Switch off who gets the whore and who gets Cherry every night.”

Beau saw the perk in her tail, and she hadn’t told him to fuck off like she had last time he suggested it. She stared at the poster and considered. “Well, we’re gettin’ a good payday. Sure. But the boiler’s been needin’ repaired and the Jittebug needs a fresh coat of tar. We’re springin’ up leaks everywhere.”

Maizy was always too damn practical for Captain’s likin’ when it came to financial windfalls. One of the reasons he was glad to have her around. He would have lost his boat years ago. “But that wasn’t a ‘no’, strictly speakin’?”

Her golden cat eyes narrowed as she stared at the pinup. The idea of havin’ female company on the ship sure was appealin’. “Tell you what, Mr. Captain. How about we make the repairs and use what’s left to pick us up whatever ugly whore will have us. Better than listenin’ to you tuggin’ your meat every fuckin’ night.”

“Fuck yeah, Maizy.” The captain held out his fist.

“Fuck yeah, Captain.” She bumped her fist into his. “Ew! Fuck! Did you just seal our deal with a sticky cum hand, ya idget?” Beau laughed and blew her a kiss.

———

“So, just liftin’ the crate and bringin’ it to Frankie? That’s it? And they’re gonna drop us that much filthy lucre?” They lay next to each other on the little piece of deck that jutted out of the canopy of slouching trees.

“That’s it. One crate, his inside man is gonna leave the side door open for us. Sneak on in, if we’re lucky we pluck up the crate and ain’t no one knows we’ve been there.” They both were on their backs, starin’ skyward.

Maizy was oddly silent. Normally, she was pure business by this point, goin’ through the checklist of things that need done or packed before they got to it. But tonight, she was too damn quiet for Beau’s likin’. “Something botherin’ you, love?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it. It’s too damn easy.“ They had coasted the boat in with the engines turned off while the clouds covered up the two moons in the sky. Captain had felt the shift in the wind. Figured their stealthy approach was gonna be blown. So they hid in the trees, waitin’ for the darkness to return. “Last job we did for Frankie, we brought ‘em a mess of quality scrap, and we got a third of what’s offered for this job. And this is just one crate, packed and ready to go? One! Somethin’ ain’t right, Captain.”

Beau had been thinkin’ the same thing, and hearin’ her say it wasn’t doin’ much to assuage his the butterflies in his belly. “Yeah, well… Here’s the thing, Maizy. Might be too good to be true. But if we did happen to get a ripe peach dropped in our laps for once, better to take a bite of it while it’s there. Still, keep your head on a swivel. If shit goes south, be ready to scramble.”

Maizy shook her head. “Would feel right better if I knew what was in that crate.”

“Frankie said it was weapons, and said not to ask anythin’ else about it. We’re gettin’ paid extra for not knowin’. So no opening the goods, ya’ hear?”

“Fine, fine. I hear ya. Ain’t got to tell me twice.” She had a bit of hiss in her voice, as she often did whenever she was pissed about somethin’.

They had plenty of time. Nights lasted close to thirty old Earth hours on Mycel. But they were itchin’ to get the job done and get paid. Maizy sighed, “Right pretty stars out, if only they weren’t fuckin’ up the plan.”

Beau chewed the bark of a boggle tree, suckin’ out what could best be compared to tobacco. “Fuck them stars. Fuck em’ right in their shiny star assholes. What’ve they done for us? People shoulda stayed on Earth.”

“Ain’t even breathable air left on that shit hole. And you just pissed because you got the short end of things and stayed all pink and human. While I’ve got fuckin’ fangs and soft fur with pretty spots that drive the girlies wild. That’s why you gotta pay extra, ya ugly skin monkey.” She swatted her tail playfully at his face, feelin’ like it was gettin’ a bit too serious.

———

Captain Beau pulled a muddy tarp over the Mosquito, his lovin’ name for the small fan boat that normally was hoisted out of the water and secured on the deck of the Jitterbug. Ain’t no way he was gonna sneak in the larger vessel.

The abandoned scrap factory used to be a place to melt down metal and turn it back into somethin’ useful. Mining ain’t easy on a wet rock, and good scrap was a valuable commodity. Old, dilapidated factories like these often became makeshift warehouses for shady folk movin’ illicit goods.

“The hell, why do they got so many fan boats for? And they’re armed to the teeth. Shrapnel blasters mounted on all of em’.” Maizy slid off her boots and left them in the boat. While she normally didn’t like cleanin’ mud from the fur betwixt her toes, she liked gettin’ shot at even less. The soft pads of her feet let her move as silently as a ghost’s fart.

“I’ll handle them boats. You check to see if that door is open and scout around. Make sure our package is ready to go.” The Captain slipped into the dark night while pullin’ down his goggles, wishin’ he could see as well as his feline one-woman crew. He counted ten fan boats. Newer shit too, the kind used for attack and quick strikes. They needed to go.

Sneakin’ up best he could, he opened his satchel. ‘Fuck, thought I was over preppin’ with nine pressure cookers,’ he thought. Now, Beau was at a natural disadvantage to most of the other souls inhabittin’ Mycel. And if you’re gonna be doin’ some shady shit with some shady people, you can’t be at a disadvantage. That’s why Beau got clever, makin’ himself all sorts of custom gadgetry.

He ducked down, pullin’ one cube out at a time. Twistin’ em’ all by one click. Enough to break the seal on the flame gizzards, the organ that the planet’s salamander’s use to create heat from water. And with one turn, one gizzard mixed with the water and started the heatin’ and boilin’. ‘Slow bubble. Ten minutes. Still, one short.’ He went down the line, droppin’ one off in each boat.

He took his time with the last of the interceptin’ ships. Pullin’ out a wrench and takin’ a few precious minutes to disassemble the fan. That’s when he noticed somethin’ peculiar. In the dark, he didn’t get a good look at them boats. But up close and as his eyes adjusted, he saw somethin’ that made him sick. The falcon crest of the Menagerie. “Shit.”

“Who the hell are you?!” A burly voice followed by the telltale sound of a scrap shooter’s boiler bein’ turned on. His stomach sank. He put both hands up, knowin’ Frankie had left out some very specific information that would have led to him politely suggestin’ to shove this job somewhere quite unpleasant.

With his palms in the air, he turned. Now the Menagerie is the closest thing this rock has to a government. The descendants of the upper class and high-rankin’ soldiers that crashed here long ago. They were quite inclined to keep the social peckin’ order alive. They established themselves by hoardin’ the supplies and arming themselves to the teeth. Now, they’ve been claiming more and more land as under their generous ‘protection’. And you paid for that ‘protection’ by submittin’ to their laws and taxes. And they were the only assholes Beau refused to engage in.

“I said who the hell are you! What are you doing?” Two of ‘em. Quiet fuckers, too. A skunk and a badger, holdin’ the business end of their blasters at his face. In full military regalia.

“Who am I? Who the fuck am I, you ignorant piece of shit! Don’t you know your superior officer when you see him?! Now, where the fuck is the asshole in charge?”

“Doctor Dinwa?” The badger asked, and the Captain made note of the name.

The skunk smacked him with the back of his hand. “Shut your cock holster. We ain’t supposed to be talkin’ to nobody about this. And this fuck ain’t your superior.”

“Yes, Doctor Dinwa, you devolved simpletons. And of course, I’m your superior. In every way I am you freak. You lowly mutated garbage piece of reakin’ shit. How dare you speak to a pureborn with such unbridled sass’!” Oh, I should note the Menagerie were racists, too. All the upper ranks were like Beau, born bonafide and unadulterated humans and thought their shit don’t stink on account of it.

“S-sorry, sir.” The badger continued to cower, lowerin' his gun.

“Private Bradley, you dumb shit. This man ain’t got no uniform, we ain’t expectin’ nobody, and this here is a fuckin’ secret god damned research facility. He don’t even have so much as identification papers.”

Beau snorted and laughed. “No papers? Well, you rotten assed bastard. You’re about to find out.” He started reachin’ for his waist, stopped by the click of a safety bein’ turned off.

“Nuh-uh. I don’t like it. Keep your hands away from that rusty blaster on your belt.”

“Rusty? How dare you talk about Lucinda like that?” Beau shrugged. “Fine, your court-martial. But let me ask you boys, you ever seen one of these before?”

Poundin’ the latch on his boot, he felt the tubing running down his leg and go hot. And in an instant, he shot up into the air with the force of the steam shootin’ out the bottom of his boots. Pointin’ his heels at the two guards’ faces, the boilin’ air shot into their eyes as he flew back.

The badger grabbed at his scalded face. “AHHHH! GOD! IT BURNS… I CAN’T….”

KIKT-SHHhhh KIKT-SHHHhhh

They were silenced by two loads of white-hot shrapnel sizzlin’ in their heads, and the terrible smell of slain skunk was added to the reakin’ of swamp decay.

“Fuck.” Captain Beau did what he needed to survive, but he took no pleasure in endin’ the life of another. In fact, he downright hated it. But he knew that gettin’ on the wrong side of the Menagerie was a death sentence and witnesses were too dangerous. “Fuck… Maizy.”

He took off runnin’, plannin’ to grab his partner and get the fuck out of there. The side door was opened, as promised. But no sign of the body buildin’ bobcat anywhere in the darkness.

“Maizy!” He hissed into the warehouse. It was large and more open than it should be. The crate was loaded on a trolley on an otherwise empty floor across the warehouse. Three very concernin’ lumps of unmoving personage lay in wet puddles around it. Beau’s most selfish instincts told him to run. Get in the boat and skidaddle right on out of there. ‘Fuck, I can’t leave them nice furry tits behind.’

He crept through that black, empty warehouse. There was a hummin’ that was getting to him. A buzz about the place that didn’t fit the dark, still atmosphere. And as he got closer and closer to the crate, he realized it was comin’ up from the floor. Sounds.

Hissing steam, a lot of it moving through pipes. And a lot of clanging. Boots on cement. Something was underground. And then he heard it. A scream. A terrible, pained scream comin’ on up. And he got closer to the still mounds of what once were the living, terrified that one might be his beloved friend.

He crept closer, two were wearin’ military gear. The third was behind the crate.

He angled around to see, terrified he called to it. “Maizy?”

A clawed hand from behind him cupped his mouth and pulled him against a set of large, hairy breasts. Her claws were wet, he realized from the taste of iron that it was with blood. “Quiet your cock sucker, Captain,” she hissed. It always seemed right unfair to Beau that she was so stealthy and quiet while being so god damned huge. “Menagerie. What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I just took two out by the boats.”

Maizy released him, which in all honesty, he found a bit unfortunate. It wasn’t often he found his head pressed against her forbidden mounds. “I don’t like it. Strange noises came from the mystery crate. A weird thumpin’ and hissin’. The smart move here is, we get on our boat and get the fuck out. We were never here.”

Beau nodded. “I agree. And the stupid move is to say the crate is right there. We’re already ankle deep in shit. Let’s go knee deep and collect us a fine reward.”

“That’s really fuckin’ dumb, Captain.”

“Yeah, sure. But I’ll let you pick the hooker we buy if we get through this.”

———

“WHY THE HELL DID I LET YOU TALK ME INTO THIS?!”

Maizy was startin’ up the Mosquito gettin’ the engines pumpin’ while the Captain was layin’ down suppressive shrapnel. They barely had the crate to the door before a veritable battalion of Menagerie soldiers was pourin’ up through an elevator that raised from the floor. She grabbed the large blunderbuss stored in the boat and began loadin’ it down with a wad of scrap.

“You wanted a pretty little cunt to fuck, didn’t ya? Now get that damn engine goin’!” Beau ducked behind a stump, cursin’ his lack of pressure cookers to throw. The soldiers were firin’ back, white hot metal flyin’ through the air and cuttin’ Beau’s cheek.

A hissing, stutterin’ voice screamed from behind the troops. “Idiots! Stop f-f-firing! You’ll hit the sp-sp-specimen!” Beau spotted the shiny, black beetle man in large glasses and a bloody butcher’s apron as the source of the reprimand.

The Captain snatched the shotgun from Maizy and pointed it at the crate. “Dr. Dinwa, I presume. Now you seem rather keen to keep your precious… thang here, from bein’ perforated. Tell your men to holster their shooters, or so fuckin’ help me I’ll blast this box clean through!”

“G-g-guns down!” The beetle moved to the front, his bare back opened and his wings buzzed angrily, but he remained still. The beetle narrowed its eyes. “Unload it. Leave the c-crate, and we’ll let you go. You w-won’t escape otherwise.”

“You let us worry about that, Doc.” The fan began to spin, the steam now firing through the engines and kickin’ it into gear. “And never forget the day you were robbed by Remy Lightfoot.” Beau kicked off the shore, and the boat hit the waters, sputterin’ away.

“G-g-go after them! To the boats!” The beetle cried.

“Who the fuck is Remy Lightfoot?” Maizy asked as they were skiddin’ across the water to the Jitterbug.

“Made it up, but anythin’ to get em’ off our scent, love.”

The sound of fans revving from the shore buzzed in the air. “Captain! I thought you disabled the boats?!”

“Don’t worry that big, pretty head of yours.” Beau pointed the Mosquito toward the larger, hidden boat and began counting down. “Three… two… one…”

A series of metallic explosions rippled through the air as the pressure cookers began popping off one at a time. The heated metal blasted through boat and soldier alike as the screams of mutilated man-beasts sounded their horrific song as Beau and Maisy made their getaway.

———

The Mosquito, along with the precious cargo, was hoisted up onto the bridge of the steamboat. Captain Beau hastily began tyin’ it down as Maizy ran to the engine room to kick the vessel into high gear.

“Full steam ahead, hairy nips! Let’s cross that big black lake and lose em’ in the maze!” Mycel, bein’ covered in a swampy forest and vast network of lakes and streams, created a labyrinth of waterways and corridors. Perfect place for hidin’, so long as you don’t mind the occasional monstrous man-eatin’ gator.

Maizy worked her magic on the creakin’, old engines and brought them to life. The paddles began spinnin’ along the back, and soon they were movin’ fast. Returnin’ to the deck, the large cat looked over the back of the ship into the darkness. “You should let me steer, Cap. Blacker than coal out there. My eyes are better.”

“Well, as much as I hate lettin’ anyone else drive the Jitterbug, I’ll concede to your point. Can’t see shit.”

As Maizy took over, they both let out a sigh of relief. Beau lifted his goggles from his face and began laughing. “By all the fires of hell, that was close.”

“Captain, permission to punch Frankie in their god damned face when we next meet.”

“Permission denied, Maizy. I like seein’ you in one piece.” He patted her on the back, and they shared a brief moment of optimism. “Think we lost ‘em?”

Maizy squinted into the vast emptiness. “Maybe? Captain, there’s somethin’ else. It’s about that crate?”

Beau slumped against the big cat, feelin’ the weariness suddenly sinkin’ into his bones as the adrenaline began to wane from his veins. “What? What other trouble can that fuckin’ box give me now?”

“It’s… I didn’t hear it back at the warehouse. Too much shit goin’ on. And the weird thumpin’ noise was coverin’ it. Captain, the other sound comin’ from the box. I think… I think it’s someone breathin’.”

Beau shot back up. “What? You sure?”

KTKTKT-shhh BAM!

An explosion from the back of the ship bent the paddles and brought the tub to a stop in the large blackened lake, sending the crew topplin’ over themselves. The crate flew off the Mosquito and crashed onto the bridge.

“Fuck!” Beau ran to the back of the boat. They had gotten the disabled fan boat he hadn’t destroyed runnin’. Dr. Dinwa was accompanied by two soldiers who were reloadin’ the gun for another volley.

“G-g-give her back!” Dinwa stuttered out his command as they pointed the gun at the haul. “S-surrender or we’ll send you d-d-down to whatever b-b-beasties are swimmin’ under us.”

Beau kicked his boots, and flew into the air while shootin’ steam out behind him. “I’ll apologize, I must decline. Tell the swamp sharks I bid them hello.”

The soldier manning the rifle fired wildly into the air, trying to tag Beau as he barreled toward them, swoopin’ and loopin’ and bein’ all around a pain in the ass to hit. When they saw him pointin’ Lucinda’s rusty barrel their direction, everyone ducked. Firing off the last three shots, he turned back to the ship, unsure if he had enough steam left in his tanks to get him there.

“F-f-fool! You missed?”

“Did I now?” Beau smirked as he angled himself up in the air, the Jitterbug in his sight.

“Doc! The boat!” Fear filled the soldier’s eyes as they looked back. So relieved not to have molten scrap embedded in their flesh, they hadn’t noticed the large holes in the bottom of the boat until the stinkin’ waters began washin’ over their feet. “Please, get help. We’ll drown.”

“Then d-d-drown.” The Doctor’s wings buzzed, and he slowly lifted off the ground. While functional, his flight was not fast. Knowing it was suicide to go after the escaping boat, he turned back toward the base and flew away as the armor-laden soldiers sunk screamin’ into the bog.

The Captain’s steam sputtered to nothin’, and he was flyin’ in a free fall. So close, he reached out, knowing if he didn’t get a hold of the ship’s railing, he would be lost forever in the dark waters. He stretched as hard as he could, terrified as he realized he wouldn’t make it back. That is, until Maizy jumped over the railing, holding on tight with one hand and reaching for his outstretched arm. She dug her claws into his arm as he screamed in pain, and they both slammed against the hull.

“Sh-sh-she’ll kill you all!” The doctor called out his mysterious threat as he retreated. “And if she d-d-doesn’t the Menagerie will hunt you to the ends of M-mycel, Lightfoot!”

The Captain smirked and quietly bragged, “Told you the non de plume would throw them off.”

Both out of breath, Maizy pulled them both aboard. They were dead in the water, marooned by the broken paddle and still air. “Captain. What the fuck is that?”

Despite all the chaos, Beau realized it wasn’t the near-death experience that was causin’ the horror on her face. He followed her gaze to the shattered container. Splintered wood around a form the Captain was havin’ a hard time understandin’.

“What in God’s good graces is that thang?” He began walking around it.

A metal cube frame suspending the lithe body of a young woman. She was fanstened in place by dozens of brown leather straps all over her body, keeping her tightly tied. Even as the girl thrashed, the rig remained unmoving. Blacked out goggles and a hood were draped over her face. Even her two long white rabbit ears were tied by small straps to the frame.

Her mouth, stuffed with a ball gag, muffled her groanin’ and drool ran down her chin. A small engine near the bottom powered pistons and levers that forced a leather-clad dildo into her sweet, sweet cunt.

“Captain! What the fuck is this shit? It’s… It’s twisted.” Maizy’s had frozen at the horror of what they had stolen.

Beau, feelin’ the same inclination, had already begun loosening the gag. He struggled with the binding till Maizy joined the efforts, slashing away at the tough bindings with her sharp claws. Finally, Beau pulled the hood back from the girl. Two long white ears and a messy mop of tangled white/gold hair spilled out.

She was moanin’ and, much to both Maizy and the Captain’s surprise, grindin’ gratefully back against the device that fucked her bound cunt. She was sweatin’ all over, bitin’ her lip and scrunchin’ her eyes tight. And gettin’ louder and louder. Her pale skin turnin’ pink, then red as a moist heat radiated from her body.

“Get her out of that thang! I think it’s killin’ her!” Captain Beau pulled out his knife and started cutting the remainin’ binds. As he fought to free her, he noticed a fresh new horror. She had rivets embedded in her skin, along the back of her shoulders and spine.

“Mmmm! Please, Sir! Please…” Her voice was as fair as a songbird sarenadin’ the sunrise. “Please! Please! PLEASE!”

She had reached a fevered pitch of screaming and her entire body tensed. Her freed hand shot up and grabbed the metal frame, crunchin’ it between her fingers like it was wet paper. Finally, unable to stand seeing her like that, Maizy grabbed for a twisted piece of metal that had fallen from the crate and smashed the engine powerin’ the fuck machine.

“OH God! God… yes! Yes… Oh…mmmm….”

Captain Beau sliced the final strap suspending her, and she came crashin’ to the ground. Everyone was panting, though the young rabbit woman seemed downright blissful. Beau ran his hand into her hair. “Sweetness, you alright?”

And dreamily, her bright blue eyes opened. And she sighed a glorious sigh of pleasure and relief. Then her body went limp as she let out the most adorable little squeak. Accompanyin’ her climax was a rush of hot air. Steam whushed from the rivets in her skin, creatin’ a haze in the hot night air. “Oh, I’m right as rain, Sir.” She stared at the Captain. Then at Maizy, a fucked silly smile on her face with her tongue hangin’ and droolin’. Then the tired bunny fell onto her back. “Oh my, what pretty stars.”

She giggled, and her eyes rolled back into her head as the steamin’ little bunny girl passed out.

Beau looked at Maizy. Maizy looked at Beau. And together, they asked, “The fuck?”