Two soldiers waited outside a meeting room.

“I’m late back from leave, missed my ship,” the Marine volunteered. “Probably going to spend the rest of my enlistment in the brig. What’re you in for?”

“I’m picking up a unit commendation.”

“Nice. I hope they call you first. Put the brass in a good mood.”

“Carotta,” the Terran Army trouper introduced himself.

“Parts.”

“No shit? Shoulda joined the Navy. Who the fuck wants to be called Private Parts?”

“Not me, but the Navy doesn’t recruit from Titan.”

“I bet you never heard the end of it.”

“Hell no. So my company XO was this one female 2LT and she was always hitting on the male Marines,us recruits and the Drill Instructors too. One day she calls me over, and I come running. She’s standing there with Sergeant Bowen and she says to him, ‘Wanna touch my Private Parts?” Well, he’s had enough of her bullshit and he kicks her in the fuckin’ pussy!”

“Shit, no way!”

“Well, I’ve got no orders, so all I can do is stand there at attention. After a minute she picks herself up off the deck and says, ‘Private Parts?’ and I’m like, ‘Yes, ma’am?’ She says, ‘As I stand here in agony, my cunt lips are turning black and blue. There’s blood running down my leg and it isn’t my period. Did you see anything inappropriate just now, Private?’. ‘Ma’am, no, ma’am!’ I sound off. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘I want you to assume the front leaning rest position and proceed to give me one thousand push-ups or die trying.’ That was the last time any of us ever saw her. She got sectioned out, and he was confined to barracks with us grunts. He was actually pretty chill for a D.I.”

“Were you on the Blumery Maguire? I heard two guys died of some dick rot nobody ever seen before.”

“I had it too, some poor girl kinda spread it around. I got cured by a magic lady.”

“Was it—”

The door to the meeting room opened, revealing the cadet who was errand monkey for the generals today.

“Carotta,” she said, “you’re next.”

—

“I healed the whore, though I sent her to hospital afterwards. She lost a lot of blood before I patched her up. Tanna was able to heal the space boy on her own, despite how bad it was. Have you ever seen anything like that, elder?”

The priestess spoke respectfully to the high priestess.

“The sickness? Never. And one with so little training curing it? More rare by far.”

“He says he ejaculated like crazy, but none of it hit Tanna.”

“With a bolt of magic like like up his backside, it would not have been unreasonable for him to come so hard that he passed out. But for the mystery of the vanishing semen, I think we can lay that miracle at our lady’s feet.”

She paused, and both lowered the heads in honor of the particular goddess they served.

“In your opinion, will Tanna make a priestess someday?”

“No, she really believes her husband will rescue her.”

“Do you think she is right?”

“She has to be right. Because, if she’s wrong—” Isha choked back an unexpected sob “—I’d rather die than see her broken.”

—

“Thirteen infected, eleven dead. One hooker, one Marine, survived.”

A pair of very specialized operatives were giving their after action report.

“Good work hunting the spreader down. How did anyone get cured? I thought we didn’t have any effective treatments.”

Not much was known about the disease. It was caused by a single celled organism, but unlike amœba it propagated by a three gendered sexual reproduction. Its widdershins DNA, and use of unusual codons, made it especially hard for unenhanced human bodies to fight off.

“The same woman who alerted the org that there was an alien amok. Priestess of Aphrodite. She used magic.”

Beulah held her hands before her, like a theatrical mage casting a spell. Wubba wubba.

“Shit, I wish we could package that for the unfaithful. Helluva way to die.”

The women nodded in agreement. Dissolved from the inside by an alien microorganism with a taste for human membranes. Yuck.

“It was the hooker who gave us our best clue. Said that one of her Johns was an alien. He left one of their triangular coins behind when he paid.”

“What denomination?”

“Exactly the one you’re thinking he used. The zero-coin they put under a dead person’s tongue, just like our ancients did. Ferry fee for the boat ride to Hell.”

“Fucking blue piece of shit. So he obviously knew what he was doing.”

“Of course he did, just like the last one. You know they don’t orgasm, don’t even enjoy sex. The only reason to fuck a human was spreading contagion on purpose, with the intent of killing.”

“What about their embassy, any trouble? Wait a sec.”

He looked at his console.

“This just came in. The marine who survived overstayed his planet leave and missed his ship. Marine Commandant gave him a choice between getting abandoned on Terra with his reenlistment annulled, or a flight home to Titan for a courts martial. Heh, his name is Parts.”

“I hope he stays. Priestess said he was a good kid, just needs to learn where not to stick his private parts.”

Even the superior officer couldn't restrain a snicker.

“Ahem, about the embassy?”

“A little push back, at first. Then we told the ambassador that some of the secondary cases were Marines, and offered to run it up their chain of command.He changed his tune. His government knows full well what Terran forces can do. They revoked the perp’s diplomatic credentials and gave him a running start out the back door of the compound. When we caught up with him, my associate shot him in the knees and made him dance before we disinfected the fuck—”

“Literally,” her teammate said as an aside.

“—outta him with a flamer.”

“How can he dance with no knees? I know the type of guns you ladies like to use, ‘cos I sign the req’s for your ammo. Big ones.”

“Aw, heck, sir,” Edna boasted with false humility, “with high enough voltage anyone can dance.”

Author's Note

“Patterns are madness, for the most part.” Michael Moorcock