Commercial Break (Worm / Slut Life) (Borderline SFW)

Preparation 2.3

---

As Mina was pulling Taylor through the airlock and onto their shuttle, they were met by a short girl with close cropped purple hair. The girl raised her hand in a casual wave and said, “Hi, I’m Corporal Para Ventura. Feel free to call me Para. I’ll be your guide for the moment, since moving cargo is Corporal’s work.” Her tone was mostly friendly, though there was a bit of a bitter note at the end.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Taylor hesitantly said, reaching out and shaking the other girl’s hand. “I’m Taylor Hebert.”

Para nodded and said, “Right, you’re our cargo.”

“And I’m Mina,” the magical girl added. “I guess you could call me a transportation specialist.”

“I’m not sure why we need one of those, but good to know,” Para replied. “Anyway, come with me and I’ll take you to the rest of the crew.”

“And the commanding officer?” Mina asked.

“Yeah… about that...” Para said hesitantly. “We don’t really have one.”

Mina stopped suddenly and blinked, even as Taylor bumped into her. “You don’t have one?” she asked incredulously.

“Nope,” Para replied, throwing her hands into the air and rolling her eyes. “Apparently, somebody couldn’t be bothered to make sure the shuttle crew would be getting paid.”

“You’re not getting paid?” Taylor asked in shock. “Why are you here, then?”

Para turned to face Taylor and smiled, “Well, I’m here out of professional curiosity. I heard you have an organic supercomputer we’re going to be moving, and I wanted to take a look.” She gave a short laugh before adding, “The men are here because they’re a bit pent up and heard about Mina.”

“Oh? Stories have gotten around, I see.” Mina commented. “I take it they’re all good stories?”

Para nodded, “Sure, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.” Jerking her thumb at one of the hatches they were passing, she added, “I’ve got a soundproofed workroom set up in the lab. The guys are pretty nice, but I’m not interested in any of them, so I’d rather not join the orgy.”

“Orgy?” Taylor yelped.

“Well, yeah,” Mina replied. “How did you think I was going to recharge after we get to the alternate Babnockorty? I definitely can’t manage two sixth dimensional jumps back to back.”

Taylor looked at Mina oddly and asked, “Aren’t you Slut Life’s main source of transportation between universes?”

“Haha, no,” Mina laughed self-deprecatingly. “I’m nowhere near powerful enough for that. I mostly help contestants who are having second thoughts get over their nerves.” She noticed how Taylor was now eyeing her warily and hastened to add, “Oh, don’t worry, we aren’t going to be doing that with you. It’s mostly for the people who asked for something they thought they would enjoy, but it’s something weirder than they thought.” Under her breath, she muttered, “The number of people I’ve had to give diaper fetishes to...”

“That sounds… unpleasant,” Para noted, shaking her head. Looking at Taylor, she added, “You know, I kind of envy you.”

“You do? Why?” Taylor asked.

“I tried to sign up for a run a few years ago, before I signed up as a mercenary,” Para explained, shaking her head. “They rejected me,” she continued. “Something about worrying about what I’d do to the robots.” At Taylor’s confused look, she added, “I’m a roboticist. I do robots.”

Mina winced. “I remember reading about you. I think they were worried about you suborning their camera drones.”

Para grinned. “Yeah, that was part of the plan. The health and longevity benefits were just another perk, as far as I was concerned. Of course, I don’t really need to worry about that much anymore.”

“Oh?” Mina asked before Taylor could.

“Yeah, we’ve got it all figured out,” Para explained. “Worst case, we all have our memories and a tissue sample backed up back at Jumpstar Prime. Sure, you might wake up missing a few months, but it’s better than staying dead, right?”

“That’s a very philosophical question,” Mina replied. “But it’s not one I want to get into.”

“That’s good,” Para said as they stepped through a hatch, “because we’re here.”

The other two stepped through the wide hatchway and looked around the room. Lounging around were five large, well muscled men and “Is that an elephant?” Taylor asked, pointing towards the large gray figure. “And why is it wearing clothes?”

“Oh boy,” Para muttered, as the elephant turned toward them and glared. “Hey,” the purple haired girl shouted, “Chisulo, take it easy! She’s from a backwater; she doesn’t know any better!”

“What?” Taylor asked. “What did I say?”

The large elephant made his way over to stand before her, before rearing up onto his hind legs and holding out a hand. “I am Corporal Chisulo, and I am a neophant, not an elephant.”

“Oh,” Taylor said, staring up at the large figure.

“This is the part where you shake his hand and introduce yourself,” Para hissed, nudging Taylor in the ribs.

“Oh, sorry,” Taylor stuttered as she grasped the large hand. “I wasn’t expecting any aliens.”

Chisulo scoffed. “I’m no more an alien than you are.” Looking at the young girl shrewdly, he asked, “You are from Earth, correct?”

“Um, yes,” Taylor replied.

“So am I,” the neophant replied.

“Oh. Um, right… introductions,” Taylor said, scrambling to change the subject. “I’m Taylor, Taylor Hebert.”

“So you’re the person we’re transporting,” Chisulo noted. Looking over the strangely dressed girl, he asked, “And who are you?”

Mina gave the large figure a once over and licked her lips. “Oh, I can see I’m going to enjoy this. I’m Mina, and I’ll be the one transporting us through sixth dimensional space.” Looking the large male over again, she added, “You are here to help me recharge, right?”

“I am,” Chisulo confirmed, “though Commander Foxworthy didn’t tell me any details beyond informing me that I could help.”

“Oh,” Mina replied with a naughty grin, “then I’m sure you’ll be in for a treat.” She looked around the room and asked, “So, who are the others?”

Chisulo shrugged his massive shoulders. “Mostly some new recruits. They wanted a break from training.”

“And a piece of ass,” one of the men called back. “I wouldn’t mind me a piece of that leggy one!”

“What?!” Taylor squawked. Turning rapidly toward Para, she asked, “Is there room for two in your workroom?”

Para shot the man a glare before replying, “Easily. Now, unless anyone else decides to get on Elf’s list, we should get going.”

“What about my bugs?” Taylor asked. “We can’t just leave them here!”

“From the mission briefing,” Chisulo began, “yes, we can. In fact, we have orders to. Something about minimizing any negative effects with using your connection to the super computer while directly next to it.”

“That makes sense...” Taylor said uneasily. “I guess it’s a good thing Mina pulled me out of the room before I could get my crickets to follow me.”

“You’re welcome,” Mina chirped. “So, when are we leaving?”

“We left right after we got on the shuttle,” Taylor answered.

“How did you know that?” Para asked in surprise.

“I could feel us getting further away from my crickets,” Taylor replied. “We’re almost out of range now.”

“We’re almost half a kilometer out,” Chisulo stated. “That’s not particularly useful in space, but I can see how that would help with keeping track of things in a ground engagement.”

“Especially if you can keep each of your bugs straight,” Para added. “It’d be like having your own IFF setup once you get a bug on everyone… unless they kill the bugs, of course.”

Off to the side, Mina huffed. “I don’t want to talk about bugs,” she grumbled. “Just… let me know when we’re at least a kilometer out, alright?”

“Will do, ma’am,” the large neophant replied. Turning back to Taylor, he continued, “If you want, we have some seats over here, or I can show you to one of the windows.”

“One of the windows sounds good,” Taylor replied. “I kind of want to see what this supercomputer thing looks like.”

“I don’t recommend looking out the windows while I cast our gateway,” Mina warned, following the others towards one of the observation windows. “I’m told it can be a bit disturbing to watch. Something about extreme non-Euclidean geometries.” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know enough math to know what that means.”

Para spun to stare at Mina for a moment. “I’ll be back!” she cried as she suddenly began hurrying back to the labs. “I need to cobble together some sensors.” The group watched her as she left, and were still watching when she abruptly came back. “And don’t go casting anything until I’m done!

---

“Para!” Chisulo called down the corridor. “Are you done playing yet? We’re not being paid by the hour, you know!”

“Do you know how long it takes to fab mounting brackets for the terapedoes?” Para demanded as she stomped back into the room. “I wanted to make sure we won’t lose any when we go through the dimensional boundary.”

“That would be bad,” Chisulo agreed. “Especially when we need to use the VDA to move the supercomputer.”

“We’ll be fine,” Para replied, waving off the neophant’s concerns. “If worse comes to worse, I can always fab us some more.”

“Can I start casting yet?” Mina whined. “I may be getting paid by the hour to be here, but that doesn’t mean I want to miss my soaps.”

“Sure,” Para said, waving a hand flippantly. “I’ve got every sensor I could scrape together strapped to the hull, so I’m set.”

Chisulo checked with the pilot before saying, “We should be far enough away from any structures. Since Ventura is also set, you can begin whenever you’re ready.”

“Finally!” Mina crowed, holding up her staff. Raising her staff high, she began chanting something unintelligible that echoed oddly in the ear as dark energy spiraled in, coalescing into a ball around the head of her staff.

Para quickly pulled out her handbrain and began flipping through the readings from several sensors. “Good,” she said. “It looks like the sensors are getting data from whatever she’s doing. There’s some weird gravitic resonances going on.”

Mina began sweating and breathing heavily as she continued chanting. All the while, the ball was expanding and compressing in time with her cadence. Chisulo winced and looked away quickly while Taylor watched on in blank fascination.

“The gravitic interference patterns are fascinating,” Para breathed as she watched the readings on her handbrain. “I’m going to need to send a copy of these to the Captain’s clone and Petey.”

Finally, Mina gestured forward with her staff, sending the ball of energy careening towards the front of the shuttle. Mercenaries jumped out of its way as the ball passed until it crashed into, and through, the front bulkhead without a trace. “It’s done,” Mina intoned, right before collapsing to the ground.

“Mina, are you alright?” Taylor cried, scrambling next to the younger girl and dropping to her knees next to her.

“Yeah,” the girl replied, clutching the side of her head. “That just took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. Here’s a tip. Don’t skimp on your reserves, even if you think having more spells will be more helpful.”

Taylor blinked in surprise. “It really takes that much out of you?”

“Yup,” Mina replied, popping the p. “Normally I wouldn’t even be doing something like this, but I’m the most mobile person available on short notice right now.” Looking towards the purple haired girl and the neophant, she raised her voice and asked, “Can we get through the portal already? Most of the energy went into opening it, but I’d like to get a chance to recharge, and I can’t do that before I close it.”

“I’ve got all the readings I’m going to get here,” Para said, still looking at her handbrain. “We should be set to go, right, Chisulo?”

“Yes,” the big corporal agreed. “I’ll make sure they start bringing us through now.”

As the neophant walked off, Taylor asked, “Mina, why do you need to close the portal before recharging? Shouldn’t it stay open on it’s own?”

Mina grimaced and embarrassedly replied, “Normally, it would.” She laughed slightly and added, “Liana and Meagan really gave you a full rundown of what we can do, didn’t they? It turns out I don’t have enough mana to make the portal permanent, so all of my available passive mana regeneration goes towards maintaining it, and I can’t concentrate on it while recharging manually.”

As the shuttle moved through the portal, lights, colors, and images flashed through the windows. For a moment, everyone heard purple and tasted the gravity being exerted on their bodies by the annie-plant as well as the minor fluctuations caused by the portal while their vision swam. Just as suddenly, everything righted itself as they exited the portal.

“That was intense,” Taylor exclaimed in surprise as she forced her rebellious stomach to subside. “Is it always like that?”

“Not really,” Mina replied. “I don’t usually try to move through more than four dimensions for a reason. The more dimensions you add, the harder the trip. It probably wouldn’t be as bad if I could throw more mana at it, but what can you do? At least it’s over pretty quick, right?”

“Ugh,” Para grumbled from next to them. “That was unpleasant.” She shook her head as though to clear it before continuing, “Anyway, I’m sending out the VDA. We should be in position pretty soon. The supercomputer should be right below us.”

Taylor rushed to the window and looked out. “I can’t see it,” she complained.

Mina came over and squeezed in next to Taylor to take a look. “Is it hidden in one of those canyons?” she asked, gesturing towards one of the large fissures.

“Hmm? What are you talking about?” Para asked, squeezing in from Taylor’s other side to take a look. “That is the supercomputer.” She gestured widely and added, “It’s all the supercomputer. As far as the eye can see in every direction. They should be dropping us down right in the middle of it.”

“We’re going to be landing?” Taylor asked in worry.

“No,” Para replied with a shake of her head. “We’re going to hover right over the surface. We want to be low enough to be covered in the same teraport field, but we also don’t want to risk anything happening if we land.”

“It’s so big,” Mina said in surprise. “Didn’t you people say it was a biological supercomputer?” she demanded. “How is that even remotely possible?”

Para shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s not the biggest living thing we’ve come across,” she said before wincing. “Though it may be the largest living thing we’ve come across made from baryonic matter.”

“What does that mean?” Taylor asked.

“The Pa’anuri are huge,” Para explained, “but they’re made out of dark matter, so they might not count.”

“”That still doesn’t explain what you meant by baryonic matter,” Taylor griped.

Para stared at the brown haired girl for a moment before smacking her forehead. “Oh, right! They said you were from a less developed Earth. Sorry about that. Baryonic matter is what the observable universe is made out of. Dark matter can’t really interact with it, except gravitationally. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s only really important if a Pa’anuri tries to kill you, which isn’t really likely.”

“If you say so,” Taylor replied skeptically. Looking out the window again, she said, “Hey, it looks like we’re getting closer!” She squinted as the terrain grew larger and more detailed in the window. “Are you sure that’s the supercomputer? Or that it’s biological? It looks like a bunch of color changing crystals from here.”

Para nodded in agreement. “It’s definitely not what I was expecting to see.” Checking her handbrain, she continued, “As far as I can tell it is displaying the same type of energy patterns you’d expect in a brain or a neural network. I’ll need to analyze this data more to see how it’s handling the latency issues”

“What’s that?” Mina asked.

“The supercomputer is large enough that even fiberoptics would have a noticeable delay in transmission times,” Para explained. “So I want to know how it’s preventing lag.” Turning to Taylor, she continued, “Based on what I’ve been told of your abilities, it has to either be able to transfer data at faster than light speeds, or it is much more efficient than seems credible and is only using a small part of its potential to handle things for you.” She shrugged, and finished by saying, “It probably won’t make a difference for you, but it would be interesting to know, and could make a difference in the long term.”

Before either Taylor or Mina could ask another question, Chisulo walked over. “The VDA is in position and has been doing deep scans of the entity. We’re ready to go whenever you are.”

“I’m going to need to recharge my mana at some point,” Mina noted, looking the large mercenary over with a predatory glint in her eye. “Do you think we should take care of that before or after you move us to our new location?”

“Will it make a difference when you do it?” Chisulo asked.

Mina thought for a moment before replying, “It shouldn’t, though I’d prefer to do it sooner, rather than later. It’s uncomfortable to be this low on mana.”

“We’d be waiting the same amount of time either way,” Para noted. “We might as well take care of it now. It’d also give the VDA more time to scan things here.”

“True,” Chisulo agreed. “I’m going to divert some of the terapedos for the moment, that way we can get some scans of the surrounding area as well.”

Para nodded. “Might as well. It should give the scientists studying things more to work with.” She turned to Mina and said, “You have fun now, alright? I’m going to head back to my sound-proofed lab. It sounds fun and all, but I’ve already got a guy I’m interested in and he didn’t come on this trip, so I think I’ll pass for now.”

“No problem,” Mina said easily. “Having another girl there would make things faster, but I don’t mind doing most of the heavy lifting myself.” She turned to Taylor and asked, “Are you going to be joining us or hiding out with Miss Ventura?”

Taylor flushed and sputtered for a moment before finally replying, “I think I’ll hang back with Para, if that’s alright?” she asked, looking towards the shorter girl.

Para shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with it. There’s plenty of room for two in there. Come on, I’ll get you settled so these guys can get started.” Moving quickly, she led Taylor out of the main cabin and towards her lab.

Mina smirked as she watched the two other girls leave. “You’re going to be missing out,” she called after them. “But that just means there’ll be more for me.” She turned to look over the mercenaries who were watching her in a mix of apprehension and eagerness. “So,” she asked, “who’s first?”

---

“Welcome to my lab,” Corporal Para Ventura said as she led Taylor into the space. Once the taller girl was inside, she turned and secured the door. “There we go, nice and soundproofed.” She punched a button on a panel next to the door before saying, “Chisulo, we’re buttoned up. You can start whenever you’re ready.”

“Good,” Chisulo replied through the intercom. “Mina is getting pretty antsy up here, and it’s having an effect on the grunts. I wasn’t sure how much longer they would be willing to wait for you. I’ll contact you once we’ve finished out here and have cleaned up a bit.”

“Thank you,” Para said. “I really don’t want to have to deal with any fluids you lot might be leaving behind.”

“Noted,” Chisulo grunted. “Chisulo out.”

“Right,” Para said, turning back to Taylor. “That’s taken care of. Want a tour of the lab?”

Taylor looked around and shrugged. “Might as well. It’s not like I can tell what most of this is.”

“That’s to be expected,” Para replied. “It’s not like you’ve had a chance to see a mil-spec fabber before.”

“A what?” Taylor asked in genuine puzzlement.

“This beauty,” Para replied, gesturing to one of the pieces of equipment. “It’s a military grade fabricator, meaning it can make most things we may need out in the field. It’s honestly a bit excessive to have on a shuttle craft, but we like to be prepared, and they wanted to give me something to play with to keep me out of trouble.”

“That’s an issue for you?” Taylor asked.

“Well, if I didn’t have a fabber and a request to make some specific and fiddly equipment, I’d probably be tempted to try to write an AI, and the last one I made went a little homicidal on us.” Seeing Taylor’s look, she hurriedly added, “Don’t worry, she’s better now… unless someone kills a crew member she likes, at least. Then she gets scary again.”

“Oh,” Taylor said, not knowing what else to say.

“And, if I finish that, I’ve got some spare parts and ideas on how to upgrade my robot, Tarpaulin,” Para added.

“Is there anything I can do?” Taylor asked, looking around. “I don’t want to get in the way, and I don’t think I’ll be much help with the fabber.”

“Well, there’s two options I can think of,” Para replied, tapping her lip in thought. “I can either set you up on a spare terminal and have you run through the tutorials or I’ve got a copy of 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries you could read. A lot of the company swears by it, and it has some good lessons.”

“Such as?” Taylor asked curiously.

“Well,” Para began before pausing to think for a moment, “Maxim 4 should apply to you fairly well, based on what I’ve read of your file. ‘Close air support covereth a multitude of sins’ and all. You might not be able to do much about good body armor, but swarms of insects can still be distracting. That’ll let you get away with more things you really shouldn’t.”

“Alright,” Taylor agreed. “I’ll give it a look. At least it sounds more interesting than most of my school assignments.”

“That’s the spirit,” Para said as she handed over a handbrain opened to the book. “If you have any questions or need anything, just call out. I shouldn’t be doing anything too thought intensive, so I don’t think you’ll cause me to lose my train of thought.” Grimacing slightly, she added, “And if you want to watch the… festivities going on in the main cabin, there’s a monitor over in the corner. Personally, I’d rather not watch someone only a little larger than me fuck a neophant, but, I don’t know, you might enjoy it.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Taylor decided. Holding up the handbrain, she added, “I’ll just find a nice place to sit and start reading this.”

“Good idea,” Para agreed. “I’ll let you get to that. I’ve got work to do.” Cracking her knuckles, she made her way over to the fabber and got to work.

---

“Do you think they’re done yet?” Taylor asked for the third time, causing Para to look up from her work.

“I don’t know,” the purple haired girl replied. “Why don’t you check the monitor and find out.”

“I don’t want to,” Taylor protested. “Last time I looked, Mina was bouncing up and down on Chisulo! How does that even work?!”

“I’m guessing either magic or body mods,” Para replied. “Either way, I’m sure the home release of the recording will sell well.”

“We’re recording that?” Taylor asked incredulously.

“Yup. It’s one of our contracts, actually,” Para replied. “The royalties from their parts in it are about the only thing the others are getting paid for this.”

“I thought you said they weren’t getting paid earlier,” Taylor noted.

“I did,” Para agreed with a nod. “They aren’t getting paid for moving you from Earth to Babnockorty. They’re getting paid royalties for being in a gang bang porno. It’s a totally separate job. They’re lucky Chief Warrant Officer Thurl got them the second contract.”

Taylor was spared from needing to reply when the intercom buzzed. “Ladies, if you’d like to come up front,” Chisulo began, “we can get going.”

“You guys cleaned everything up, right?” Para demanded coming over to look at the neophant through the screen. “I’m not going to go out there and find everything covered in… fluids, am I?”

Chisulo looked around nervously before nervously replying, “Uh, maybe you should wait another few minutes before coming out.”

“Great,” Para grumbled. “At least it’ll give me some time to straighten up in here.” Closing the connection, she turned and said, “Come on, Taylor, help me get this stuff back in the crate.”

---

“Oh, good,” Para said caustically as she led Taylor back into the main cabin of the shuttle. “I see you managed to clean everything up.”

“You two really missed out,” Mina commented from where she was lounging in one of the chairs. “It was a lot of fun.”

Around her, the hardened mercenaries blushed furiously and started staring at everything other than the three girls. Occasionally, two would match gazes for a moment before violently looking in another direction.

“It was definitely… interesting,” Chisulo said diplomatically. “I would not be entirely against doing that again.”

Smirking wickedly, Mina added, “I didn’t even use any of my really special tricks. Next time, we’ll need to try them when I have a full tank.”

Para looked around and sighed. “I’ll let Thurl know that we’ll have plenty of volunteers the next time you guys come looking.”

“So...” Taylor began hesitantly, attempting to change the subject, “are we ready to go?”

“Ah, yes,” Chisulo said, grabbing the new subject with both of his engineered hands. “We are ready, as soon as we call in the VDA and reposition it for the teraport.”

“Then get us ready,” Para ordered. “You might have gotten this place pretty clean, but it still smells funky. I want to get home and smell that wonderful canned nature.” Turning to Taylor, she added, “We live in a planet-sized space station with its own ecosystem.”

“Sounds nice?” Taylor replied questioningly.

Chisulo cleared his throat. “We’re all set to teraport. The scout terapedos have been sent and returned. We’re good to go. We’ll begin in three, two, one.”

“What’s happening?” Taylor demanded as the scenery began tearing apart around her. She grew increasingly frantic as the effect grew and began to affect her directly. “No, no, no. No. NO!"