The Last Battle

I awoke abruptly at dawn. Lena had started the fire and was handling our luggage. I smelled the fresh flatbread all the way over to the bed and sat down by the fire to eat breakfast. I knew that we would finally leave today.

Seriously and purposefully, she packed everything into the small bundle I usually hung around and carried; carefully she stowed the small explosive bodies that I had made together with her over the past weeks and months. They were hardly bigger than a coffee bean, and yet they could set off an explosion that would turn an entire neighborhood into atoms. I didn't understand everything in detail, of course, but this much I realized was that they were actually only detonators that could be set to certain materials, which then functioned as actual explosives. That material was the specific metal of which the Darx spaceships are made of. Skillfully, Lena had shown me how to connect the beads into a chain and attach a wooden cross to it. Then she tied it around my belly so that it looked inconspicuously like the rosary of a monk.

I stood at the mouth of the cave with the bundle around my shoulders and waited until Lena had put out the fire. Then she came closer and laughed out loud. "Jan, you're one of a kind! We're setting out on the greatest adventure of your life and you think of nothing else!" I stood there rather sadly and absent‐mindedly, thinking only of Nana and Meike and the other girls and women. Defiantly, I thought I would say a quick goodbye to them, my way. Lena sat down on a ledge and closed her eyes.

I let my thoughts wander to one village or another. Like a breath of air, my thought blew into Nana's house and kissed her tenderly, caressed her body and said goodbye. Nana half awoke and thought of me, felt the farewell and the softly whispered goodbye. Then the thought wafted on, down to the beach where Meike's house stood. Meike awoke from my caress and tossed and turned restlessly; tomorrow she would wake up and consciously feel my parting thoughts consciously. I still thought of many I wanted to remember and said goodbye, leaving behind shreds of thoughtful fog. In the morning they would all wake up and feel that I had gone in love and peace.

I blinked and looked out to sea. Sister Karin's frock I had mended perhaps a hundred times, but I had not been able to part with it. It was a good frock, a loose frock, for Karin had been somewhat plump and now it billowed around my gaunt body, reinforcing in the people who saw me the feeling that this monk was special. Veronika's cross sometimes flashed in the folds, the belt with the rosary of wooden beads and the wooden cross emphasized the unrealness of my appearance. I was ready. I thought, now I should know what Lena was going to do concretely.

"In the camp Neu‐München the big council of the camp will meet this morning; they will discuss their situation like every month, some cowardly politicians will give their contentless blah‐blah and then everything will be the same again. Today, however, they will be surprised. Because you will already be there waiting for them and will give a fiery speech. They will assemble a commando and attack the southeastern base of the Darx, near the former city of Lübeck. You are the only one who knows that this is a suicide mission and that you will be captured. The important thing is that you will be deported to a prison island in space." I looked around once more in the cave that had become my home for many months, then I closed my eyes and stood in the council hall of Neu‐München.

Lena told me to stop, and shortly thereafter servants entered the locked room to get everything ready for the meeting. They were startled to see the gaunt monk standing motionless in the dim light in his wide‐slung robe and ran down, alerting the councilors. Gasping, the first thick‐waisted men came rushing up and stood indecisive in the doorway.

I made my incendiary speech, repeating everything pathetically and darkly threatening, just as Lena had in mind. The councilors were pale and embarrassed, for they thought nothing of fighting and attacking; it was much more convenient, after all, to do business in the camp, to distribute and receive small gifts, and to quietly increase one's influence, power, and, of course, one's fortune. But the castle captain and some of his fighters were veteran fighters who had long been impatient for a military assignment. Although in their former lives they were bank clerks, traffic policemen or cab drivers, now they were warriors who thought only of revenge, attack and liberation.

The castle captain took a few steps forward and pathetically bent one knee to me; then he raised his Swedish laser pistol and vowed to follow me wherever I led him. Almost without exception, his warriors now stepped forward, also bending a knee and shouting that they would follow me as well. The councilors had quickly composed themselves and looked at each other briefly, then their spokesman said we could leave with their blessing for the good of all the camp's inhabitants.

I wordlessly ordered the castle captain to organize everything and meet his men at the east gate, then I disappeared. Lena let a bit of mist bubble up to make it look a bit more mystical. A murmur went through the crowd, then everyone shouted and ran around.

I had to sit on my stone by the east gate for a long time until Castle Captain Lauritzen arrived. However, he had mustered 6 groups of 40 men, they were equipped with homemade weapons and some with high technology weapons from Sweden. I told the castle captain that I would keep silent from now on and that I would only keep mental contact with him. He was to cover the 100 or so kilometers to Lübeck as quickly as possible and to divide the crews well. We had to establish a semi‐circular cordon around the Darx‐base and then attack in the morning. Castle Captain Lauritzen was at first surprised that he heard me, although I had remained silent, but then his professional coolness won out and he nodded. Quickly he gave his instructions and the trek started to move. I jumped ahead with Lena and spent the night in the bushes next to the ruins of the burned house, staring gloomily ahead of me and silently holding a silent weeping with Veronika, who lay buried somewhere under the rubble. Lena had withdrawn understandingly and left me alone with my grief.

The evening of the day after next, we reached Lübeck. I told Lauritzen that the men should keep quiet and not make a bonfire. We would have to rest and sleep, for tomorrow at dawn our attack would begin. The timing was strategically important. Then I told Castle Captain Lauritzen to call a meeting for the night with his most trusted men.

Drizzle, fog and the omnipresent mire made life difficult for all of us. On the other hand, the very damp and fog were our allies, blinding the Darx's satellite reconnaissance and preventing scouting parties from being sent out. They didn't like the wet, the Darx, they really didn't.

I walked with Lauritzen and his men a few steps into the forest to a clearing. There I laid out my plan for them. Fifteen to twenty men were to enter the fortress as an advance guard, I would fake a nasty looking major attack with my weapons at the start, so that the Darx would be on the lookout for anything but a handful of poorly armed men. Only when we had taken and blown up the central computing unit of the base, we wanted to give the signal to our people to attack, because our only chance was the fight man against man or man against combat robots. If we did not capture and destroy the control center, we would not have the slightest chance.

Lauritzen was thinking. I whispered to him in my mind that he should give command to Johann Münzer by proxy if he accompanied me. Lauritzen nodded and replied that he had already thought of that. I smiled at him and told him in our silent conversation that Münzer had received a special order from the councilors anyway and was thinking of nothing else, how best to retreat and save his skin, the cowardly piece of shit. Lauritzen grinned and nodded that he understood. Lauritzen had managed the ground operations of a small airport in a former life and so leading, but also the problems with recalcitrants and traitors were not entirely new to him, as he grinned.

Johann Münzer was surprised when he was appointed deputy and Lauritzen said that if he did not give the attack signal from the fortress within two hours, Münzer should quickly and unobtrusively retreat with the men back to Neu‐Munich. The attackers were quickly found with sixteen men, Lauritzen and myself. Then the orders were passed on to the group leaders. The men talked quietly with each other for a long time, checked their weapons, and soon there was silence fell on the camp.

Lena and I sat alone in the forest for a long time, discussing details for the upcoming attack. Above all, however, she instructed me in further details, how I would have to proceed on the prison islands. Now she relentlessly cleared up my too earthly conception of the prison islands. "These are space stations, but most comparable to your hospitals, where the Darx take sperm and eggs from the prisoners and send them off." The farther I ventured, the less we could keep in contact. How I would get from prison island to prison island, she didn't tell me; that was her job, I should just trust her. It was clear to me that I did not need to ask further. "Just try," Lena said seriously, "someday turn around and get back to an Earth base. It would be nice to have you with me again!" she said softly, embracing me tenderly. We slept close together on the forest floor, holding each other one last time. Then dawn came, and I went down to the clearing, to Lauritzen.

The small attack force was ready, all of them had modern laser weapons. Lauritzen asked if I wanted a weapon as well, looking at the empty sleeves of of my frock. I smiled and told him I had enough weapons on me to blow up half the fort. He didn't believe a word I said and kept silent. Then we quietly scurried off, he with his men towards the base, I as announced to a small hill to the west. He was to wait until I had started my fireworks, then he was to crack a gate on the south side and enter. I would wait for them there, we were then to enter the control center together. Again he asked back how it was with the fireworks, and I just said he would experience a real fireworks, you would not be able to overhear it, hell no!

On my hill I waited until they got very close to the south gate. Then I concentrated together with Lena and hurled firebolts with all my might at the north and west sides of the base. As if a thousand bombs had hit, there was a thunderous crash and the solid concrete walls cracked open. Out of the corner of my eye I observed that Lauritzen and his crew jumped up and ran bravely toward the gate. I closed my eyes and jumped to the inside of the gate. I angrily swept aside the fighting robot standing there so that it crashed against the wall and remained motionless. Then, with the last of my strength, I hurled a bolt of fire into the gate, which cracked and collapsed with a groan. I had completely spent myself and let myself fall flatly to the ground, half buried by the burst gate.

Lauritzen came and picked me up, carrying me to the side, to cover. The bewilderment was still written on his face as he wiped my smudged face and knocked the blast debris from my frock. "Well, how were those fireworks?" I asked, smiling tiredly. He thought two more fireworks like that and there would be nothing left of the base, but I shook my head and said I had no more power, had shot all my ammunition.

His men surrounded a Darxian fighting machine and with a well‐aimed laser shot one paralyzed him. Then they fired at it until it shriveled into a lump of space junk. We got two courtyards ahead with this tactic, but more and more battle robots were coming at us. One by one they fell.

Lena whispered to me to stick to Lauritzen. I clutched him as best I could with my little fingers, trying with mental strength to blow open one door, then the next, until there were two of us standing in a long corridor. Although he struggled valiantly, the pursuers came closer and closer and soon we reached the end of the corridor. Behind us, the last of Lauritzen's men fell. I was just about to mentally push open the corridor door when it opened and three fighting machines faced us, with two pursuers behind us. There was complete silence for a few seconds, then a well‐aimed shot from one of the combat robots swept the laser rifle out of Lauritzen's hand.

A croaking tape voice from the loudspeaker of a fighting machine announced to us that the fight was over and we were prisoners. We had to go along with them. Lauritzen and I limped along. Lauritzen groaned and gasped because the shot had probably broken his hand. I tried to take the pain away from him as best I could, but I wasn't really fit myself.

Then we sat in a small, semi‐dark room for three days and two nights, getting precisely every three hours two cups of water and a bowl of indefinable porridge. Lauritzen noticed that I could not eat and wanted to feed me. I shook my head and awkwardly took out my small leather pouch, which contained my travel provisions of berries and wild fruits. We slept most of the time; when Lauritzen began to speak, I immediately ordered him to be silent again, since the room was apparently constantly bugged. He understood at once and kept quiet. I regained my strength a little and then tried to heal his aching hand with the laying on of hands. I succeeded only half, nevertheless he felt better now.

On the third day, a combat robot appeared and stopped in the open doorway. Probably ten minutes passed before its loudspeaker began to crackle and an unpleasant voice began to question us. Who and from where and where is our base, where are our fighting machines that destroyed half the fort? Lauritzen was a tough guy and persistently silent; he didn't know too much either. I did babble that we were coming from Neu‐München, but where that was exactly, I didn't know. I also didn't know our combat units, because I would have been with the advance guard that had blown up the gate. More was not to be gotten out then also from me, the machine croaked down still another long time their eternally same questions, then it was silent.

We both thought that we would now be locked up again. But after a while the loudspeaker switched on again, and the voice informed us apathetically that we were imprisoned as terrorists and would be taken to the prison island, where we would remain until we were no longer fit for use. I asked what happened to our men. After a pause, the voice replied that only the two of us were fit and were the only ones who could be used. Then the speaker went silent with a final crack.

The battle machine's taped voice ordered us to follow it. So we were taken to a bright room where we were told to put on bright clothing. I protested, saying that I had no arms and could only wear my robe, besides I was a religious monk who had to wear his own uniform, for life. Not quite great thinking, but I had to avoid being separated from my rosary or Veronica's cross.

The battle machine thought for a long time, then hummed a single "yes" from the loudspeaker. We had to sit down in a narrow elevator, which immediately began to move. Soon it became so fast that we ran out of breath; one by one Lauritzen and I fainted.

While I was awakening, I heard Lena whisper very briefly. "Well done, Jan, station one reached!", then she immediately fell silent again. I was lying on the brightly tiled floor, and two Dreamers were just pulling the unconscious Lauritzen rudely out of the elevator. They woke him rudely and maneuvered us into a large, bright room. We waited and waited, but nothing happened for a long time. Then a Dreamer came in, brought us water and the obligatory porridge. Then she put a form on the table and left.

We drank, Lauritzen ate the porridge and fed me a little. Then he read the note and very thoughtfully put it down for me to read. We were welcomed to Station One, which was for harvesting and exporting genetic material. We were expected to cooperate, and anyone who refused would be eliminated immediately, as would those who failed the medical test be eliminated immediately. If we were women, eggs would be taken from us; if we were men, we would have to provide a sperm sample that would be tested. If the tests were successful, we could count on the good will of the benevolence of the High Council and spend a long, fruitful time in this breeding facility.

Lauritzen looked at me uncertainly. "Rumors do circulate among us in Neu‐München about it, but I have always dismissed them as silly gossip. Now I am unsettled — what do you think of it, Jan?"

I considered how much I could tell him. Lena was persistently silent, so I decided to go into detail. "I've known for a long time that these stations exist in space, because there are several. Healthy men and women are held captive on it, their sperm and eggs are exported frozen to the Darx home planet, where they are bred into humans and sold as servants or slaves. This is the real reason why the Darx invaded Earth. I had hoped never to fall into this captivity, but now we must choose between death or life as captives, as sperm donors!"

Lauritzen bowed his head and thought. "We're probably dead anyway," he reasoned, "because if we fail, they'll throw us out into the black void. Better dead then!" I pretended to think long and hard and then said I would believe in my liberation to my last breath, fight for the liberation of the earth, and if I were condemned to imprisonment I would hold out until I saw a way to escape. Cautiously I ensnared Lauritzen, but I sensed that he was not yet really determined to survive.

And he had no idea of my special rosary.

The Dreamer‐sister came back in and placed two round plastic bowls on the table in front of us. Then she kindly told us to pour our semen into the little bowls and she would come later to get it. Then she turned to leave. I called her back.

"Sister, there's a problem!" Astonished, she looked at me and said she was a doctor. "The problem is that I can't do it alone, I don't have arms" I said quietly, bobbing my little fingers a little under the frock. She apparently only now noticed the empty sleeves of my frock. Her face became serious, then she said then I would be unsuitable and unfortunately I would have to be sorted out. "No!" I shouted, "I don't want to be sorted out, I am a good sperm donor, my sperm is very good and healthy! I just need to be helped!" At that time in the forest before Lübeck, Lena had recommended that I choose this tactic, because it might be a better way for me to make contact with the guards. The doctor was silent for a long time. "I want to live!" I begged with all falseness, "I don't want to be sorted out!" Another little push, another little begging, and she was already half softened. I sat down with my legs wide apart and pulled my knees up a little so that the frock slipped up and she saw my cock. With that, half of the mountain had already been climbed.

Without paying attention to Lauritzen, she pulled up a chair and sat down across from me, pushing up my robe and taking my cock in her hand, cradling it in her hand with an expert's eye. Then she nodded as if in affirmation and began rubbing. I said, gasping, "It's about to come!" whereupon she picked up the small bowl and let my seed into it. Expertly, she stroked and squeezed it all out into the little bowl. Then she grinned and said that it would be seen how good my sperm was.

Lauritzen had watched her jerk off and become aroused. Two souls were fighting in his chest. I begged him to be reasonable after all and think of tomorrow. After some internal struggle, he unbuttoned his pants and released his prisoner. He only had to rub a few times, then he squirted into the bowl and gave it to the doctor who had been standing next to him. Then he turned his face away.

For the next hour we were silent. Then I said to him that this was the right thing to do and that we would find a way to get out of this mess. I understood his shame only too well, but it would be completely out of place here. He should see this as soberly and strategically as if one of the men went into the bushes to pee during a military campaign. What else it was not — at the moment at least. Lauritzen understood me, but he had great inner inhibitions to overcome, I felt.

After about an hour or two, the doctor came back and said we were medically all right and could stay in the ward. We were now led into a large hall, from which many doors led to the individual cells. There were six to eight men in each cell. As we were pushed into our cell, the men nodded, but hardly spoke to each other. Lauritzen briefly introduced himself and me, inquired about the identity of the others, and then everyone fell silent again. There were some newspapers, but of the very dingy variety, with many color pictures, and some of them were browsing through them. Otherwise there was nothing in the cell.

Then I asked my seatmate how this was going. He was an older, strong man and a bit bearish. After a while he thawed, especially since Lauritzen had praised me as a miracle‐working monk with extraordinary achievements in the resistance — and he was known to some, at least by name. The man described that every afternoon a Dreamer came in with the ominous little bowls. Since the men had become somewhat jaded during their long imprisonment, a rule had been introduced that whoever came the fastest would be allowed to fuck the dreamer the next day. That would be a worthwhile incentive for everyone and stimulation enough for everyone else to "donate" as well. The man laughed and said we would learn that quickly enough.

We were given regular water and some porridge, which was apparently very nutritious, because the men were all in very good shape. A few hours later, a Dreamer came to bring us the bowls. She looked around the circle and asked who it was today? One of the men stepped up to her. She let the white gown slide to the floor, lay naked on one of the mattresses and looked up at him. He quickly took off his white robe and lay down next to her. They stroked and aroused each other until he had become quite stiff. Then they began to fuck. The other men watched them, some already masturbating, some still taking their time, then one after the other squirted into his bowl. After that the dreamer got up and put her smock back on, collected the little bowls and went out again.

Then she immediately came back and said that one small bowl was empty, who was resisting? I came forward meekly and said that I had no arms and could not do it myself. Surely she would realize that? She looked at me completely unimpressed and left.

Later she came back with the doctor, who immediately recognized me. They exchanged some words, the doctor left again. Then the dreamer sat down next to me and took my cock out from under the frock. She rubbed it expertly and deftly caught the spurting sperm in the little bowl. The men laughed good‐naturedly and muttered something about special service and extra charge for service. We all grinned and I pondered how I was going to make it to the next station.

The days went by very monotonously with no real variety. The men had organized themselves well and divided the fucking brotherly‐fair; everyone who wanted, came to it. Lauritzen was soon integrated, only little Jan was not. This did not upset me, because I had an idea. The eight or ten or so Dreamer women who came to the cell day after day for harvesting were mentally influenced and hypnotized to varying degrees by the drugs of the Darx. I carefully scanned all of them during the harvesting and decided one day to suggest to the weakest one without words that I could not go on like this; I wanted to talk to the doctor. She did not notice anything about my telepathic influence, but after delivering the bowls and the obligatory chemical shower, went to the doctor to give her the message.

It took a few days for the Dreamer to pick me up and take me to the doctor. I waited in her room until she entered with the Dreamer and the "incomplete" crop from our cell. The doctor asked apathetically what was wrong with me. I said it wouldn't be right for me to be masturbated in front of the other men. I was quite offended by it in my religious attitude and wanted it to be done differently. The doctor thought, then asked if I should have the dreamer here do it. I agreed.

Now I was fetched daily into the doctor's room where the respective Dreamerin "treated" me. At the same time, I explored the thoughts of the doctor, who was not often there at first. After a few days, however, she stayed in the room and I felt how, with all the blockage in her bewitched brain, she nevertheless became aroused. Now I changed my tactics.

When it was a weak dreamer's turn, I refused and suggested she stop and ask the doctor (miserably) for assistance. She was astonished at first, but she had to fulfill her top priority, so the doctor sat down with me more and more often and did it herself. As well as it succeeded, I heated her thoughts until she became aroused and lustful. Soon she sent the dreamer away, made them stay away at all. Now I manifested the thought of fucking one of the dreamer‐guards in her brain; the desire to fuck really wildly soon became an obsession. But this obviously clashed with other blockades the Darx had erected against the promiscuity of the crews, so she got into true distress.

That left her with little Jan, didn't it?

Day after day I drilled and lured further into her brain, felt one day her momentary weakness and touched her forehead with a little finger. I urged, begged and commanded her to fuck me now, here and now. Torn by conflicting influences, with a quivering lip and beads of sweat on her forehead, she let go of my cock that she had just been rubbing and sank powerlessly backwards. She turned her head to the side with closed eyes and surrendered, giving in to her desire. Little Jan only had to crawl onto her belly and stick his cock into her little hole, because she had not worn any underwear for a long time. She wore for long no more underwear, because she sometimes still liked to play with herself after the daily harvest game. Like a drowning woman she clung to me and sucked me greedily into her.

My cellmates and Lauritzen initially wondered what was going on, but I asked everyone to let me do it and not ask any questions, I was working on an escape plan. Lauritzen was the first to understand and eagerly helped convince them. My reputation as the leader of the last attack, of which Lauritzen told many and many times, helped not inconsiderably that they asked no further questions. I looked meaningfully at the ceiling and muttered, "Bugs!"

So it came to pass that from now on I pleasurably fucked with the otherwise serious and dismissive female doctor. We solved the harvest problem by letting her gently drip the semen from her vagina into the bowl afterwards. Nevertheless I let her daily afterwards forget everything again until tomorrow, because she had to function as usual during the day in all areas, the Darx expected that from her just as from any other well‐oiled machine.

My influence on her grew stronger the more often we fucked. More and more often I found my way to her thoughts, slowly but steadily planting in her mind the thought that would take me to all stations. She took the thought hesitantly at first, but then her desire demanded more and more strongly that she think of a way, find it and in the right place skillfully.

Simply put, she was to make a control trip to all the stations, to be accompanied by two specimens, No. X and Y (Lauritzen and myself, of course) for study purposes. Although the idea met with complete rejection at first, she thought about it more and more often. Two months passed until one day, after our pleasure, she snuggled up with pleasure and said that our trip would probably be approved after all. She had complicated medical facts to investigate and wanted to do a comparative study of the entire supply chain here. The supervisor, Darx, had already all but agreed.

In the cell I now asked Lauritzen and the men to sing in the choir — not unusual, since singing was frequent not only in the men's wing but also in the women's wing. When they looked, I looked up at the ceiling again and muttered, "Bugs!" Then they understood and had Lauritzen and me in the corner whispering, while they were belting out shanties and other songs merrily and loudly. The Dreamer, who was keeping watch at the hall entrance, came by briefly and checked on us; but he grinned broadly and trolled off again.

In short broad strokes, I informed Lauritzen that we were both going on a long trip with the doctor soon, and that he should please keep playing along; he was enlisted as a soldier of Neu‐München. He grinned wryly and said that by now he didn't care if they fiddled with his John. The main thing was that I had a plan and that it would work. I said he could rely on that and then we sang along, because who knows who was watching us.

A few days later, a Dreamer took me to the women's wing to wait for the doctor. I sat on my stool and didn't move. Through the half‐open cell doors I could see some of the guards fucking the women. But I did not have the impression that they had to use force. When the doctor came, I asked her directly about it. She said that she would periodically remove the mature eggs from the women. Since the guards needed variety, the women were sometimes given stimulant drugs after the procedure so that they could have fun with the guards. She walked back to the cell with me, and we stopped in the doorway.

The woman, who was lying on the floor mat, was visibly enjoying fucking her Dreamer, while two other Dreamers stood by waiting and the other women squatted impassively on their beds. Then they were finished, the second guard opened his fly and lay down with the woman, who hugged him hornily and fucked him almost without transition. The third guard could not wait any longer with his hard‐on in his hand, now also interfered and fucked her asshole. The woman whooped loudly and I noticed how my doctor was now getting a little restless. When they were done, we left quickly.

In the doctor's office, we immediately got down to business. As we lay next to each other, exhausted and tired, she said that we would be allowed to leave in four days; we would tour all 11 wards. She was so excited about her assignment to do this study that she didn't even think about where this thought had even come from.

Impatiently, Lauritzen and I counted the days. Sure enough, on the fourth morning, the guards escorted us once again to the showers, then we waited for a long time in a transport room until the doctor along with our luggage and prepared for the trip with us. We sat down again in this kind of elevator, which accelerated so furiously that we humans quickly lost our senses.

We were at the next station. The doctor was taking her samples, having men masturbate in droves and collected their semen in small, inconspicuous boxes, which she conscientiously labeled. She made her records of the daily routine and the food situation, how often people were allowed to shower or briefly roam freely in the large hall so that their muscles did not atrophy. In the women's wing, she removed those women who were just carrying a ripe egg, with a long snake‐like device whose function she followed through a microscope. Lauritzen and I became a little aroused when we saw the many naked women she was treating throughout the day.

As we retired to our quarters, I again occupied myself with her thoughts and made her so voluptuous that she fucked both me and Lauritzen pleasurably. The stay lasted several days, then we left for the next Station.

Not to forget that in the evening I mentally ordered her and Lauritzen to fuck extensively and for a long time, and after the pleasure to fall fast asleep while I was sneaking out. I looked for the place that Lena had described to me quite precisely and pulled a wooden bead from my rosary. More skillfully than I ever thought possible, I disassembled the device behind the wall paneling that connected the communication wires. I scrupulously examined the material of the wall paneling and set the fuse, then actuated the activator and inserted the tiny thing into the device. Lena had dealt with the Darx a lot and knew they would never look there. Then I slipped back, to Lauritzen and the sleeping doctor.

On the next stations again the same rituals. Men obediently squirted their sperm in bowls, women to whom eggs were carefully removed. Interview of the men about fucking with the dreamer women. Patiently she noted that many men preferred to just fuck and not deliver their sperm by masturbating. Interviews with the women about fucking with the guards. For this, the women wanted their own rooms, since watching was torturous for the others and embarrassing for themselves afterwards; moreover, relationships or love affairs should be allowed instead of or in addition to the stimulating drugs. Everywhere a flat monotony, altogether little hope and little prospect of deliverance. Questioning of the guard‐ and technical personnel, as well as medical colleagues, all of whom had been ordered from above to support our mission to the best of their ability. The doctor wrote and wrote whatever she observed while masturbating or fucking, noting and annotating whatever caught her eye. She was really absorbed in her work, even though by the evening she had become numb on the one hand and aroused on the other. Particularly exciting for her were the dreamers who screwed the women. Afterwards, she usually rushed back to her quarters, where she tore off her clothes; now it couldn't go fast enough for her! When Lauritzen was in a real competitive mood and we outdid each other, I postponed forgetting until the morning. She enjoyed the competition of her two cocks very much.

In the evenings then, however, we mostly rested, Lauritzen and I taking turns fucking the doctor, whom I put into a voluptuous daze each time. Lauritzen enjoyed sex with her so much that I often left it to him alone, since I was tired of the nightly sneaking around and tinkering with my little crooked fingers. Lauritzen had sometimes heard me sneaking back; he only raised his eyebrows briefly, but sensibly kept his mouth shut, "Bugs!" I just blinked at him and went to sleep. In the morning, when he put on my cloth and put the rosary on me, he paused, but I looked at him sternly and ordered him to be silent. He lowered his head and thought hard, but didn't say a word.

When we visited the last station after weeks, the doctor heaved a sigh and said that this was the last one. I shook my head vigorously and said, no, there were two more: the one we had started from and the very first one on Earth. She had to think hard, then she had to admit that was right. Nevertheless, she had a problem, she had to argue this extension, still argue upstairs. I let her flounder until the second evening, then I gave her the excuse, which of course I had been carrying around in my head for a long time.

Not only had she collected sperm samples and eggs, conducted interviews and compiled data, but also treated many minor illnesses, since she was a doctor and not every ward had its own doctor. The wards held about eight hundred to a thousand prisoners, so minor medical things did have to occur quite frequently. So, since not only the quality of the sperm and ova in the wards had to be examined, but also the living conditions of the prisoners and the operating staff, she had to get a complete picture of the care of these medical incidents and their care. Complete, however, meant investigating the two initial points to be examined as well. This especially because the initial stations were on or near the ground and could not be as clinically purely compartmentalized as the stations farther out.

In the morning, of course, she had forgotten everything again. But it occurred to her that the higher‐ups needed to be informed that she needed to get a full picture of the medical situation, especially on Earth Station, and .... I grinned: won!

Two days later, we were done with this station and traveled back to the starting point. After getting off the elevator, which was probably a very fast space capsule, Lauritzen pulled my robe and cingulum into place; with a meaningful look he looked at the rope, from which only four or five small wooden beads and the large wooden cross dangled. I admonished him to keep his mouth shut and only whispered, "Fireworks!" He widened his eyes, then grinned crookedly and went on his way.

We were greeted in the station with complete apathy, no one seemed to have us missed, no one showed any reaction that we were back. I already believed that I had messed up my mission, when the doctor showed up at noon and told us to be ready for the next day, when we would go back to Earth and complete the study. At night, when everyone was already asleep, I mentally whispered to Lauritzen that he should prepare himself inwardly for the finale; because we would stay on Earth for good. Tomorrow.

Early in the morning we drank and ate, then the guard picked us up and had us wait in the Doctor's room. The doctor came with her collected notes and went with us to the elevator; a jerk and the fainting: then we were back on earth.

I don't know how long the flight lasted or where we actually landed. I assume it was Earth, where we visited the last station. The prisoner station was just being developed here, there was only the Admissions Office and the medical fitness test, which was still being done here on a grand scale. We had to wait everywhere for a long time until we could go with the doctor to do the examinations.

It ran here, as already x times before. Maybe with the difference that the newcomers still smelled completely different; I closed my eyes and smelled the sea, the forest and the grass, earth and the rain. I definitely knew, now we were on Earth.

Desperately, I tried to contact Lena in my mind. She didn't answer, I felt nothing but emptiness when I thought of her. Not a whisper, not a tentative tug on my sleeve. Lena was not here, or Lena could not make herself known. Only slowly did I allow the thought that perhaps she was no more.

Lena.

Wherever you are, I wait for your sign.

In the evening I lay on the bed, exhausted and panting with a pounding heart, while Lauritzen was lustfully engaged with the doctor. She whooped and bit him a little in the shoulder when the door was burst open and two guard robots with activated weapons entered. We were stiff with fright and dutifully followed as they ordered us to come along. Then all three of us ended up in a cell.

For hours nothing happened until we were called in for interrogation, first together, then individually. One thing had become clear to me after the first conversation over the loudspeaker: Lena had detonated the bead capsules after our arrival on Earth, all space stations had been blown up and destroyed. The Darx on Earth were cut off from their headquarters, and the whole chain of trade that had been painstakingly built up was ruined. I managed to elicit from the Darx that they were abandoning Project Earth and moving on to the next Projects. Only a small unit would remain on Earth for a while.

Lauritzen nodded sadly and said that thousands of people had perished on the stations. I was silent for hours, crying to myself, for I had not considered that, had not consciously thought about it. We had won and yet lost so much. When I regained my speech, I told Lauritzen that the fireworks might have saved the Earth. But we were lost, the Darx would destroy whom they could catch.

We survived the individual interrogations despite all the pain and the recurring torturous questions. The Darx changed tactics and drugged us, locked us in a cell and waited. The drugs stimulated us so much that all three of us almost fucked our souls out, then they separated us into three open cages lined up next to each other, where the lust that this drug ignited almost ate us up, but we could not do it to each other. We endured this torture for several hours, although Lauritzen and the doctor lay naked like wild animals pressed against the iron bars and copulated through them like madmen. I retreated to the last corner of my mind and went in search of Lena.

I tried to jump. I could concentrate as much as I wanted, I couldn't get a millimeter. I wished to be there or thereabouts, but in vain, it didn't work. I tried to make mental contact with Lauritzen and the doctor, but only managed to get the doctor, who was locked in the middle cage, to put her butt against my bars and begged me insanely to finally fuck her. Despite my aching limbs, I crawled over and fucked her while Lauritzen watched us with bloodshot eyes and groaned like a mad gorilla that it was his turn now! I had to keep fucking greedily and insatiably, trying at the same time to concentrate and counteract the drug. The image of the desirous and animalistic whimpering doctor, running howling from side to side to be mated here and there, slowly brought me back mentally.

I had to find Lena! I called and called in my mind, but received no response. I lay down concentrated on the floor and fell asleep, frozen in this meditation. I became indifferent to what was going on around me, I dozed off and saw only our cave, the clearing in the forest and the beach where we had sat so many times. I wished more than ever to be there.

I don't know if I was there afterwards or not. I only saw Lena in my imagination. She was sitting on the forest floor, looking at me calmly. "We did it, little Jan! You did!" she said. "The chain is broken, the invasion failed, all the logistics gone to hell! They will not recover from this blow for many, many thousand years!" Then she softened and saddened and said that we would not see each other again because she could not get through the remains of the mental Darx defenses. But one day, our existences would meet again, I promise ....

The image faded. I looked up and caught sight of the doctor lying motionless in her cage, snoring. Lauritzen was sitting by the bars, looking dully over at the two of us. "All right, old fellow?" I asked him mentally, and to my astonishment heard him reply. "Yes, dear Jan, they gave us a good going over there, those ass rats. But we kind of won, although neither of us looks like it now, do we?" I could guess his grim smile in the half‐light.

Their chain of commerce is completely shot, I replied, likewise they can't continue the invasion of Earth so easily for some thousand years. But the three of us, we're probably gone too, or pretty soon.

Lauritzen nodded. "When the cataclysm broke out and I lost my family, that's when I first died. Then I became a warrior and died many hundreds of times fighting the Darx and taking refugee stretch after refugee stretch from them. On the wards we both went through hell, no, also through heaven, in both respects. If now our fireworks should have brought the final decision, let them roast me quietly over slow fire; we have won, that will be my last thought!"

Our dialogue grew quieter and soon died away as we both fell asleep from fatigue. The next morning we were able to shower again and were moved to a common cell. A guard robot stood in the door, his loudspeaker continuing the interrogation. I was pleased to find that neither the guard robot nor the loudspeaker was working flawlessly, and the distant cracking and crashing were signs that the Darx must be operating from a very distant base. But they didn't let us think for long; the interrogations began again.

The doctor was herself again, namely a hypnotically altered Dreamer who was completely absorbed in her task and knew nothing about what had happened, swearing highly and sacredly that she had carried out the investigations solely on behalf of the High Council. How she got into the embarrassing situation with these two men, she could not explain. No matter how cleverly the Darx might ask, she did not deviate a hand's breadth from her text. In the end, she even suggested that they had been drugging her all along in order to get her to repeatedly copulate involuntarily with these beasts. Annoyed, her counterpart broke off the interrogation.

Lauritzen admitted everything he knew and everything that had been said out loud. He had taken part in an attack against the fortress near Lübeck, had become a prisoner and had been taken to the breeding farm in space. There he had been taken together with me by the doctor. The carnal procedures, he thought, were part of the rituals on the breeding farm, so he didn't think anything more about it and just did his best with the doctor. (I couldn't help but notice his broad, inward grin). Otherwise he had done nothing wrong and was horrified at the torture he had been subjected to in the last 24 hours. He also said he was now sure he had been drugged into doing all that, as seen yesterday. Again, the voice in the loudspeaker ended the interrogation rumbling and threatening.

He did not interrogate me. He only informed me that I would be transferred to solitary confinement until I got my fair trial. It had been proven that I was the leader of the terrorists and therefore no further interrogation was necessary until the trial. The loudspeaker buzzed for a while longer, then cracked a few times and went silent.

Lauritzen and I sat silently next to each other and chatted. I was careful what I thought, because I couldn't know if the Darx didn't have some way of scanning our thoughts. Nevertheless, I told him a children's story in which little wooden balls played a role, little fireworks and monks who were sneaking around at night. Lauritzen grumbled that he already got that. "You have to understand about the fucking," I said, "because that was the only way I saw to get the doctor to make the round trip." Again he mumbled that he also understood that. And funny it was, hell too! I grinned and said to him, my foster father Kalle would have always said that.

Now I was a bit worried because I couldn't get in touch with my half‐sister Lena, the secret mastermind of my fireworks. But she had become the most important person in my life, I said, and that if I died before him, he would please send a message to Lena Ohnehand, as we called each other. Lauritzen nodded and asked me to inform his brother or someone else in Neu‐München if he had to be the first to bite the dust. I thought about sending Lena a message over the Net‐O‐Net. Lauritzen nodded affirmatively, yes, do that, my boy!

The doctor now broke her silence and asked what exactly had happened. I groped for her thoughts and stimulated her very violently. Startled, she retreated to a corner of the cell. I said that the effect of the drug had not worn off and that it was still a danger to us because it made us do this. She shook her head and said that as a medical attendant she was forbidden to approach the prisoners in any way. Every night, however, Lauritzen and I would crawl up to her and have our way with her, even though she was nearly perishing with fear.

It didn't matter, because the three of us were dead anyway.