DEATHMARCH (Patreon)

Jane marched, her death awaited her.

She felt excited and apprehensive, and stepping over the bodies of her fellow conscripts didn’t help. Between moving too slowly to please the heavily armed patrol drones shepherding the girls and some officers and techs looking to have a little fun with girls no one would miss, even walking to her ship was dangerous.

The Space Patrol had finally pinned down the pirate lord who had been running rampant through the system, spreading anarchy and chaos across the civilized planets as the girls of the Space Patrol were slaughtered wholesale.  The situation got so bad the sector head activated the Emergency Draft.

Hundreds of thousands of girls were conscripted to fill the depleted ranks, Jane among them. She knew her survival was unlikely. Her training was barely adequate and she would be sent in first to distract enemy fire from the REAL Space Patrol girls. Even so, truthfully, she was thankful to be a pilot.

The pirate lord was known to field a huge amount of mind-slaved aliens, mainly the Orgo, and during training a local Orgo had kindly volunteered to run a demonstration on what to expect should one be allowed to use a girl. He  selected a dozen conscripts to ‘play’ the victims. Jane would never be able to forget the haunting screams of those doomed girls for however much longer she lived.

Despite all this, the Orgo Mind-Slaves were legally hostages in a case such as this, and were to be taken alive for rehabilitation no matter the cost. Most of the conscripts who landed on that planet would face fates worse than death, and that made Jane thankful for the comparatively relaxing death promised her in space.

Jane arrived in the hanger, and the patrol drone let out a low warning beep, causing her to draw up short of the one girl patrol craft in surprise. She noticed a Space Patrol regular waving her over from across the hanger, and she gathered in the crowd of her fellow conscripts.

The Patrol Officer had a drone looming silently over her shoulder and was talking in a loud clear voice over the discontented mummering of the conscripts as she scanned barcodes and gestured directions.

“There was a minor error in one of the patrol drones, and now Landing craft 103 is short about a hundred girls, so you all are being reassigned as infantry. Don’t worry, the lack of fighter craft will be compensated for thanks to a generous donation of pilot girls fr— “

Jane stopped listening as she was scanned. Infantry. The landers loomed large in her vision. Infantry. The officer pointed, she swallowed. Infantry. She took a step.

Jane marched, her death awaited her.

(Text by Jane, art by Eva)