Prey in the Shadows
"Nornil Wolf pack approaching from eleven o'clock. Send the mechas and drive them off."
"Tch. The Ridic Worms got curious about vibrations they've never felt before. No dodging this one. Finish it in close combat — keep it as tight as possible."
"Leave the corpses lying around and more of them will come swarming this way. Dig a pit and turn over every scrap of blood-soaked earth."
"Awkward hour, but the terrain's easy to defend. We camp here."
"Shouldn't we push farther? Fine — go ahead, if you want. From this point on, things come running even when they see a mecha. If you're dying to dance with them under the moonlight, I won't stop you."
Jincheon issued orders suited to each situation and dealt with every problem as it came. In the planning stage he had expected five to eight engagements; they had fought only one.
The Zabalcan soldiers' faces, however, were far from pleased. Part of it was the early camp — but the real problem was the way he spoke, as if he had every right to command them.
"Tch. Getting full of himself for a slave-race mongrel."
"The second he gets to give orders, look at the attitude on him. Already pisses me off."
Zabalca was a militaristic culture to its bones, and nowhere did that culture run thicker than in its soldiers. To them, the slave races existed to obey — and to pour every drop of sweat and blood into the dream of becoming honorary Zabalcan citizens. That was common sense. That was truth.
Of course, through the galactic network they knew other civilizations called their ideology evil. They simply decided that anyone who failed to understand them was the strange one, and shoved their doctrine forward all the harder. It was not unique to Zabalca; every species in the galaxy carried the same kind of mind. They had clawed their way into the stars through catastrophe after catastrophe, and those catastrophes had forged the values they now held. Who, after all, would throw away the history that had made them simply because someone else believed something different?
"Want to teach him a lesson right now?"
"I'd love to jump in, but what if he gets hurt?"
"Exactly. Second Lieutenant Kahim already warned us how critical this mission is."
"If that bastard ends up limping and wheezing, the blame lands on us."
"Fucking hell. So we just sit here and take his armband bullshit?"
The soldiers wanted to put Jincheon in his place that instant, but Kahim's warning kept their hands still.
"Swallow it. Mission comes first. We can settle the score later."
"Haa. Yeah. Once the job's done, we won't have to look at that bastard again."
While discontent with Jincheon simmered through the ranks—
"He's going to be a bigger obstacle than expected, Second Lieutenant Kahim."
"Mm…"
Second Lieutenant Kahim — the only man who knew the full truth of the mission — and two squad leaders had gathered in a secluded spot for a quiet council. The subject was Jincheon, whose abilities had far exceeded every projection.
"What the hell is that Terran? I never once saw him break a sweat or even breathe hard."
The squad leader assigned to watch him could not hide his shock. Even with dual hearts and endurance-focused bio-augmentation, covering that much ground without a single ragged breath should have been impossible.
"And he still dodged every engagement using nothing but 'instinct' — no radar. I still can't believe it."
The way he read every situation with the precision of a man trailing recon drones was not merely uncanny; it was frightening. The most unsettling part was that all of it had come from pure instinct.
"Where is he now?"
Kahim asked the squad leader he had ordered to keep watch, just to confirm.
"Said he was going to scout the perimeter and vanished into the forest."
"For the moment, he's still following our script."
For now, at least, Jincheon was performing his assigned role without major disruption.
"If he ever learns what we're actually planning, there will be trouble."
"Recruiting him is out of the question. Did you see his eyes? Pure arrogance — he looks at us like we're beneath him."
Both squad leaders spoke with one voice: Jincheon was the greatest threat to Calsira's assassination, and they needed a way to deal with him.
"I'll handle that part myself."
Kahim answered at once, as if he had already thought it through.
"There's a traitor on the resistance side with a rather entertaining plan. I intend to use it from our end as well. In exchange, there are things I need you two to prepare."
Kahim began laying the groundwork for Jincheon's disposal. The squad leaders nodded at his whispered instructions and offered quiet words of praise.
"And where is that bitch?"
He turned next to the squad leader charged with watching Calsira.
"She said she wanted to be alone and went somewhere quiet. I posted one of my men on her just in case."
"Don't worry. Even if she runs, where would she go?"
The squad leaders agreed his concern was excessive.
"And yet that bitch walked in here without a care in the world."
That was precisely why Kahim remained wary.
Here their misunderstanding became clear. Calsira had fought desperately to survive — and now, with no way out left, she had half-surrendered into a kind of hollow composure. The upper ranks, looking at that same composure, had convinced themselves she still held some final card. It was one of the reasons a clean assassination the moment they entered the magnetic field had been twisted into something far more complicated.
"Do not ease the watch. The plan proceeds as scheduled."
"Yes, sir."
And so Kahim and the squad leaders checked every detail, determined to squeeze every possible variable out of the night.
Chirp— chirp—
"Nngh… hhaah…"
Alone behind the ankle of a seated mecha, Calsira was letting out heated, breathless little sounds.
"S-stop…!"
Pressed against her was Jincheon — the same man who had claimed he was going out to scout. The scouting had been an excuse from the start. He had slipped back the moment he could, intending to feed his lust.
He had undone the front of her pilot suit, the fabric that clung to every curve of her body, and slipped his hand inside — working her breasts and her sex without mercy.
A low murmur of voices drifted from the far side of the mecha's ankle. Soldiers had set a light so they could just make out one another's faces and were talking in quiet tones. Oddly, they were still wearing their battle suits; the power cores must have been far superior to the older models. None of that mattered to Jincheon. What mattered was the prey in front of him.
"The way your whole body goes stiff is adorable."
"Y-you… you're insane…! There are people right— khh!"
The instant she tried to resist, Jincheon sealed his mouth over the nape of her neck — just beneath the suit's collar, where no one would see the mark — and sucked hard. At the same time he caught her nipple and her clit between his fingers and rubbed them right along the knife-edge between pain and pleasure.
"Nngh… mmph…!"
Pleasure flooding from her neck, her chest, her sex — Calsira clapped both hands over her mouth.
I can't… I can't hold on…!
If the first night had taught her what pleasure was, tonight was teaching her how finely it could be felt. Last time she had only been able to thrash and sob under the raw, mind-numbing force of it.
Squelch—!
"~~~~~!"
Jincheon shifted up a gear. The fingers that had been teasing her clit drove straight into her.
Knead, squeeze, press—!
He worked her breasts with exquisite pressure, and the twin waves of pleasure from above and below forced her to clamp both hands harder over her mouth.
Just as she was fighting with everything she had to stay silent, Jincheon caught both her wrists, pinned them above her head, turned her startled face toward him, and thrust his tongue into her mouth.
"Mmph— nnngh…!"
Tongue, breasts, sex — three points of relentless pleasure. The brows that had been locked tight with resistance began to soften, little by little.
What is this… so hazy… it feels… good…
The first time, discomfort and pleasure had hit her together and left her reeling. Now that her body knew what pleasure was — now that Jincheon had taught it to her flesh — she was drowning in a sweet, foggy haze.
Thud.
Jincheon changed position. He leaned her back against the mecha's leg and pressed in from the front, kissing her hard, driving the assault deeper.
Squelch-squelch-squelch-squelch—!
"Hnnnngh~!"
His hand, still buried inside the pilot suit, began to churn her roughly from within.
Come. Come for me.
Pleasure climbed her spine in a white-hot rush, racing for her brain. The moment it arrived—
Suck—
"Nngh— hhhaaah~~!"
—a storm of sensation she had never imagined tore through her, and her mind went blank. An inexperienced woman had no defense against the hands of a man who had dominated hundreds. Even if she somehow gained more experience after this, it would only be experience shaped by Jincheon — a body permanently in heat, built for him alone.
Suck—
Even after she climaxed, Jincheon did not stop. He caught her tongue between his lips and drank the saliva of a woman turning into a bitch in heat. Only after he had thoroughly enjoyed the taste — different from any Terran woman's — did he finally pull away.
A thin, glistening thread of saliva stretched between their tongues.
"Haa… haaah…"
"Now that face is finally worth looking at."
The face of a woman who had climaxed. Who had learned pleasure. Who was becoming a bitch. Tear tracks from the intensity still marked her cheeks; strands of hair clung to her nape; her eyes were glazed and wet.
Jincheon withdrew his hand from the pilot suit and licked his fingers clean of her fluids.
Tastes good — but sucking it off my hand like this is frustrating.
He wanted to drink her juices properly, to drown in a flavor no Terran woman possessed. With that thought he stripped the pilot suit down to her ankles, then pressed her thighs apart until she was spread wide for him.
The whole sequence flowed so naturally that Calsira — only just clawing her way back from the emptiness after climax — jolted in shock.
"S-stop—!"
Lick—!
"Nngh— hiiit!"
Her protest never finished. Jincheon's tongue was already inside her.
Slurp-slurp-slurp-slurp—
"Khh— hnnngh~~!"
He worked his tongue with practiced skill, stroking deep along her walls and lapping up every drop. She was still hypersensitive from the orgasm; the wet, deliberate strokes tore moans out of her she could not stop.
"Huh? What was that?"
"What's wrong?"
One of the soldiers resting a short distance away had heard her. Heavy footsteps began to approach.
"!!"
Calsira's face went pale at the sound of boots drawing closer.
No… please…!
She could not be seen like this. She had steeled herself for death — but having this particular shame exposed was something else entirely.
Slurrrp~!
"Khh— nnngh~~!"
Whether Jincheon heard the footsteps or not, he only made wetter, filthier sounds as he kept drinking her.
Thud— thud—
The heavy tread of a battle suit reached the tip of the mecha's foot. Calsira squeezed her eyes shut, certain it was over—
"Hey. Hold it."
—when a soldier stepped out of the shadows and blocked the man coming toward them.
"Huh? What?"
"Shh. I'm on watch."
The man quietly explained that he was the one assigned to monitor Calsira. The rank and file did not know the details, but Kahim's and the squad leaders' behavior had made it obvious that something important was tied to her.
"Sorry."
Fortunately the approaching soldier caught the hint without needing a long explanation. He apologized for interfering with the duty and turned back to his own spot.
Was his gaze always that empty, though?
The eyes of the man who had stepped in to stop him looked a little strange — vacant, as if staring at something far away in empty air.
Must be tired from standing watch.
No one was going to think hard about something that small. Surveillance was a draining duty in its own right. He returned to his place with that thought, and the soldier who had blocked him went back to his post as well.
But the watcher's eyes had grown even emptier than before — focus gone, staring blankly into the dark.