The Frog Prince, page 1
part #4 of The Darvel Exploratory Systems Series
THE FROG PRINCE
THE DARVEL EXPLORATORY SYSTEMS SHORT
S.J. SANDERS
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Author’s Note
About the Author
©2022 by Samantha Sanders
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission granted in writing from the author.
Cover art by me with lettering by Luna Atra Designs
This book is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences only.
Created with Vellum
PROLOGUE
“Ms. Brody, how are you feeling?”
Gwen groaned and blinked, the lights above blinding her. As the heavy sedation wore off, the doctor’s face gradually came into view. She wanted to hit something and throw up all at the same time. Her entire body ached!
“Like something ran over me,” she rasped. “What did you do to me?”
He blinked down at her as she tried to recall his name. She sighed and gave up. What did it matter anyway? It wasn’t like she was going to be seeing him after she got packed into the exploratory drone. The AI would be monitoring her from there on out as she made the trip to planet Xal2614 in stasis. She had been selected, and like all non-gratas who didn’t enjoy the protections of planetary citizenship on United Earth, she had little real choice what Darvel did with her once she was enlisted on the exploratory division.
She just hadn’t thought it would include surgery.
A hypo-syringe was pressed against her neck, delivering a wonderfully cool blast of medicine into her screaming veins. “As was explained to you, Xal2614 is a planet that, while having few oceans, has a high-water concentration over almost all of its land surfaces. Because the risk of contracting certain illnesses was high, we decided to do a wide range of genetic modifications in addition to surgical implants that had already been approved for initial exploratory recruits.”
She shook her head. “What does that mean?”
He smiled down at her patiently and patted her arm. She blinked at the strange feel of his hand on her skin. It felt muffled slightly and like his hand just slid off of her. Weird.
“Because the initial exploratory recruits are never retrieved and are left to survive on their own as they collect data until the first colonization ships arrive—if the planet is green-lighted for colonization—it has made it necessary to consider alterations for human adaptability on the planet with colony equipment and support. It is an expensive and complicated procedure but one well worth the wait. Although you have been in recovery for a month in a medically induced coma while you recovered from the surgery, we were able to do successful skin grafts and a few internal organ transplants as we modified you on a genetic level to be compatible with an amphibious life.”
She gaped up at him in shocked horror, afraid to even look down at her body. He squinted down at her with delight. “Don’t look so worried, dear. It was a perfectly logical solution. You see, we all, after all, have an amphibious stage in development. We merely recoded your genes to accept our necessary alterations and to make it so that they will also impact any offspring you have with…” He glanced at his data-pad. “… Christopher Evans, the other recruit being sent down.”
He looked back up at her, his eyes crinkling. “Darvel also decided to green-light reproductive license for recruits in the hope of getting longer lasting data collection that can extend beyond the lifetime of the initial recruits. Breeding with Mr. Evans is thereby a part of your mission as well.”
She shook her head in denial. This couldn’t be right. This had to be illegal. The Darvel Board Commission was insane! Her arm shot up revealing a slick, pebbly green flesh that ran down the entire visible length, down to black, claw-like nails and a pale-yellow webbing between her fingers. Her scream bubbled out of her just as another hypo-needle hit her neck, sending the world hazy.
“Just rest now, Ms. Brody. When you wake up you will be on Xal2614 and will be feeling much better.”
The world slowly disappeared into blackness and Gwen’s last conscious thought was that she highly doubted that she would be feeling better at all.
CHAPTER 1
Fuck, who the hell turned on the overhead brights? Gwen stretched her legs as she brought a hand up to shield her face, ready to murder her cabinmate. Their small shelter on Xal2614 was cramped with barely enough space for either of them to turn around and zero privacy. She supposed that was an intentional design considering that they were supposed to… breed. She grimaced and kicked off the light blanket covering her.
At least Chris was giving her as much space as possible and wasn’t trying very hard to get into her pants. Not yet anyway. The subject came up a few times since they awakened from stasis in their travel pod though she’d had a few days of reprieve as they worked to set up the shelter from the supplies that had been jettisoned to the planet with them.
But after that. The day-to-day monotony as they began to record the minute observations had led to an increasing awareness of the way Chris’s gaze seemed to linger on her. It was disconcerting but he was still acting like a gentleman and giving her space. She knew it was only a matter of time before it came up again. How exactly did one tell someone that they had no intention of ever sleeping with them if they can avoid it? It wasn’t that she held anything against him but there was zero attraction on her part and, frankly, Darvel’s expectations just rubbed her the wrong way.
Forced breeding had not been in the informational docket that she had received. In fact, she was pretty sure it was very illegal. Non-gratas may not enjoy all the privileges of citizens but they still had basic human rights and protections. Didn’t they?
She glanced down at her skin and cringed and the splotched color from the skin grafts. It was a reminder that Darvel had moved far away from United Earth’s legalities. All of this had been done on a station deep in space, after all. Who would even know back on Earth what had happened to her? It certainly wasn’t like she could complain about it. She would never see Earth again, that much was clear. Worse was that, though the genetic alterations they made on her allowed her body to accept the changes the scientists wrought, she would never get used to it. The emerald and hints of teal with golden yellow webbing between her fingers and toes might have been pretty if it wasn’t for the fact that it was on her.
She couldn’t change what they did to her but she sure as hell wasn’t going to go along with their plans and fuck some man she barely knew and wasn’t attracted to in order to spawn offspring for Darvel. Fuck that and fuck them.
Speaking of, where was Chris anyway?
Pulling on a simple, body-hugging jumpsuit designed especially for their new environment, Gwen padded out from the single bedroom that had been graciously left to her into the main room of their living pod and glanced around. The cushioned sitting bench where he slept was pristine, the blanket folded up and left on one corner and the kitchen that adjoined the space was empty. Usually, he had coffee brewing since he was more of a coffee addict than she was.
“Chris?”
Silence met her and Gwen frowned. Did he step outside? They had a rule between them that no one went outside alone. It was a strange world and neither of them knew what sort of dangers were out there that they were not yet aware of.
She placed her palm on the lock pad beside the door and waited for it to register her signature. The door whooshed open, and she stared out at the swamp on the other side, the water creeping up around the dock that they had painstakingly built around their habitation pod. The swamp itself, she had mixed feelings about. It was beautiful with giant blossoms on stalks and thick reedy plants with broad leaves interspersed among gigantic, towering trees with enormous roots rising above the waterline. It was completely alien and yet, in some ways, how she imagined Earth might have been when the superior life forms had been dinosaurs.
A giant beetle-like insect with long dragonfly wings zipped by and Gwen jumped despite being safely inside the shelter. She swallowed and peered around. Other than the sudden appearance of the bug, everything was unnervingly silent, the thick mist that drifted among the trees, obscuring the planet from the satellite that had been established in this solar system.
“Chris?” she whispered. “This is not funny. If you are trying to scare me, quit. I told you that I don’t celebrate Halloween.”
He had been obnoxiously elated yesterday that it was October and had gone on and on about all the creepy ways he had celebrated the holiday growing up. Gwen didn’t get it. Sure, she did trick or treating in the restricted areas for non-gratas as a kid, but she had never enjoyed being scared and that was exactly what it was all about once one became a certain age. All the creeps and chills she could do well without.
A strange pulsing, rhythmic song rose up, the eerie, hollow notes sending a chill down her spine despite their beauty.
“And this is how every horror movie begins, with some creepy ass soundtrack to lure you in. I have seen a horror movie or two in my life and am not so stupid that I’ll come out there, Chris, so you can stop with the theatrics. Put away whatever you found to make that sound, and come in
side. I’ll get coffee going.”
Silence. Whatever it was stopped. She shivered, wrapping her arms around her middle, waiting for Chris to pop out from behind one of the large trees. But he didn’t. There was no sound except a soft splashing that had her head snapping around in an attempt to locate the source of the sound.
She jumped as the pulsing notes started again… closer.
“Please, stop,” she begged, her voice wobbling as fear crawled up into throat.
It stopped and she could have cried out with relief except that a large splash broke the silence, and she spun around, half-furious and ready to chew Chris out for trying to scare her. He would be laughing at her, she was certain.
The words died on her tongue as her eyes met the amber-orange stare of something peering up at her from the water. Her tongue glued to the top of her mouth and a tremor ran through her. It wasn’t Chris. It was nothing recognizably human, not even with their own altered features. The face was a deep violet that seemed to shift in hues of blue and purple with colorful yellow and orange bumps visible on its forehead and just under its eyes. And it didn’t have human hair. In place of hair, there were long rubbery strings braided across the top of its head and floating in the water around it. Two sets of eyelids blinked, and it shifted closer.
Gwen squealed and stepped back, slamming her hand on the pad to initiate the door-lock. The door whooshed closed as she stumbled back further into the house. She stood there in the middle of the living room, her hand pressed against her chest, feeling her heart race under her palm. No sound came from the other side of the door, no sound on the dock and no collision against the door. Slowly she crept toward the viewing screen that showed perimeter views around the habitation pod. With a flick of her fingers, she magnified the one in front of her house, drawing it up to the fore of the screen.
She shuddered. There it was. Whatever it was, it was still out there.
It seemed to peer right back at her as it drew back slightly from the dock and rose further from the water. She froze. Its features looked almost human. Possessing a strong jaw and a vaguely humanoid nose though less pronounced and more of a thick ridge on its face with a pair of slit nostrils at the end, it looked like a better and more natural version of whatever she and Chris were supposed to be. Even its ears were similar except that they were longer and pointed, the webbed ends crinkling back. More of that strange textured skin covered is throat and muscled chest, the spray of color yellow and green bumps marking it like constellations. More importantly, however, it wore a necklace made of glowing stones and what appeared to be frighteningly large predatory teeth. Its head cocked as it stared back at her—or rather at her door—and then its throat swelled, turning a pale purple—as the pulsing song, not unlike frog song now that she felt safe enough to listen closer—issued from it.
It didn’t approach but it didn’t leave either. More worrying, there was no sign of Chris. Had that thing killed him the moment he stepped outside? Hours passed, the light shifting over the swamp marking the passage of hours until finally it dimmed and darkened as night fell and still no sign from Chris, nor could she hail his comm with the comm system’s broadcaster.
Shivering, she dropped onto the couch and stared at the frog alien who had settled on a nearby root. Black pants covered its lower body and looped with stirrups around feet with long, webbed toes. It had pulled on gloves over its clawed, webbed hand that seemed to protect the webbing as it foraged around. She wondered if the webbing between the fingers was more sensitive and easier to damage since it did not take the same care with its feet that were similarly clawed.
As the swamp darkened, its colorful splotches became luminescent and its amber eyes glowed, cutting through the dark so that she was able to see clearly where it was. Other than climb around the nearest tree, it didn’t venture any closer but nor did it leave. It stayed right where it was… watching her. And she watched it in turn until sleep finally claimed her.
CHAPTER 2
It was still out there. Still watching her. She didn’t know what it wanted, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem that it was interested in attacking. Or at least it was making no attempt to get into the habitation pod. Nor was it attempt to lure her out unless its creepy singing was meant to do so.
It wasn’t, right?
She frowned and pressed her hand against her belly. She had awoken to its singing and the sound had sent heat spikes deep into her ever since, the sensation dropping to a low smolder whenever the singing ceased. It was strange. It had not affected her that way yesterday.
Fuck, please don’t be a side-effect of the changes to my biology.
Amid all of that there had been song-like vocalizations that had recently started just a few hours ago that her translator was rapidly beginning to process. Now she was catching occasional words that were entirely random without context and one word in particular that didn’t have translation but stood out among them as often as it was repeated. Jymlina.
What was a jymlina?
Where. Hold. Sing. The barrage of words were maddening, called out at a volume that she couldn’t hope to ignore them as the translator provided more and more words.
And still Chris had not returned. At this point, she might as well count him as dead. They never stayed away from the habitat overnight. There were predators that hunted the swamp. At night they could hear the screams and cries of the wildlife. He never would have stayed out there unless he was unable to return. She was caught between fear that she was now alone out there, regret for his death, and the arousal that was slowly crawling through her as the heat expanded from her belly with an acute lust that her skin crawled with it.
Had the scientists known that this would happen? She snorted mirthlessly. Oh, she had no doubt. They had probably banked on him figuring out how to trigger her instinct in this way. Now that she thought back on it, sometimes she heard him making similar, disjointed notes that she figured were due to the amphibian characteristics given to them. It hadn’t sounded as beautiful as the song being sung by the alien, but now that she thought about it, she could make the correlation.
She scratched an itchy spot behind her ear in annoyance. She was going to need to slather on more moisturizer. Her skin produced a natural protective mucus, but the scientists had them strip it daily so that their data signatures were clear. It was a painful process that left her skin exposed and constantly itchy. There were times when it got really bad that she was tempted to just burrow into the muddy water out there and soak it in. The moisturizer was the only thing that brought her relief. At least it was a small distraction from the arousal tormenting her.
What was it about frogs… there was something teasing her memory, something about the evolution of the frogs in cities that sprawled across Earth and how it affected their songs that felt relevant to her situation.
With a grunt of impatience, she went to the data system and typed in her query. As usual, she was forced to wait several minutes for the system to make contact with the wandering satellite, but finally it went through. She read it over, her mouth pinching. That was what it was. The evolution of the frog song. Though there were preserves, those areas that were populated had few areas that were set aside to support natural wildlife. The frogs were one of the few things that survived there. And without many natural predators there, the songs had shown marked complexity during mating season, drawing the female to them.
Was her amphibian and mammalian DNA cocktail doing this to her? Instead of simply drawing her, it was triggering what felt like a heat cooking inside of her, demanding satisfaction. To be bred.
If this was intentional… well then Darvel certainly got the last laugh on her. She wouldn’t have been able to resist Chris once he worked out how to sing.
