Chapter Text
Cosmo Land, Orange Star Mt. Sumner Base, near the southwestern shore, 1400 hours
Targets:
- Orange Star Commander-in-Chief Nell
- Orange Star CO Sami
Two women stepped into an out of the way storage room. The first wore combat boots, green pants, and a simple tank top. Dog tags bounced off her chest with every step. An ammo belt and holster for her sidearm were attached to her pants. Around her head, visible within her red hair, was a green bandana
“Here it is Nell,” said the first woman. “My troops found it on patrol and I sent a transport copter to pick it up. It almost looks like a scout drone, but unlike any I’ve ever seen before. Best I can figure is that it’s some kind of new Black Hole device.”
The second woman was Nell, commander-in-chief of Orange Star’s Armed Forces. She wore a vivid purple skirt suit. A simple officer’s cap of the same color and a single bar on her left lapel were the only obvious indicators of her rank. Her long hair was a bright blonde. One might think at a glance that she might be more at home in a boardroom than a command center.
Nell looked over the strange machine Sami had brought to her. She and her head of special forces were standing in a storage room in the local Orange Star HQ. At some point in the next few days engineers from Research and Development would be coming in to take it apart to figure out what it was for and how it worked. But Nell wanted to see it for herself first.
The machine lay inert on the concrete floor in front of the two COs. Nell agreed that it resembled an unmanned drone, but it was more round and had stubbier wings than any drone she had ever seen. The central body of the device was too wide to be aerodynamic, and Nell couldn’t spot anything that looked like a propulsion system.
Strangest of all were the arms. There were three segmented metal appendages ending with claw-like “fingers” unlike any military hardware Nell had ever seen. The more she looked them over, the more Nell wondered if “arms” was the correct word to describe them. “Tentacles” might be more accurate. Two were located on either side of the machine’s central body and a third was on the back end, looking as much like a tail as a third limb.
Nell’s pumps clacked against the concrete as she circled it. On the other side she spotted the little dents Sami’s troops had made when they shot it. It was difficult to tell how much damage they had done. There were no holes, just dents. And according to the reports it hadn’t even been operational when they shot it. It was already in the dirt when the soldiers found it.
“What makes you think it’s from Black Hole?” Nell looked at Sami, who was dressed in her typical fatigues and tank top but lacked her usual assault rifle. Her dog tags were hidden beneath her crossed arms.
Sami shrugged. “I wouldn’t put money on it, but where else could it have come from? Blue Moon’s not going to break out anything too new with Olaf in charge, all the Green Earth COs like to stick to their strengths, and I can’t see Sonja letting anyone from Gold Comet be careless enough with cutting-edge tech to just let us find it in the woods. Black Hole is the only option left. Besides, it just looks like the kind of thing Lash might come up with, you know?”
Nell scowled at the mention of that irritating brat of a Black Hole CO. There were still standing orders for Lash’s capture. Black Hole’s other officers had similar capture orders, but Lash was the one Nell wanted to get her hands on.
Sighing, the commander-in-chief ran those hands down her vivid purple suit. “I’m not going to order any invasions over a hunch, but I’ll have patrols near Black Hole territory increased for now. In the meantime we’ll–”
Alarms blared, screaming their warning at full blast. Enemy forces had been spotted. They might already be under attack.
“I have a twenty that says that’s Black Hole,” said Sami.
“No bet.” Nell put her fingers up to the communicator in her ear. “This is Nell, report.”
She heard nothing. Not even static, just the ambient silence of a dead line. Nell gave it another few seconds, looking over the strange machine as she did. Could it be the source of a jam? There was no obvious transmitter on its exterior…
“Let’s get to the command room,” said Nell. “I’m sure Andy and Max can handle whatever is going on, but I need to see it for myself.”
“You got it.” The two COs turned to the door.
But before either of them could take two steps, a metallic arm shot passed them and slammed into the door. The weight behind the resulting THUD made it instantly clear that neither Nell nor Sami would be able to pry it loose. The door was shut.
Whipping her head back around, Nell was greeted by the sight of the stubby machine rising into the air. In seconds it was in a position level with her head. Nell gradually became aware of a low humming sound underneath the alarms still screaming from the halls. It was coming from the drone.
Sami already had her sidearm out and trained on the machine, but clearly didn’t want to fire. Its metal chassis was already known to be capable of withstanding bullet fire and neither of them wanted to deal with ricochet in an enclosed space. Nell doubted the machine would be as concerned with that possibility if it had any weapons.
As if in response to Nell’s thoughts, two compartments on the “shoulders” over the tentacle-arms flipped open and a pair of round objects hovered up out of them. They were small, perhaps the size of a person’s hand, and were a bit too fat to be called discs.
A split second passed. Then they shot forward.
In the blink of an eye one of them was circling Nell, the other Sami. They buzzed and whirred and then, before Nell had fully processed what was happening, hers was trailing something bright orange and glowing. In less than a second, whatever it was was being wrapped around Nell’s body.
“What is this, tape?!” Sami’s voice was urgent and furious. “Get off me!” There was a loud clack as Sami’s gun fell to the ground. The disc-thing that was attacking her had started with her arms, which had been outstretched to hold the firearm. Now her forearms were trapped together by the bright orange tape.
Nell’s small attacker had started at her torso instead, trapping her upper arms to the rest of her body, before traveling down her suit to her legs.
“Identify yourself!” Nell demanded of the machine. It hadn’t shown any signs of being able or willing to communicate, but she had to do something while she was being attacked by a high tech tape dispenser. “As the commander-in-chief of Orange Star’s–woooaah!”
The tape had made its way down to Nell’s ankles, and the force at which it forced them together ripped her balance away from her. Nell found herself toppling down to the floor…
… only to be caught by another of the segmented tentacle arms. This one had extended further out than the one holding the door closed. It was using that length to wrap itself further around Nell’s body and hold her in the air as the disc-bot continued trapping her in its bright orange tape. Now it was forcing her wrists together behind her back. Soon a section of it was wrapped around her feet, rendering Nell’s heels inescapable.
“Nell, what the heck is going on!?”
Nell managed to twist enough to see Sami struggling with the third and final tentacle-arm, the one at the back end of the machine. She hadn’t actually fallen over, the arm seemed to be keeping her upright even as the tape lashed her legs together. Next the commando’s arms were pulled down to her legs and bound to them as well.
“Remain calm Sami! Whatever is happening, somebody will eventually come to check on us, we just need to wait for–MMMMMMPHHH!”
There was tape on Nell’s mouth, wrapping around and around her head as it denied her the ability to speak at all.
“Nell! Let us go already you–no wait, you don’t have to–AAARRRGGMMMMMPPPPH!
Nell didn’t have to look to see that Sami’s mouth was being sealed just as tightly as hers.
The alarms had ceased by now, no doubt because Andy or Max had taken control of whatever situation caused them to go off. It must be related to the machine that had now thoroughly bound and gagged Nell and Sami. It was possible that the timing was a coincidence, but the odds of that seemed low.
The tape-bots had finished their work capturing the two COs. One of them was returning to its position in the compartment on the machine while the other turned its attention to the door, sealing it shut with two long strips of orange tape along the edges so the main machine could remove its arm from the door.
Given how tightly that tape was holding Nell’s limbs together, how effectively it was sealing her lips, and how advanced this capture-drone’s technology seemed, Nell had a feeling that no one would be opening that door anytime soon.
“Mmph! MMMMPH!” Sami cried out as the arm holding her almost gently lifted her into the air. At the same time, Nell’s tentacle-arm began to retract back into the main body of the machine. In seconds both women were being held directly underneath the mysterious drone that had started this entire ordeal.
Nell grunted into her gag, but did not cry out. She did her best to remain calm. Her earlier words to Sami were still true. Someone would eventually come to check on them both. It was inevitable, a basic security precaution. It wasn’t as though this machine was just going to carry the two of them down the hallways and out of the base. They would be noticed and rescued. Nell and Sami just had to be patient.
The outer wall separating the storage room from the exterior of the building abruptly glowed a bright blue-white.
And then it was gone.
The entire wall. Gone. Disintegrated. Vaporized.
On the other side was some kind of transport. Nell thought of the helicopters they used to move infantry, but this was smaller. Its interior looked like a cross between one of those helicopters and a bus.
Beyond that transport was the Orange Star army. Infantry moving orderly in the direction the attack was coming from. Tanks and APC units rolling around in the background. And not a single unit or soldier gave any indication that they could see a high-tech transport vehicle hovering in front of a vaporized wall, nor the man-sized drone carrying the bound and gagged forms of their Commander-in-Chief and the Head of Special Forces straight into that transport. Was it cloaked? Was that even possible?
Nell exchanged a worried look with Sami. There was nothing else they could do.
*
Gold Comet Capital City, 2200 hours
Target: Gold Comet CO Sonja
Despite her role as the head of Gold Comet’s intelligence services, Sonja found that she had no earthly idea what was going on. She had entered her quarters after a long day of training exercises, debriefs, and concerning reports from Orange Star to discover a quartet of cuddly teddy bears waiting on her bed.
She had been looking forward to unwinding. Sonja often ended her days by peeling herself out of her straightforward officer’s uniform and setting her glasses on her bedside table before settling into her bathtub for a good, relaxing soak.
Instead Sonja could only stop and stare. The bears were cute, truly. Adorable even. One was dressed in a uniform that was very similar to Sonya’s, though it lacked her skirt. Another was dressed as a Gold Comet infantry soldier, the third in paratrooper gear similar to Sensei’s, and the last in a plush facsimile of antique samurai armor.
Possibilities ran through Sonja’s mind. A surprise gift from Father, always reluctant to accept that his child was now an adult? A disguised bomb sent by Black Hole? An honest mistake made by the cleaning staff?
The bears stood up.
They moved as one unit, each transitioning from sitting or lying adorably on the bed to standing on their apparently stuffed legs in one smooth, simultaneous motion that was somehow intimidating (but also still adorable).
Sonja prided herself on her ability to react quickly to new information. It was her job as both a CO and Intelligence Chief of Gold Comet. Remaining well informed and being able to both analyze and respond to emerging tactical data was crucial to warfare.
But the sight of four cuddly, costumed teddy bears leaping into the air at her was too much for Sonja to process. She couldn’t bring herself to fight back until they had already tackled and pulled her to the ground. It took her several seconds to snap out of her stunned state.
With one free arm, Sonja managed to whack the samurai bear off her chest. It flew through the air and bounced off the frame of her bed. Sonya then twisted to her side and managed to shake the infantry bear off her leg. The other two bears were still on her, with the flight suit bear clinging to her elbow and the bear wearing a uniform like Sonja’s holding on to her collar.
The situation was the strangest Sonja had ever been faced with, but her mind was coming to grips with it. Walking, attacking teddy bears. Okay then. Clearly, she needed help. If only to ascertain whether this was really happening to her or if she had gone insane. Sonja sucked in a breath to call for the guards.
The infantry bear was back in the instant before the sound could escape her mouth. It held something, two half-disc shaped devices that were linked by some kind of shining yellow ribbon, and slapped it over Sonja’s mouth before she could yell. Instead of a cry for help, all that came out was “MMMMMPPPH!”
Sonja blinked, and reached with both hands to pry both the yellow ribbon and the bear that put it there off her face. As she moved, Sonja’s analytical mind wondered why something that was only keeping her lips together was able to mangle the word “help” so thoroughly. There was nothing in her mouth to disrupt the sounds she should be capable of making, and yet the words she was trying to form at that moment were still nothing more than “MMMPH MPH MMMMMM!”
But the bears did not get off Sonja. All three of them hung on as she rolled back and forth on the floor. And more than that, she couldn’t pull the ribbon off her face! It was stuck there as if fused to her very skin.
As Sonja was distracted by that worrying thought, the samurai bear made its move with more of the ribbons. Sonja saw it at the bottom edge of her vision at the very last second, and was subsequently too slow to stop it from wrapping the stuff firmly around her thighs, trapping her legs together
From there the bears did not have much difficulty with Sonja. Suddenly all four of them had the ribbons, which Sonja realized was tape. They swarmed her, wrapping it around her ankles and above and below her knees. They didn’t bother dragging her arms behind her back so they could bind her wrists together, they simply wrapped more and more tape around her chest so her arms were folded up and trapped against it. Her hands remained close to her chin, but they were soon trapped in cocoons of tape that left them as useless fists.
In less than a minute, Sonja was half mummified by this strange, shining, impossibly tight tape all over her body. Shame burned red across her face. To be captured again was humiliating enough in and of itself. Let alone that it was at the hands—paws—of seemingly stuffed bears, or that she was trussed up like a present. Even Sturm’s forces hadn’t handled her in such a fashion!
The bears stood on either side of her, satisfied that their package was secure. Sonja kept trying to call for help. Her muffled voice rang out again and again. No one was coming.
But Sonja did not panic. She couldn’t say she was calm, her breathing was too hard and fast to pretend she was calm. But she did not panic. Even bound and gagged, she was still at the center of a major Gold Comet military outpost. Her and her father’s troops literally surrounded this room. If the bears intended to transport her they would have to sneak past thousands of troops, Gold Comet intelligence agents, and the most sophisticated sensory hardware on the planet.
One of the bears hopped onto Sonja’s window sill and opened it. Sonja froze. She could not see the night sky outside the window. Instead she saw the interior of some kind of vehicle. A sleekly made contraption that was obviously more technologically advanced than any transport Sonja had ever seen.
And she, Gold Comet’s head of Intelligence, had no idea it was there. It had flown straight up to her own window, past countless personnel and one of the most sophisticated security systems in the world… and was simply sitting there as if nothing Gold Comet possessed had a prayer of sighting it. Sonja could only try to take in as many details of the vehicle as she could. She let out a muffled gasp when she saw the outer edge outlining the open hatch.
Or more precisely, she did not see the other edge. Sonja could only see the distorted night sky on the side of the opening. The vehicle was cloaked. Made invisible with technology Sonja had only glimpsed in experimental R&D presentations.
More bears poured out of the vehicle to join their vanguard in lifting Sonja above their heads. Sonja struggled, of course. She twisted and squirmed as well as she could in the grasping paws of the little horde of kidnapping teddy bears.
It wasn’t until they crossed the threshold of the cloaked vehicle that Sonja was taken out of the bears’ hands, pulled up by mechanical arms hanging from the ceiling of the sterile-seeming environment.
At the same time, Sonja heard something new. The muffled sounds of people trying to speak through gags. Her head turned and there, nestled on a side of the vehicle’s interior that had been out of Sonja’s vision before she entered, were Nell and Sami of Orange Star.
The two looked at Sonja with mournful, sympathetic eyes. Their bonds were orange instead of yellow–making it obvious that her own were gold and that the bears’ choices of binding material were made as deliberate slights to Orange Star and Gold Comet–and connected them at the ankles and back to the utilitarian seats of the vehicle.
Nell’s immaculate purple suit was disheveled from struggling. The cap she wore to denote her official rank as Orange Star’s Commander-in-Chief was gone. She was as composed as she could be, but still obviously nervous. Sami in her fatigues and combat boots was struggling as furiously as she could.
How long had the two been here? Hours? Days? Sonja was aware of strange reports coming from Orange Star, but this was far beyond anything she might have imagined.
With orderly precision, Sonja was placed next to Sami. Nell remained on the infantry specialist’s other side. Sonja felt the moment of contact when her bonds were somehow connected to a point in the seat behind her. Her ankles were similarly anchored a moment later.
But most ominously of all were the remaining empty spaces on the transport. Sonja had a terrible feeling that whoever was responsible for these abductions was not done.
*
Benefactor Ship, High Orbit, exact time unknown
Robolord BM-EN15-74 monitored the situation from its ship, currently resting in high orbit of the planet below. No less than four if its priority maidifiable targets had been obtained, and the fifth would be packaged for transport shortly.
The benefactor switched its visuals to the internal security feed of its transport unit. The soon-to-be-maidified Nell, Sami, and Sonja were well in hand and continued to squirm in their bonds. It made for a delightful show. BM-EN15-74 was looking forward to seeing the three, and the two companions that would soon join them, placed in its dressing looms for their inaugural uniform assignments.
The monitoring devices BM-EN15-74 had put in place on the planet’s communications were reporting chaos. The abrupt disappearance of prominent military personnel from the nations of Orange Star, Gold Comet, and Blue Moon; as well as the appearance of Black Hole forces in Orange Star and Blue Moon territory, were having precisely the effect BM-EN15-74 predicted. It would take some time for an effective response to be mounted, by which time the Benefactor would be long gone from the system with its desired new maids. Other Benefactors, first BM-EN15-74’s allies and then the general population, would come to this new planet in the near future to claim their own prizes if they wished.
BM-EN15-74 was not in good standing among the wider Benefactor society. The resources it possessed were limited and it wanted the opportunity to claim damsels here on its own instead of fighting an uphill battle for the choicest maids. There would be no need to carefully sneak Seekers or NITE Bears into military bases if its peers as a whole were aware of its planet and the relatively limited technology it possessed. The nations below would simply be invaded and new maids taken outright. But BM-EN15-74 wanted its pick of the best the planet had to offer, so it needed to be strategic, efficient, and quiet.
There was a grunt near BM-EN15-74’s primary unit. The robolord returned its attention to its own ship to find one of the four maids it managed to retain from the recent and massive theft of its staff having entered its command room. It always liked to have at least one of its maids near its central unit. Preferably two, but one was more practical with its staff reduced.
The maid was a tall, black haired, busty former pirate who had been in BM-EN15-74’s possession for some time. Today the maid uniform she wore was a light, pale blue color with salmon pink highlights instead of her usual sleek black. Her bonds were standard. They were tight in the usual places on her legs and chest. Her hands were allowed to be in front of her, though her arms above the elbow were fasted securely behind her back.
The poor dear had dropped her duster as she entered the room, and was currently crouching down to retrieve it, offering a marvelous view of her assets from multiple vantage points. It may have been intentional. She was an intelligent woman.
BM-EN15-74 enjoyed that show for several moments before returning its attention to the planet below, selecting the feed of the Black Hole outpost that would soon obtain its final two maids. One of its remote bodies was present, and it was time to take direct control of the situation.
*
Black Hole Outpost, Undisclosed Location, 2330 hours
Captured Target: Former Blue Moon CO Sasha, sole image
Lash laughed, long and loud. She had to take her hands out of her overcoat pockets to hold her gut. Her wild, frizzy hair bobbed up and down as she struggled to get control of herself.
Black Hole’s youngest and most brilliant CO could not believe everything was going so well. She’d had serious doubts about Black Hole’s new partnership with these “FMP” guys going in. Heck, they said themselves that their contributions would be limited to “strategic, surgical strikes” instead of real military muscle.
But they’d delivered their end of the bargain and then some! Those surgical strikes were driving Orange Star into chaos! And Lash was loving her mental image of how that stuck up Gold Comet Emperor would flip out when he found out his precious daughter was missing.
And speaking of the bargain, Lash had delivered her end of things too.
“What’s the matter, rich girl?” Lash giggled. “You thought you’d be out of here already? Well too bad! You’re not going anywhere, anytime soon.”
Beside Lash was a woman around her age. Sasha was dressed in a Blue Moon uniform and stood unwillingly between two of Lash’s soldiers. She had long, silky black hair and a quiet sense of dignity that she was desperately trying and totally failing to keep up.
Stuck up types like Sasha drove Lash crazy. Always looking down their noses at her. Pfft. Lash didn’t need fancy uniforms and “regal bearing” to command her army. She did just fine in tights, boots, and a tube top, thank you very much. And she wasn’t bound and gagged with high tech tape, so what did Sasha know?
Lash had to imagine that it was hard for the aristocratic Blue Moon CO to act all poised and elegant when she was half-mummified in that fancy glowing blue tape the FMP guys had given her access too. Watching the autotape dispensers do their work on her was amazing! The stuff was now wrapped tight around almost everything from Sasha’s mouth to her feet. There were only a few bits of her formerly crisp blue, red-and-gold-highlighted uniform that weren’t covered with the stuff.
Sasha did not respond. She stared resolutely ahead, though the angry look in her eye and the way she was fidgeting ruined the picture and made Lash laugh some more. This was amazing. Lash couldn’t wait to see the other captives. She had no idea how she was going to decide which of them she would play with first.
The door to Lash’s command center opened and in walked two robots. Wow. Lash was an inventor extraordinaire, but she had never seen robotics technology advanced enough to create these two machines. The first was a remote body being used by “EN,” who was apparently in charge of the FMP force in the area (What did FMP stand for, anyway?). It had the basic shape of a human, but it wasn’t exactly disguising itself. It was all metal, and instead of a head it had a probably-not-glass orb with what Lash guessed was a processing unit visible at the center. Behind the remote body was one of the floating Seekers Lash had seen now and again. EN hadn’t been forthcoming about what all its machines did, so Lash figured the Seekers were scout drones.
“There you are!” Lash said. “How did things go on your end?”
The robot did not break its stride. “Our three designated targets are in custody. They are in the process of being escorted to my personal residence and will soon be joined by the remaining two.” It paused for a second. Lash had a feeling that a human body would be turning its head to look at the captive Blue Moon CO, but the robot body didn’t need to outwardly move to shift its attention.
“I see you have upheld your end of my deal with Black Hole.”
Lash smirked. “That’s right, it went off without a hitch! Best snatch and grab I’ve ever seen! Isn’t that right, rich girl?”
Sasha continued to stare ahead, but Lash could see the little vein throbbing in her forehead. She was maaaad. Though Lash guessed she would be pretty mad if her forces were hit that hard and fast too.
“Excellent,” said the bot. “And with that, our business on this planet will be completed momentarily. The schematics and weaponry we promised Black Hole is being transmitted to your leaders as we speak.”
“Sweet! I’ve been looking forward to taking a closer look at your tech.”
“You will have many opportunities to inspect our technology in the coming days.”
“Nice!” Lash turned back to the view screen. “I can’t wait to see how everything plays out. Ooo, but you gotta tell me who your fifth and final target is. Or no! Let me guess! It’s that uptight Green Earth CO with the red and Gold hair, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s Granny Nell’s baby sis? No, it’s gotta be the one from Green Earth! It is her, right?”
“No. It is you.”
“Ha! I knew it would be that… wait, what?”
The autotape dispensers were already at work. Two of them. Lash didn’t even have time to take her hands out of her pockets before her whole arms were trapped tight against her sides.
“Hey! What’s the big idea!? You can’t do this! Do you have any idea what Hawke will do when he finds ouuuuugggghhhmmmmmMMMMMMPPPPHHH!” Lash felt the stuff wrapping around her head, flattening sections of her wild hair down to her skin. Looking down for the first time, she saw the shiny stuff was black, a shade of ebony darker than any of her clothes.
“We will soon be out of your comrades’ reach. Rest assured that you will be securely in our custody for the foreseeable future.”
That most certainly did not assure Lash, though the (now ex-) Black Hole CO could see the smug look on Sasha’s face as she joined her in tight bondage.
And the soldiers standing guard weren’t doing anything! They were even—was that guard smirking at her?! Had these robot jerks cut a deal with Lash’s own army? Wait, what was she thinking? Of course they had! How else could anyone explain the way those jerks were just standing around and watching Lash (and Sasha) get lifted into the air by the Seeker? She’d been sold out! Literally!
“Come along now. Our transport will be here momentarily, and you can rest with your new colleagues. As Beneficiaries, the five of you will soon discover how pleasant your new lives can be as long as you are obedient. Though you will of course be cared for regardless of how quickly or slowly you adjust.”
“MMMMM MPH GGMH MMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPHHHH!”
Final Target Captured: Former Black Hole CO Lash
Prepare Dressing Loom for Maidifications