PeculiarChangeling
patreon
The Drone Legions
🕑 Added 2020-12-05 06:01:00 +0000 UTCA warning for this one - it's pretty mean and has an unfair ending. Enjoy! :D
“Tell me, doctor,” Madame Arianna said, standing on a balcony. Two thousand feet up, she could survey her whole factorium from her elevated perch. “How go the preparations?”
Doctor Connors looked up from his clipboard. “The first round of assimilation has gone well. Our drones are ready to begin spreading out and claiming more candidates.”
She tapped her sharp nails on the ledge, not looking back. Connors didn’t know if she could tell what he was thinking, the terror that always felt completely reasonable in her presence, but he kept it off his face. “Good, good. It is on schedule, then?”
“Eh… yes,” he said, wincing. “Mostly. There’s been a slight delay with the dropships. Setting them up to go to other Federation planets without clearance was a trick.”
Madame Arianna whirled, fury in her expression. “What?”
“We’re only behind by forty minutes!” Connors squeaked, holding up his clipboard defensively. “And our takeover of this sector won’t be delayed at all!”
She glared, and he thought for a moment that Arianna might be contemplating killing him right then and there. She couldn’t, though. The assimilation factories were his design, from the ground up. Sure, the apprentice that Arianna has assigned to work with him could likely run the machines, but they were only an apprentice. They couldn’t have built them from the ground up.
“Show me,” she said, lowly.
“Ma’am?”
“A tour,” she insisted. “I want to see the machines that will bring about my conquest.”
“O-of course.” Bowing, he gestured towards the elevator. “Right this way, your supreme excellence.”
There was no arguing with Madame Arianna. She ruled with an iron fist, and nobody who dared question her had ever gotten away with it unscathed.
Leading her, they walked into the elevator, surveying their steel yards at work as they descended.
Drop ships, the size of city blocks, were being welded together, each holding room for an attack team and an assimilation factory, each ready to be sent to another planet.
The Federation hadn’t seen war in a hundred years. They were unprepared for ground forces, especially not ground forces that would self replicate. Once their assault began, Madame Arianna’s conquest would be swift and decisive. Those who knelt would be allowed to serve her. Those who fought, well… That’s what the factories were for.
The elevator shuddered as it touched down on the factory floor, letting them out with a hiss of hydraulics. The factory floor was abuzz, drones forcing random civilians into the line. It didn’t matter who they were before, by the end they would be loyal soldiers for Arianna’s army.
“It starts here,” he said, gesturing towards the civilians being shoved in. As soon as they stepped onto the belt, a needle jabbed in their neck, and the people dropped. “With a powerful, fast acting muscle relaxer. Once it’s been injected, their bodies become unresponsive for roughly an hour, ensuring that they can’t tamper with the rest of the process.”
“But they’re fully aware?” Arianna asked.
“Of course. As you requested, the whole process is as uncomfortable and humiliating for the drones as possible. Those who resist will be in a perpetual state of degradation once they’ve been conditioned,” Doctor Connors assured her.
He walked along, pointing to the next stage. Large mechanical claws adjusted the victims, lining them up neatly, so that a laser could scan them and then begin systematically burning its way up their bodies, leaving clean, naked skin behind.
“The laser renders them hairless and naked,” Connors explained, checking his clipboard and walking to the next step.
As they moved through the factory floor, the drones all barely acknowledged them. They would respond to commands, but were otherwise incapable of independent actions. Discussion had been had about designing them to acknowledge Arianna and salute as she passed, but those ideas were discarded for fear of software issues in combat. Having the drones stop to salute in the middle of a battle would be potentially devastating, after all.
While they walked, Arianna seemed to be inspecting Connors more than the machines, looking him up and down. “And these are calibrated to work with anyone, yes?”
“The machine doesn’t care who’s put in, ma’am.” Doctor Connors confirmed. “Body type, sexual characteristics, it can work with any of them and create a loyal soldier drone. If we see here, now, we get the first stage of modifications…”
He gestured at the belt, where groggy subjects were trying to escape, but barely even able to move their arms. As they tried, servos sat them upright, and metal bands were locked around each subject’s neck, wrists, and ankles. Once properly cuffed and collared, they were lifted up, and the first humiliation was put into place.
For those with penises, tight metal cages were latched around them and welded shut. They were designed with stimulating toys that would constantly tease, but never give release. Subjects with vaginas were given a similar treatment, only with a self sterilizing implant that would tease and torture just as much without any sort of release.
“All subjects are scanned, and have an appropriately torturous locking mechanism applied that fits them,” Doctor Connors added.
Following this came plugs, forced in with lube. Each was hollow, but had a wax seal to prevent any accidents on the line, and there was no flared base to prevent removal under any circumstances. Given a few minutes, the wax seal would melt, but by then the drone would be wrapped in a snug diaper.
“To ensure they can’t control even their baser urges,” he added.
“Of course.” They kept walking.
One particular subject, a young man, was looking side to side and struggling mightily, but he was helpless under the control of the mechanical arms and the drugs. Doctor Connors watched as he was lifted up, given another scan, and then had his mouth pulled open so that a hollow gag could be inserted.
I almost feel sorry for them, he thought, but it wasn’t like Connors had much of a choice. If he didn’t build these factories for Arianna, she would have done worse to him.
As mechanical arms reached down to wrap the victims in thick, white diapers - designed to only need changing once every three days, to minimize downtime and increase humiliation - Arianna asked, “Tell me about the enhancements.”
“Well, all of them will be encased in a latex-alloy bodysuit,” Connors explained. “It’s resistant to most firearms, cut proof, and shock proof. It’s also uncomfortably hot and sweaty, and it traps odors like nobody’s business. I tried wearing a glove made of the stuff and had to take it off in five minutes. An hour wearing the suit, with a full diaper and no chance at a shower, the odor’s going to be unbearable.”
“But their mind won’t be intact,” Arianna pointed out. “Given that they’ll be under my control.”
“Well, the part of their mind that controls their limbs will be under the commander’s control,” Connors hedged. “They’ll still be fully aware of their surroundings, and able to feel everything being done to them. It makes me shudder, a little.”
“Good,” the Madame declared. “Let that be a warning to my enemies, then.”
Connors hesitated. Guilt twinged at his consciousness, wondering if he’d done the right thing, and he had to jog to catch up to Arianna as she walked alongside, inspecting the now-diapered subjects as heavy, elastic materials were pulled over their bodies, starting at the leg cuffs and snapping tight to each drone’s skin, covering their puffy diapers and creating a bulge.
The latex came up to their necks, stopping at the collars, so that everything except the drones’ hands, feet, and heads were covered.
Next came… the helmets.
Connors had designed them, of course. They would display a disorienting pattern of feedback into the subjects vision and hearing, completely demolishing their ability to employ rational control over their body, and then begin the process of reprogramming them. The drones would be completely blind and deaf, their motions dictated not by their brains, but by computers embedded in the helmets. The only opening on the helmet was for the mouth, so that a feeding tube could be inserted to keep the drone hydrated and fed.
Combat robots were more efficient in battle, but they couldn’t live off the land or be fed organic materials, and they weren’t half so terrifying. A robot trying to kill you was something to fight against. A drone trying to subsume your thoughts and encase you in a torture made of latex and diapers was something to surrender to.
The gloves and boots were perfunctory, practical things. They got put on, and then the drones were all dumped into a pile where they would wait as their brains were reprogrammed and their diapers were filled for the first time. By the time the muscle relaxers wore off, there would be no chance of escape or recovery for anyone who’d gone through the belt.
“It’s good,” Arianna declared. “I’m impressed.”
“Thank you, your magnificence,” Doctor Connors said.
“And it’s all your own design,” she added. “But… your apprentice knows how it all works, yes?”
“Well, of course. I taught him so that he could lead the factories on another planet,” Doctor Connors frowned. “Why?”
“I was only thinking…” Madame Arianna tapped her chin. “That you’ve seemed hesitant, these past weeks. Nervous.”
“I’m fully committed to the plan, ma’am. To the empire,” Connors said, taking a step back.
“Not only that, though. These machines, they’re your inventions. Your glory, in a way. Not my own work.” She leveled her steely gaze on Connors. “I don’t like to share, Doctor.”
He took another step away. “What… what are you saying?”
“That you’re no use to me, not any longer.” Madame Arianna smirking. “Not as anything more than a pathetic, useless-”
“Take her now,” Connors snapped.
She blinked. “Huh?”
Three drones in the immediate vicinity jumped on Arianna, tackling her to the ground. A quadruple dose of the muscle relaxer got shot into her neck, rendering her body totally limp, totally helpless.
Connors squatted down, smirking. “You stupid little bitch, you thought I wouldn’t program them to follow me above you? I slipped it into the programming. You wanted them to follow you, or to follow their base programming if you got taken out, but I outsmarted you. Now you’re going to be a little, pants-shitting, helpless thing, and I’ll- Huh? Buh…”
He fell to the ground limply, as a needle pricked his neck.
It didn’t make sense. One of the drones had incapacitated him, same as Arianna, but he hadn’t told her to. It had no instructions, except…
Except to follow it’s base programming, to find and assimilate drones.
Oh no. No, no, no, no-
The drones dragged him and Arianna towards the front of the assembly line, dumping them onto the belt with the other captives. Despite already being drugged, the servos hit them with another dose, and Connors felt his body go even more slack.
No. There’s got to be a way out of this, he thought, as the belt carried him forward into the first scan. The laser started working its way up his body, removing layers of his clothing and rendering hair to ash.
In the corner of his vision, he could see Madame Arianna behind him, glaring daggers his way, but she was as helpless, naked, and hairless as him.
If they don’t have a leader, they won’t accept surrender, Connors realized. They’ll assimilate everyone. They can’t not.
He’d made the perfect self replicating system, after all. Autonomous invasion forces that would conquer planets and send out more, larger, invasion forces.
The collar, designed to choke just a little bit, latched tightly around his neck, and the chafing wrist and ankle cuffs were locked down. He could hear Arianna whimpering, terror setting into her for possibly the first time in her life, but he’d accepted his fate. There was nothing to do except try to deal with the discomfort.
As he considered this, a steel cage was clamped tightly around him, squeezing his member and then immediately beginning to buzz, stroke, and tease. Despite his circumstances, his terror, he felt himself try to grow hard, strain painfully in the steel, fall limp, and then repeat the process.
Next, he was picked up by cold, steel hands. The plug was rested against his back door, pressure applied, and then he winced as it was shoved inside him. Why did I make it that large? Just to be painful?
… Stupid question.
The diaper came next, though he was already having trouble focusing on it, between painful attempts at an erection and the uncomfortable fullness in his bottom from a plug that would never be removed. Still, thick padding was folded between his thighs, taped down with industrial-grade adhesive, and he was dropped back in place.
Being gagged wasn’t so bad. He didn’t fight as the arms opened his mouth and forced in the hollow feeding gag, letting it rest between his teeth, waiting for the next step.
One thing he hadn’t considered as a designer was that the latex being pulled over his body would be coming straight out of a formation vat. It was hot to the touch, like it’d been laying out in the sun, making him sweat as soon as the tight material was snapped over his body. As a torture feature, he’d probably have left it in even if he’d known, but the surprise was the first thing that made him whimper. There wouldn’t be any cooling down or getting better, not when his body heat was radiating into the suit.
Then, finally, came the helmet, and Connors said goodbye to being the renowned doctor and scientist he’d been up until that moment.
He was just one of the legion of diaper drones.
