Exoplanet: A Gender Swap Story

“Hey doc, let’s wrap it up. I’d like to get back to camp before the storm hits,” Morgan yelled.

James was absorbed in taking lichen samples from the rocks at the mouth of the cave formation and heard the captain’s yell as nothing but a nuisance. “Feel free to go back without us, Captain,” he called in response. “We didn’t come all this way to have a nanny, you know.”

Morgan grinned and rolled his eyes. “I’d love to, but that’s not why they pay me. I lose you to an akkodon or some other space beast, and I get nothing but a handshake. Camp has called in a full closure for this storm. We get back late, akkodons are the least of our worries.”

With a sigh, the researcher motioned for his assistants to gather up their samples. “Fine, we’ll load up. Perhaps your men would like to assist us?”

Morgan looked down into the gully with aggravation. “Can’t you just leave it?”

“No, if they’re issuing a full closure, then we’d be at risk of losing or damaging everything out here. How would our backers like it if the project is delayed six months while we wait for new gear?”

Morgan jerked his head. The other armed men climbed down into the ravine. Putting aside their frustration with the civilians, they soon had an orderly line moving the equipment efficiently to the trucks. Morgan made his way down to help oversee, but both he and James wound up standing to the side as their staff did all the work. Morgan walked over to the mouth of the cave and peered into its darkness. “So what’s so special about this area?”

James raised his eyebrows. Not one of the soldiers had asked about their work in the two months since they’d arrived. “Ah, well, these cave formations pop up all over the planet. These are some of the oldest, but they’re all quite old, as in, millions of years old. Most of the exoplanet geology community believe they have something to do with how quickly the planet cooled, but that’s not what we’re here to study. Due to how prevalent these formations are on this continent, a surprising amount of life evolved to utilize them in some fashion. For example, there is a type of carnivorous cat-like species that’s mostly in the north which essentially cultivates a meadow outside these caves by destroying any large plant growth that would form. The smaller rodent population will nest in the resulting meadow due to a prevalence of food and shelter, and the cat-like species has a nearby food supply while sheltering in the cave.”

“How come none of these damn things have proper names?” Morgan asked.

James paused for a moment. Over the noise of the teams moving around, he thought he heard something. “Sorry? Oh, names. It’s habit to refer to creatures as something-like or by a general class like rodent or fish. The Academy has strict guidelines for giving newly discovered species a proper name in order to avoid confusion. This is a very new planet so not much has a name here. We’ve identified less than one percent of biological life here. My team is working on local flora cultures. These caves provide food sources to a variety of small organisms. It’s possible that life on this planet evolved from underground pools rather than the oceans. If that was the case, life would sort of spread outward from places like this. So examining the DNA of the plants and animals around the mouth of these caves might provide us a road map to understanding this planet’s history.” He heard the noise again. Morgan heard it too as they both looked at the dark maw of the cave.

“So what lives in these caves?” Morgan asked, tension in his voice. His hands gripped his rifle tighter.

James cleared his throat, “Nothing that we know of, but…”

“But what?”

“We only have preliminary scans of the caves interior. The majority of them narrow very quickly once you go inside. They’re shallow. But some go on for a while, possibly even connected to others like a major network of tunnels.”

The noise came again, a deep thrum echoing up from the depths. The entire crew heard it, and a murmur of panic rose up. Morgan signaled to the rest of his team. They formed a line in front of the cave. “Doc, we need to go. Whatever that is, I’m not interested in meeting it.”

“I agree. Everyone, quickly!” James ushered his team on as they broke down and cleared away the rest of the equipment. The soldiers stood guard at the entrance to the cave as the noise periodically sounded again. They kept shifting their eyes to Morgan who stood slightly ahead of them, peering into the pitch black darkness. All of them waited for the first sign of movement, their fingers resting nervously on triggers. James passed off the final case, “Ok, we’re ready.”

Morgan gave the others a signal, and they backed away from the cave with quick steps. James walked on towards the vehicles, looking behind him at the cave, his own curiosity getting the better of him. As they reached the top of the ridge, the soldiers broke their formation and rushed by James as they went to their assigned vehicles. Morgan was about to grab James by the arm and pull him away when a deep roar rose out of the cave. The two men watched as the creature bounded out of the darkness. It was ape like, but with six limbs instead of two and a long tail, clearly as strong as any of the arms. Standing at the opening of the cave, it peered at the humans while baring its wide flat teeth in a snarl. With two of its arms it beat is chest while is feet scratched at the ground, creating the thundering noise they’d heard echoing from the cave. Morgan nudged James. “Get on the truck, now,” he whispered harshly.

The moment the two moved, the creature leaped towards them. In one bound it crossed two thirds of the distance. Again it beat its chest and bellowed at them. Morgan raised his weapon, but James held it down. “It’s asserting its territory control. If we leave, it won’t harm us.” Before he could say anything else, the creature jumped again, crashing down behind the two men. Cries of panic went up from the caravan. The leading trucks all lurched into motion, driving as quickly away as they could. Shouts came from the rear vehicle for the last two men to get on board as the creature watched them all with curiosity. James and Morgan climbed into the rear of the truck, looking up at the giant beast as it sniffed around them. The creature turned around and dropped to all six of its limbs, raising it’s tail. Without warning, a spray of viscous fluid jetted out from the rear of the animal, coating the vehicle and all the passengers in the bed of the transport. Over the cries of disgust, Morgan banged on cab of the truck to get it moving. It jerked forward, but the creature turned around and clearly didn’t want them to leave.

Two of its limbs slammed into the back side of the transport, sending it veering to the side and almost tipping it over. The sudden jolt caused Morgan and James to spill out of the back and crash onto the ground. Morgan slammed into a tree as his weapon clattered to the ground beside James. Both of them groaned in pain while still covered in the slime. The beast roared again as the truck kept moving. Raising up onto its hind legs, it crashed down on the front end of the transport, bringing it to a halt. Screams came from the other passengers as they fled from the beast. A soldier jumped out of the cab and went to fire at the monster, but was easily batted away.

Seeing his team in danger gave James a sudden clarity of mind. As Morgan struggled to catch his breath from the fall, James grabbed the gun, moved up to a clear area, and opened fire on the creature. The bullets thudded into its side causing it to roar in pain. It immediately forgot about the truck and turned to square off with James. The creature towered over him as he fired again, another short burst, directly into the creatures chest. The shots landed and the creature recoiled, but the damage was superficial. “Oh shit,” James breathed. The beast charged, and James heard a yell from Morgan. Understanding at the last moment, James dropped to the ground and covered his head.

The air around them shuddered as a metal rod blasted through the center of the beast. An instant later, a thundering boom filled the air. James’s head throbbed as ringing filled his ears. A plume of dust billowed around him, but quickly cleared. Looking up, he saw the gunship hovering in the slightly green sky. Morgan was soon by his side, “Are you alright?”

“My hearing might be damaged!” he yelled in response.

Morgan slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Took some balls to stand up to that thing, but you damned lucky the gunship showed up when it did. Too bad it got here after the fucker pissed on us. C’mon, let’s get back to base camp. Still have the storm to worry about.”

“Can we get the creature? Since it’s already dead it would be worth taking back as a sample.”

Morgan shrugged, “We can send a crew out to retrieve it after the storm, whatever’s left of it anyway. Railfire does a fuckton of damage. Most of its organs are liquid by now. Gah, what is this shit, I’m soaked in it. Doesn’t have a smell at least.” Morgan led him over to the transport and helped put him in the back. The soldier climbed up after him. After a few moments, they were moving. Both stared back at the smoking corpse of the beast.

“Take the samples to my lab, if you don’t mind,” James instructed the tech. “No one has displayed any negative effects, and we’re not seeing any harmful pathogens. Everyone gets an immunity booster. Morgan, I don’t think we’re going to have any negative side effects and I don’t want people to freak out from a quarantine, but it’s also unwise to have them wandering around the facility.”

Morgan looked out from his locker. “How many is it?”

“Eight, including us. I suggest my quarters. I can work in the lab. The team can get drunk next door. Twelve hours of observation. Then we can cut everyone loose.”

“Free booze, huh? Works for me.” He turned to an attending soldier, “Send the team members who were affected by the, slime I guess, to the doc’s living quarters. Before they get there, have food delivered and some extra blankets and such. After that, post a guard outside. I’ll escort the doc once I’m dressed, and we’ll seal ourselves in.” The soldier gave a quick salute and disappeared to follow his new orders. Morgan returned to dressing himself. “So what do you think that shit is?”

James had dispatched his own attendant with the samples and began dressing as well. It took a while for the shock of the encounter to wear off, but the hot decontamination shower helped. The decontaminating staff had been a little rougher than appreciated. “Honestly, I have no fucking clue. Big animals aren’t really my specialty, but if I had to wager a guess, I think it’s some kind of territory marking adaptation. The creature was of mild intelligence. I think it was confused as to what we were. We look like smaller, fewer armed, hairless versions of it. Imagine what you’d think if you saw a dwarf with a tail and two extra arms, how would you react?”

“I think you can get one of those on a jump colony near Neptune,” Morgan answered. “So if it was territorial, shouldn’t it smell or something?”

“It might, just not to us. Our noses and sense of smell developed to keep us alive on Earth. We know what cat piss smells like to know to avoid lions. If we’d evolved here, maybe we’d recognize whatever this is and know to be afraid of it.” James pulled on a t-shirt and slammed the locker. “Or it could be something else entirely. For everything that can kill us instantly in the universe there are equally as many things which we’re entirely immune to simply by chance. Maybe this stuff was meant to stun us or melt off our skin. Could be some kind of pre-digestion thing so that we are more quickly metabolized for the creature.”

“Then why did it shoot it out of its ass?” Morgan insisted. The kind of shit you’re describing should come from the mouth or at least face area, right? I mean we took some courses on recognizing alien threats and generally when something wants to make eating you easier, it’s a venomous injection or some kind of thrown up acid.”

“Fair point,” James gathered his things as Morgan pulled on the dainty pair of slippers the decontamination team had given them. James thought the soldier looked ridiculous in the plain white civilian clothes after seeing him every day in combat gear. “Lab analysis will tell us more. I’m sticking with some kind of territorial marking. Perhaps you can start a pool among your men. You can put a hundred on acid bath, and I’ll put mine on urine like territorial spray.”

“Is that your way of making a joke, doc?” Morgan jeered. “We actually have death pools you know. Your dumb ass is one of the premium grids.”

“And yours?”

Morgan grinned. “Double your buy in. Let’s go. Need to get the others locked down, or they’ll disappear.”

They made their way across the facility. The different windows along the corridors had their metal shutters sealed, but the violent storm could still be heard battering against the walls of the settlement. The corridors were empty as they made their way from the intake to James’s quarters, likely a deft move on Morgan’s part. James knew his counterpart to be a stickler for protocols and rerouting foot traffic away from the potentially contaminated was an easy way to lower risk. The others had already arrived along with the provisions Morgan had requested. Though they often disagreed on logistics, James knew he was lucky to have such an efficient security captain running the facility. “Wow, your rooms are much nicer than mine,” Morgan mused as they stepped inside. The soldier stood at attention as Morgan approached, but the other five scientists barely acknowledged their leader entering the room, instead keeping their focus on their project devices. Morgan cleared his throat loudly, and they all nervously gave him their attention. “Alright folks, I’m sure you all know the drill. The doc has graciously given us his rooms as a place to bunk for the night so we can be observed after exposure to a foreign substance. James is confident nothing will come of it, but security is up to me, so we stay here for tonight. Plenty of food has been provided, and you can all work out your own spots to sleep on. As head of security I hereby requisition one couch. Other than that, report any odd sensations immediately and try not to get on each other’s nerves. Twelve hours is nothing. In the Kerski sector, I did a 48 hour stay in a sixteen by sixteen box while they waited to see if I had skin worms. So, tuck in folks.”

The other soldier nodded to his boss and went back to his drink while the researchers lapsed back into their heated discussion of their projects. James gestured for Morgan to follow and led him through a series of doors into a small lab. “Skin worms? Really?” He went to a sample cooler and pulled out a bottle of vodka. He grabbed two beakers and poured out shots, sliding one to the captain.

“Yep. Lucky I didn’t get them. That shit is terrifying.”

“I know, I’ve seen the reports. One of the nice things about this posting, as far as we know, there’s nothing into the water that burrows into your eyes, lays eggs in your body, and then eats your skin on the way out.” He poured out another for himself and gave the bottle to Morgan. “Enough for me. Need to stay sober enough to read results. Help yourself though.”

James went to work while Morgan nursed his drink. Morgan told stories about his earlier postings as a fresh recruit. James would sometimes interject a few quips about the planets Morgan mentioned, but mostly focused on his work. The analysis went quickly, but cross researching the found components was a much more intensive process. The Academy kept a vast catalog of every encountered enzyme and protein, but each planet with advanced life had proved unique in their molecular engineering. James tried to find something similar, but had little luck. Morgan noticed the frustration on the other man’s face, “No luck, doc?”

“Not really, no. It’s an entirely unknown compound. Several pieces of it make sense, but the main chunk, what you might call the active ingredient doesn’t show up anywhere else. It doesn’t even match up with the host creatures DNA. The only thing I know for certain is that it’s meant to be catalytic. This substance is meant to jump start a chemical reaction of some kind. And the bad news is that our bodies are saturated with it.”

“What do you mean saturated?”

James rubbed his eyes. “Apparently we absorbed it through our skin. It’s in our blood stream. For the moment, it’s doing nothing.”

“For the moment,” Morgan repeated. “Well, fuck it. I need to take a piss. I’ll let you know if I start to melt.” Morgan drained the rest of the beaker of vodka and went to the bathroom at the rear of the lab.

James turned his attention back to his terminal as a flashing icon drew his attention. The database search had finally hit something. “A tree frog…from Earth?” he muttered as he read. “Certain species of frogs can effectively reassign their gender. The process is started through a chemical reaction that occurs when the male population is over saturated.” He scrolled over to the other stats. “Compound has a similarity ratio of sixty three percent.” James looked down at his own hands and took a full account of his body. Everything seemed to be where it should, for the moment.

The bathroom door clicked shut behind Morgan. He stopped in front of the mirror to look at himself in the eye. His face was sunken from fatigue and overwork. Bloodshot eyes glared back at him. The bruising on his ribs from where he’d collided with a tree periodically throbbed. Scratches and cuts covered most of his body. For all of that, he looked little different than he had before being attacked by an alien beast. Moving over to the toilet, he unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick. Relief washed over him as the stream of urine drained from his body. As he went to shake the few remaining drops of urine from himself, he realized something he hadn’t noticed before. His pubic hair was gone. Curious, he pulled his shirt up and ran his hand over his stomach feeling nothing but smooth skin. That morning he’d been a fairly hairy man. When had it happened? Did it wash away in the shower or had it been melting off ever since?

He returned his attention to his groin, pulling his pants further down. Deciding to give himself a thorough examination, he cupped his balls and lifted the shaft of his limp cock. Is this how it all normally looked? His balls seemed to stay closer to his body, and his cock remained shriveled and unrising despite his attention to it. Must be the booze, he thought to himself. As he twisted to look at various other parts of himself, he noticed that he didn’t feel anything from his bruise. Pulling off his shirt entirely, he looked at the wounded area in the mirror, but saw no sign of the incident. “Oh fuck.”

After pulling up his pants, he opened the door and went back into the lab, startling James, “Doc, something’s happening. My bruise is completely gone, and I’ve lost all my hair.”

“No you haven’t,” James said incredulously staring at the other man’s mop of black hair.

“Not on my head, on the rest of my body, look,” he gestured wildly to his chest. “And I think my balls have gotten smaller or something. My cock is…unresponsive when it should be.” As he thought about the different parts of his body, he realized his entire being felt slightly off. “You should check on the others and alert command.”

James was rooted to the spot, looking slightly dazed. “I think I understand now. I didn’t want to alarm anyone until I was sure. It started in the shower.” James unzipped his pants and pulled out a cock that was twice as long and thick as it should have been. Morgan’s eyes widened in surprise. “It’s been getting harder to concentrate ever since we got back. I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Morgan, but you’ve been fairly reckless as well. That’s what kept me on course, actually, you were so meticulous in how you broke the protocol. We shouldn’t have ever been allowed out of the initial quarantine. We both wanted to be here, safe inside the compound, with the others like us.”

Morgan realized what he’d done. “Oh my god. We need to sound an alarm. We’re infected with something. They can still lock us down.”

“Not infected,” James insisted. “Evolved. The fluid that saturated our bodies was like a primordial booster. I’m speculating, but based on some similar reports from Vega XI, I think in the species that attacked us, the fluid is meant to identify weaker males and convert them into females. Its properties are miraculous. While the compound itself has remained inert, our own bodies have been responding to its presence. Convergent evolution, Morgan. Though we evolved on entirely different planets, humans and this new species are coincidentally alike enough for the compound to work on us like it would work on one of them. It took me a while to understand, but I get it now. Our body chemistry doesn’t understand rail guns, but they do understand that while the rest of you were bruised and beaten, I stood up to the alpha. I fought it and won. You even said so. I become the alpha male now.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind. I’m going to —ahhh!” As Morgan tried to walk to the door, he felt a splintering pain rush down his hips, dropping him to the floor. A fiery heat rushed over his body. Struggling up onto his hands and knees, he attempted to stand up, but his balance was completely off. As he pushed up, he teetered to the side and crashed into the wall. Propping himself up, he looked back at James. The scientist was ritually disrobing, revealing a muscular body that exuded a strength previously not possessed. Morgan’s eyes were drawn to the swollen cock between James’s legs. He’d never once thought of a man in a sexual way before, but seeing that thick rod glistening with fluid at its tip while only half hard, made his stomach flutter with desire. “So, if you’re the alpha male, what does that make me?” he asked through ragged breaths.

James tossed aside his glasses and stroked his cock to a full erection. He popped his jaw as if adjusting to a new bite. “My guess is that this species doesn’t have beta males. They probably live in the caves in a colony. The females are weaker and smaller until the alpha dies or is killed and then one of them evolves into the alpha. For us, it’s a reverse problem. There needs to be just one alpha, so the other males must be made female. How else would the colony produce offspring?”

As if the thought itself motivated the change, Morgan felt a tearing sensation inside of him. It wasn’t painful, but he’d never before experienced the sensation of his insides rapidly shifting. In a mad panic, he pulled at his pants, pushing them down over widening hips. He yelped in alarm as he reached for his cock only to find a tight drum of skin beneath a small hypersensitive nub. As his finger moved over the area, the skin folded in on itself and opened up as his new pussy came into being. His other hand moved to his chest to feel the growing deposits of fat on his chest. A finger circled around the once small, brown nipple that was quickly growing into a puffy pink one on the top of a pillowy tit. A cold sweat had coated his body as he stripped the rest of his clothes off. Fully naked, he once again tried to get to his feet.

He only made it as far as his hands and knees when a burst of pleasure rocked through his body. His new pussy felt wet and achingly empty. His tits swung underneath him desperate to be touched. Even his new, full ass wobbled with each movement forcing him to imagine strong hands grabbing the thick cheeks and pulling on them as a cock slid between his thighs. James’s voice cut through the haze of arousal coursing through Morgan’s body. “I’m guessing this species also experiences periods of heat. Your sex is quite pungent. I can even smell the ones in the other room. I wonder how long it will take them to realize their alpha is so close. If you want to be bred first, you should get over here and let me fuck you.”

Morgan’s mind struggled to understand what was happening. Part of him knew he should be screaming and demanding help, but the stronger part of his consciousness had difficulty putting two thoughts together. In an attempt to understand what was happening to himself, Morgan slid his hand down the smooth tones stomach and over the engorged mons to stroke his pussy lips. After a slight hesitation, he slid a single finger into the sopping wet pussy. Immediately, his mind shattered and only the drive for sex remained. The male side of Morgan vanished as her pussy clenched around her invading fingers in her first small orgasm. Her head cleared and the smell of an aroused male filled her mind. Turning her eyes to James, she quickly pounced.

While driven by rapidly changing hormonal makeups, the two were still humans and both knew the intricacies of the human body. James dropped to the ground of the lab with his first consort. As he knelt down, she climbed on top of him, pushing her body into his as they kissed. Morgan almost got off on the proximity to the male alone. His cock was painfully wedged up between his legs as he tried to reposition himself. Her enjoyment of simple closeness was short lived. Morgan pushed James onto his back and let his legs stretch out. The lengthy cock jutted up proudly between his legs, making Morgan salivate as she positioned herself above him. At first, she didn’t think the cock would fit inside her. It jabbed against her pussy lips ineffectively as her juices and his precum mingled to coat the cock in a slippery sheen. She took hold of him and guided him into her new pussy. She knew he was holding back from grabbing her thighs and impaling her roughly on his whole length, possibly tearing her in half. With a pop, the cock head slipped inside of her, eliciting a sharp gasp from her lips. James’s hands moved up to squeeze her ass as she started lowering herself inch by inch on the throbbing cock.

James leaned up without moving his lower half to take Morgan’s swollen tit into his mouth. His tongue lashed over the perky nipple, causing a new rush of fluid to coat his crotch as she stuffed more of him inside of her. The feeling of her brand new tight pussy wrapped around him was mind searingly wonderful. It was not lost on James that he was almost balls deep inside the person who moments before had been a high ranking officer. Now she was just the first of what would be many of his breeding whores.

Morgan moaned with satisfaction as her ass came to rest on his thighs. She could feel the entire length of James’s monstrous cock throbbing between her stretched walls. Carefully, she rose up off of him only to push back down immediately. Immediately a new urge rushed over her. Make him cum inside you. She rocked back and forth on his length, relishing the feeling of his length sliding in and out of her. She built speed quickly, her ass slapping down on his thighs with each stroke. Her own pleasure started to build and she let out quick grunts as she bounced up and down. James took every opportunity to fondle her tits and squeeze her ass, but as he neared his orgasm, his hands grabbed hold of her thighs, forcing her to fuck him even faster. He groaned and clenched his teeth right before shoving her down hard on his whole length and holding her in place. An instant passed and then he erupted inside of her. Hot, sticky cum sprayed into Morgan’s virgin womb and causing her world to explode in pleasure. She went rigid and shuddered each time a new gout of cum coated her insides

As their orgasms subsided, she rolled off of her new mate, making sure to keep her legs closed tight to preserve his precious cum. She knew there would be other females for him to breed, but she wanted to be the first to sire an offspring that could challenge the alpha.

James spent a few minutes on the floor catching his breath, but his cock had already started to rise. In the other room, he knew a palpable miasma of sexual fervor awaited. As he stood, he felt a strange sensation at the bottom of his ribs. A knot of flesh had started to grow out from either side of him. Soon they would become his second pair of arms. Shrugging, he took a minute to stretch and then strode into the other room where six other brand new pussies awaited their alpha male.