Absolute

If the Captain knew what five of her ‘favorite’ crew were up to in the dive bar in maintenance, well.

It was a coin flip on whether she’d blow her considerable stack, or just sit down at the table and make it six. It was also unclear which one would result in more suffering for these ladies, or whether they’d even feel it. Most of them were noted, even on this station, for their vast, inhuman capacity. Luckily, they didn’t have to worry about the Captain’s approval,because she was off for a visit to CentCom today. The only place in the galaxy where they had fewer, more sparse restroom facilities than HyperStation itself. So, while she was gone, who knew what the crew would get up to.

Such as setting up a camera right on their table. So that anyone in a certain range of the station could, if they tuned their comms to just the right frequency, see a livestream of their particular game. Or just admire the way the reinforced chairs still groaned helplessly beneath five astounding, sexy figures ,wrapped up tight in company-regulation color-coded bodysuits. In a way, too much modesty was no modesty at all; the material clung to their figures, emphasizing every curve. Clearly showing when those curves wiggled and shuddered, which was bound to happen a lot, too.

Sensitive, space-age camera and microphone tech automatically centered and magnified anything moving or making noise, ensuring that not the smallest hint of weakness or indigty would go unmissed. Every bit of it, shown to the galaxy at large, as well as many of the lower-ranking crew aboard their very station. Through swaying lamp-lights illuminating an otherwise dark game, whose only other source of light was the faint twinkling of the stars outside the window, everyone could see the dingy, dirty run-down bar area, and the girls within. And their suffering, most critically of all. Just one tiny slip-up, and they were through. So each girl was doubtless going to play this game in a cutthroat, competitive manner-

“Okay, everyone! Mozhdeh is so super glad you all decided to come.” Of course, the fact that the proceeds from ads and merchandise from this livestream were being split five ways, just like the massive drinks, helped. The brown, fluffy kitsune chaplain clapped her hands together, raising them high. Her bushy silver hair and cute silver fox-ears atop her head swayed to and fro, just like her extra-wide, pear-profile hips. “I’ve already said a prayer to God, and he said this game wasn’t just a-ok, but great. Because as you may recall, suffering builds character.” Did modern religions teach such things, in fact?

“Then we’re all going to be saints by the time this is over,” Riona, the gorgeous, freckled, bespectacled red-headed engineer to her left, added dryly. “Instead of explaining, we should just get going and let the viewers figure it out as we go.” Given that she was mainly in charge of patching hull breaches and fixing maintenance areas and windows, she didn’t have much to do on an average day. That probably contributed to the growth of her figure; she was plump and extra-soft, pillowy in spite of her prickly attitude. That contrast was bound to earn her a lot of fans with the thirsty viewers.

“Agreed! The faster this game starts,” The girl to her left, proclaimed enthusiastically as she stood up, “The faster we can start drinking. And drinking, and drinking… ehehe.” Normally Kira, the shortstack of a black-haired lawyer who defended the doomed and damned from Security’s wrath, put up some token resistance to drinking. Some attempt to pretend she wasn’t a masochistic drink-bitch.

Not tonight~

“Wow, not even trying to hide what an unreasonable pervert you are. I’ll remember that lack of dignity or anything remotely resembling it during your next visit to the medbay, okay?”

Kira visibly quivered even as the camera turned to Aoi, the bubby, busty, blonde, and permanently-bursting nurse with a sadist streak a mile wide under that fluffy exterior. On any other day, she’d be bouncing and dancing shamelessly, kept going thanks to a lake of distressingly potent stimulants and energy drinks, maintaining absolute control beyond any sensible or reasonable limit. As it was, she was still very bouncy, as though those drinks had somehow worked their way into her very DNA- though for once, it wasn’t due to a hellish, intolerable Pressure.

Yet.

“I’d rather not anyone remember today’s events, but the cameras make that difficult. Mozhdeh, you claim this counts as a religious exercise, and agree that should the Captain disagree, any debts Cargo takes on facilitating this fall squarely on your shoulders, correct?”

The last voice to speak up belonged to Etna, the Cargonian human calculator. Her ability to track numbers- and exact fluid ounces- across the station was unparalleled, and she was the supplier of anything Botany and Chemistry didn’t make themselves. While all the chairs in the room were under duress, none were so close to catastrophic failure as hers. Her enormous ass threatened to spill out over the sides of the gently-curved seat, and the floor bolts groaned every time she shifted her weight even slightly.

“And Mozhdeh was hoping you wouldn’t remember that, but since it’s recorded now and forever, I suppose I can’t say no! Though it would be simply divine if the High Council were to get involved with a lengthy investigation on which of us deserves punishment, would it not?”

For a moment, the tension- and Kira’s visible rumbling- hung cloyingly thick in the air, almost palpable, even through radio data-link. Etna considered the idea of upping her next order of communion wine by a factor of ten, but inter-department warfare could wait for a working day.

After all, when the Captain was away, the girls would play. On Hyperstation, that would naturally involve games of an unreasonable, merciless, and sadistic nature. It was simply the way things were.

The game was simple enough, as was the prize pool. Research had set up a telepad and five handheld devices, each linked to Cargo’s console and storehouse, as well as the Kitchen’s refrigeration unit. Using truly random ion-cloud noise, the teleporter pad would offer a choice of two drinks, and the girls would vote collectively on which would be brought to the table that round. The game would continue until at most two girls remained (one of which would have to admit defeat). The prize pool consisted of six Passes, five legitimate ones that each girl contributed as part of a betting pool, and a sixth fake pass that would short out the console if someone tried to use it, identical to the legitimate ones.

Mozhdeh didn’t bother explaining any of that to the viewers, letting the cameras and equipment do the work for her. With a theatrical press of the telepad console button, the game started.

The central camera’s servos whined in panic as it tried to decide which girl to focus on, even though the abundant setup ensured that every girl was visible from every angle at all times. It caught a panoramic highlight reel as it spun in time with the telepad console’s animated slot-machine choosing algorithm, showing Mozhdeh’s dangerous grin and swishing tail, Kira’s excited and unrestrained wiggling, Riona’s sinking deeper into her loudly-complaining chair, Aoi’s beaming but worryingly intense smile, and Etna’s sharp, calculating glare recording everything in the same excruciating detail as the cameras did, ending just as the telepad offered the first choice.

On one side, a gaudy, neon magenta drink served in a tall glass with a sugar-coated rim, and on the other, a bottle of top-shelf, spiced and aged Dark Rum, with a pair of glasses waiting to be filled. Despite being leagues apart- one being light, fruity, and scarcely alcoholic, and the other feeling like a mule kick the moment it was knocked back, they held two similarities- both had alcohol content, and both were patently cruel in their own ways- particularly the one way that mattered for this game.

Not every girl present knew that, however. Mozhdeh certainly did, as she was at least passingly familiar with every liquid on the station, on a far more personal basis than Etna could claim. Aoi definitely knew all about the ostentatious Sugar Rush, and Kira would certainly have respect for any drink with “dark” in the name, and Riona had probably had both, it was just a question of if she had any reason to remember them specifically. The collective knowledge of the two drinks ended there, already illustrating how the voting rule could change so much. Who knew what? Who would vote for what? What was the better option?

The only certainty was drinking, and suffering.

Once all the votes were cast, the display flickered and changed, showing the breakdown of votes. No one knew what anyone else voted for, only the totals- three votes for Sugar Rush, and two votes for Dark Rum. Seconds later, five tall glasses of neon fluid appeared on the telepad, beckoning each girl to drink up.

Each round passed in similar fashion- a choice was presented, votes were cast, and drinks were imbibed. The cameras quietly observed each flash of the telepad, silently monitoring for the slightest sign of weakness. This early in, none came, even as the drinks piled on. Etna mentally kept tabs on certain numbers as Aoi and Kira bickered, Mozhdeh alternating between fanning the flames and dousing them, and Riona happily existing outside the sphere of her competition’s attention.

This natural cadence broke as the eleventh round began. It was too early for the real action to begin, but not so early that nothing mattered- a fact that the roulette wheels were all too happy to hammer home. Real tension once again gripped the room, chatter dying down as the girls took note of the two floating icons demanding their votes.

On the one hand, a Hyperstation signature and mainstay, the Margarita. There was nothing particularly special about it, no special ingredients or twists or anything like that, it didn’t need any tricks. It was simply fucking massive. No Hyperstation Margarita was complete unless it was served in a glass wide enough for four girls, minimum, to drink from it, and deep enough to leave them all squirming. Naturally, most of the girls would want to avoid something like that, given the sheer level of excess.

The only problem with that plan was the other result. A bottomheavy glass filled to the brim with an orange fluid, garnished with a lime. While it was far less ubiquitous than the Margarita, everyone knew what this drink was, and more specifically, the type of glass it came in. The claims that the glass was wider than some of the crew was an exaggeration, of course, but it was still extremely excessive, especially for something from the Tropical menu.

Margarita, or Bahama Mama?

It wasn’t much of a choice. The girls might have appeared for all the sector to see as invincible drinking titans, they weren’t, quite. They merely had absurd, superhuman capacity and filthy, dark, twisted desires stemming from doing this exact thing. As well as an excess of pride. Refusal to admit any form of weakness. At least one of their number was also an abject slutty bitch in a thin disguise, but when it came to drinking, she was as stoic as all the others.

Nobody wanted to be hit by the larger drink. So, seeing how the Margarita looked much larger, most of the girls voted for it with no delay. At first, there were gentle huffs around the room; the closest to a sigh of relief any of these women would get. Then, as was typical, the engineer spotted the problem long before anyone else even noticed it.

She reached out with a hand, and ran her fingers down it. “... Um, I think this might be larger by volume.”

Silence reigned throughout the room. Some didn’t believe her, others merely hoped she was wrong. Regardless, the fact was, they had to drink it all, together. Of course, for this assembled group of degenerate ladies, it would be no challenge at all. The camera moved in close to each of the women in turn, trying to capture their unique reactions.

Kira went after the tall glass she was given with the same reckless abandon she used to argue in favor of defendants in the station’s courtroom. Aoi showed no sign of hesitation, either, declaring fluffily ‘bottoms up!’ and wiggling a bit to just to get the point across. An act which caused her seat to groan pitifully beneath her, of course. Etna’s expression remained frozen as she drank deeply of her cup, exhibiting absolutely no positive, or negative, feelings towards the game and her competitors. A flawless cypher of a person. Riona was no mystery; her code demanded she drink everything put in front of her. Any time, any place, any amount whatsoever, she took it in stride. This was less than a single drop in the ocean to her bladder, clearly. Finally, Mozhdeh clapped her hands together, saying a brief prayer, and then…

She downed her entire fifth of the Bahama Mama in a single gulp.

It was a very long, extended gulp. Naturally. There was just so much there. However, in just one sitting, with no tricks, the station’s joyful Chaplain had consumed it all. At the end, in spite of how much she took in, so quickly, Moz merely offered her usual quirky smile.

“Ah, that was a lovely little treat! Bite-sized, so to speak. Now, hopefully we can move on to the real event! After all, there’s so much untapped potential for, well. Various things.”

The next choice was when the nature of this rigged game became apparent. After all, while the first choice was a gigantic, full pitcher of deep brown, nearly-black Tea, the other option was a tiny glass of refreshing, crisp Lemonade. With a tiny, empty packet sitting beside it. Whose nondescript, unlabeled packaging suggested that it came straight from a Chemistry machine.

“Perhaps we should…” By the time Riona opened her mouth to speak, Mozhdeh and Kira had already placed their votes. As such, she could only finish her statement with a sigh. “Well. I was going to say we should discuss our votes, but-”

Kira was the first to interject. “Why? We’re headed for the same place no matter what, our only choice is how quickly we get there. At some point, you’re not going to want- or even be able to- think about what drink comes next.”

Etna stared blankly, and Aoi merely shrugged. Mozhdeh excitedly clapping her hands and exclaiming “How divine!” certainly didn’t help much, either.

“Statistically speaking, if your strategy is to band together, all those two did is make it easier for you to get what you want. Fewer people to convince. If their vote is split, all you need is one extra vote to win, too.”

Aoi grinned, and blindly cast her own vote. “Not anymore. Number-crunch all you want, but Kira’s got a point. This game of ours has only one single, inevitable end. May as well enjoy the journey, right?

Etna huffed. “Irrelevant.” With nothing more to say, she likewise cast her vote in silence.

Riona shrugged, and tapped her own device in resignation. She did have to admit that it didn’t really matter one bit how they voted, since the end result would be the same. After all, neither outcome truly mattered- Riona would drink whatever appeared before her, regardless of anything else. Regardless of how she, or anyone else, voted. Regardless of however or whatever she was feeling at the time.

Even so, a little control, or forethought, or unity would have been nice.

The votes were counted up- two votes for the tea, and three for the lemonade. Soon after, a little electronic fanfare played as five tiny glasses of pure, fresh lemonade made from real, Botany-grown lemons materialized, complete with their unmarked, mysterious packet of… something.

“Maybe it’s just sugar~” Mozhdeh sang, swaying as she did. She, and everyone else in the room, knew better than that. Even being so small, the packet was more than enough to saturate the lemonade thoroughly. It might have sugar IN it, but that wouldn’t be the only ingredient. Nothing from Medbay was ever that simple.

Kira tore open her packet first, tipping it over and letting clear white crystals cascade into her drink. “You know, it’s a shame I can’t ask you all for your packets. Though, if I could do that, I could just ask Riona to drink mine for me, and it wouldn’t be much of a game, would it?”

“That was one of the conditions for my participation, yes. I’m not stupid enough to join such a one-sided game willingly.” Riona shot back, adding her own packet.

Aoi went third, as Kira tipped her glass up to her lips, making her the first to drink. “You totally were, though. That was how we learned about your quirk, remember?”

Riona glared at Aoi, who took up her drink as Moz and Etna added the last packets to their drinks. Reluctantly, Riona used the pause to sip down her own sweet-tart lemonade, with a little more caution than Mozhdeh or Kira showed with their single gulps. Even going slowly, the drink was gone in three; there was almost nothing to it.

“Chemistry has blessed us with such a wonderful gift~ An otherwise unfulfilling and inadequate drink is undoubtedly made worthy, or perhaps just sweeter! My, it’s almost like Sanya is playing a game of Mao with us.”

Etna, surprisingly, was the one to answer Moz’s antics. “Mao?”

Aoi’s predatory grin grew wider. “Mao, a game with secret, often-changing rules. Moz is likening that powder to the game, since no matter what we do, we can’t know for certain what exactly it does. I mean, we can guess, and probably get pretty close, but…”

“...but even you can’t be sure what Sanya just gave us.” Riona had been trying not to think about that. It was yet another uncertainty to keep track of. Yet another thing making her pay more detailed attention to herself, waiting with such anxious anticipation for the inevitable that she could practically- if not definitely or realistically- feel it already.

The blue light of the holopad flickered on once more, holographic wheels spinning quickly, offering split-second glimpses at possible future choices.

The wheels stopped, conjuring up images of their chosen drinks. The first had homed in on Botany’s coffee press, specifically a full, fresh, steaming hot pot made from hand-grown coffee beans. Krista’s pride and joy may have been her heirloom tea leaves, but she was no stranger to coffee either- having cultivated over two hundred unique coffee bean strains, and having shared each with the crew. No two cups were ever the same, nor did they ever have the exact same effects. The only constants were that each cup was delicious, each cup would give the energy needed to make it through a rough, long shift, and that each one would make it significantly harder to make it through for other reasons.

Through the blue hologram, it was hard to tell exactly how dark, rich, and potent the coffee was, or even how much had been made. It depended entirely on which of the two botanists chose the bean mix that day, if Krista had a new strain to try out, and a hundred other factors. It was a gamble.

The second bluespace device opened a window directly to the Captain’s private quarters, homing in on an excessively large, seemingly ancient bottle of wine stashed away within the Captain’s own secure safe. As secure as it was, it couldn’t prevent coordinate-based teleportation, especially not from a device specifically built to seek out and retrieve drinks.

Even the Captain’s own hyper-potent, ancient, massive bottle of ultra-high-grade Kitsune wine.

Choosing it would be insane. There was no gamble- this bottle contained what was undoubtedly one of the most cruelly potent, absurd drinks on the entire station, enough to make the bartender’s strongest wine look like water in comparison. A single sip would still be torture for most girls, and even the Captain would likely struggle to finish even a single glass. The bottle was so big that even split among five girls, they’d be incredibly lucky to get away with only two glasses. Each. That didn’t even factor in what the Captain would do when she returned to the station and found her prized bottle of wine taken and consumed.

Mozhdeh voted for it anyway. So did Kira, moments later.

All the other three girls had to do was vote for the coffee, instead. All they had to do was make the sensible choice, and save not just themselves, but everyone involved, from hellish, Kitsune-grade torture, both from the wine and the Captain herself.

All they had to do was vote for the coffee.

Aoi, naturally, put in her vote for that coffee. While making others suffer was listed as both her hobby, and her religion, she wasn’t sure she would survive the fallout in various ways. The bubbly nurse was relieved to see the ever-stoic, and ever-wide, Etna, vote the same way, choosing the coffee. At least nothing stupid would happen at the very last second, which would doom them all to a world of suffering they couldn’t have even imagined-

Riona considered her options, and then chose the wine.

Which then, obligingly, appeared before their very eyes, while Moz clapped in delight. “Excellent work, Rio! I knew that the Lord could count on you now, when it mattered most. Because remember, as I always, always say~ Suffering is good for the soul. Especially this particular type of suffering.”

The wine bottle was enormous, maybe half the size of a person. It was made of the kitsunes’ finest specialized capacity-glass. It was woven with alien materials that allowed it to absorb liquid and flex. Which meant that, in reality, kitsune glasses could hold so much more liquid then an equivalent human amount. So the bottle, which already looked like it might throw the artificial gravity off with how massive it was…

A situation which would be really, really, really bad for all of them, given what they needed to keep firmly down and inside of themselves…

Rio knew, though, that it held so much more than any of the others could even conceive of. Kira was nearly clipping through objects as she poured out a massive wine-glass for each of the five girls, visibly wiggling at the mere prospect of how much this was going to suck. Aoi made a private note to get many, many forms of revenge. Everyone needed to go to Medbay for checkups, or if they got hurt, or whatever. Everyone at this table would be in her range… eventually. That made her feel a little better, but only slightly.

For in front of her was a glass of wine so strong, it was like nothing she’d ever tasted before. And she drank a lot.

“Nnngh…”

None of the girls, not even Mozhdeh, managed more than a single sip on their first try. The massive glasses, triple the scale of any normal wineglass, showed no indication that anyone had tried at all. Even Etna, having consumed every drink prior with zero appreciable reaction, frowned at the raw strength of the ultra-dark royal purple drink before her.

She tried not to think about the exact effect that one sip would have. One normal glass of wine? One normal bottle? How true were the legends that a single sip was all it took to bring a normal girl to tears within ten minutes? Most of all, she tried not to think of how absurdly deep in the red she’d be if she was made to order a replacement bottle. How many days- or weeks- it would take for her and the rest of Cargo to work off debt for such a priceless item. Even a fifth of it.

Mozhdeh was the first to try again after the reality of what they were up against sank in. She tilted the glass back, slightly, drinking from the enormous pool of rich, dark wine. Drinking, and drinking, and drinking, as though she had no need for air, as though the taste wasn’t permanently etching itself into her taste buds with each gulp. The other girls merely watched in horror, for what felt like minutes, until a single rivulet of wine ran down from the corner of her mouth and she was forced to set the glass down, gasping for air.

Mozhdeh had barely put a dent in her glass. She’d finished, at best, a fifth of the dark wine- and she still hadn’t made it down to the widest part of the glass.

After that, only Kira was even remotely eager to drink more of the deep, dark wine. Not that any of them had a choice- while the other three sipped idly at their drinks, Kira took the plunge and followed Mozhdeh’s example.

By the time ten minutes passed, Mozhdeh had nearly reached the widest part of the glass, with Kira following as closely behind as she could, still fairly far behind. Etna, Riona, and Aoi had been pacing themselves a bit more sensibly, and had only just made appreciable progress.

That was when Moz flopped over across the table, crossing her legs tightly underneath it, feeling the effects of her little show earlier, all at once. Even she couldn’t silence a groaning whine, as the cameras caught everything. Her chair groaned in equal agony as she bounced, squirming and trying to regain control of herself. Seconds later, she was back to her usual, cheery, odd self- though her legs didn’t uncross. After all, the pressure could only get worse from here.

The suffering had truly begun.

While Moz was an expert at concealing the effects of drinking on her expression, from long, painful experience back at the Capacity Monastery, the other girls hadn’t grown up their entire lives being trained in such things. They were impressive, but less able to conceal their reactions. Aoi was probably the most deceptive of the bunch, so she managed to play off her spasms as a fit of coughing, wondering aloud if she got some plague from those filthy poisonous, heretically-merciful Science girls.

She didn’t miss, nor forget, nor forgive, Rio’s low murmur about how if she did catch something, it sure wasn’t a conscience. Oh no. It was just that Aoi couldn’t do anything about it. Even if she wanted to pick a fight at that moment, her legs refused to uncross for any reason. Her chair groaned as she wiggled about. If she kept her back turned to the camera, it would get an eyeful of her massive, uniform-straining ass, sure. However, that would also work ot her benefit, distracting the audience from just how much pain and agony she was in.

The other three girls at the table might have wanted to put on a brave face and pretend the Captain’s wine wasn’t demolishing them. It’s just a shame that they couldn’t, at all. It was like Captain Yoshida was there in person, doing one of her infamous Hyper Interrogation Techniques to some hapless griefing assistant. Even just a bottle of her finest, most precious wine had more power over them then the last eleven or so drinks, all combined.

It was almost like Kira wasn’t even trying, like she wanted the livestream to pick up every single bit of her pathetic suffering. The way she whimpered. The perverted blush consuming her face and turning it the same shade of her fiery red hair. The way her thighs audibly started caving in her own chair as she clamped down so tightly. She was built like any Security girl beneath that straining jumpsuit, no doubt. Her personality, though, was entirely different. From the camera’s angle, the look on her face was clear. Even as she danced around, complained, and begged for mercy, the joy that lit up her perverted eyes was distressing.

Especially to Rio herself. Who had thought this whole selection was funny. At first. A single drop of the Captain’s wine had deafened her taste buds, tensed up her throat, and made her bladder feel like it was on fire. She did her best to keep up, but at the same time, her lower body hurt. Actually being beaten up hurt way less than this, or at least in a different way; physical wounds could heal. There was only one way to get rid of these feelings, while keeping any shred of dignity intact. That way was across the station, as if she could even walk properly. It was also locked, and she, well.

Considering that she was the one who basically decided that they’d be stealing the Captain’s vintage ancient kitsune wine, she wasn’t going to be in the black.

Maybe literally ever again.

Not that the thought badly aroused her. She wasn’t Kira or anything. Don’t be silly.

Etna tended to sigh when she was upset, and she’d done that about ten times recently. She was stoic, controlled, and collected at all times. She was a stone-cold professional in every other area of life. She carefully cultivated that image of being above it all, not caring, and not being affected by anything. The bulge in her stomach, visible through her jumpsuit already, begged to differ. Just as she wanted to beg to be excused, and go to the restroom.

To admit defeat for any of these women was far worse than death, though. So they kept on going. It felt like a massive journey just to get this single cup of wine down. They drank, and suffered, and steeled themselves. They even started encouraging each other to keep going, as if stopping would cause all of them to lose. Even though they were supposed to be fighting, in the face of this massive sheer cliff of pain and agony, they ended up helping each other out. Save for Aoi, of course, but even she seemed a little less venomous than usual.

It was very tasty, at least.

Moz finished first, letting out a little sigh and kicking back in her chair. In a few moments, the full force of what she’d gotten herself into would hit her. But that was a problem for the her a few seconds from now. In that moment, she could just enjoy watching how little progress the other girls had made, and…

“Nnngh.”

She was writhing on the floor when Aoi helpfully leaned over, and mentioned that Moz was doing a good job. “After all, you’re halfway through now.”

Oh, right.

That was just glass one of two.

Oh God, grant me the strength to endure….

Aoi made sardonic light of the extra-wide kitsune’s situation while she could, slowing her own drinking even further while she watched the show. Just like anyone else at the table, her thighs were crossed and grinding together under the table, hidden only from the other contestants.

For Aoi, there was at least one other reason for that, beside the wine. She definitely felt it, but the feeling of intense, mind-numbing, agonizing pressure was still… tolerable. Barely. It was a lot easier to endure hellish pressure when she could occupy her mind with something else and not focus on drinking, when the taste of ultra-powerful wine wasn’t all she could focus on, when she had things to busy her trembling hands. She still had the most to drink, too.

Pretty soon, she wouldn’t have the capacity- mental or otherwise- to think up more snarky remarks or devious plans. She’d be just like the other girls in front of her- bursting, suffering, devoting every fiber of her mind and body to controlling an ever-worsening Need. If she was particularly unlucky, she might even reach the point where revelling in the suffering of others wouldn’t be much help.

That wouldn’t be for some time, though. When Mozhdeh regained enough control to stand on wonderfully trembling, tightly double-crossed legs, and reach for the half-full bottle of wine, Aoi casually placed a hand over the top of the bottle.

“No no. Not until we’ve all finished.”

The look Moz gave was purely delightful. The tan-skinned priestess barely managed to retain some semblance of control against Aoi’s shameless, hungry grin. She could practically see her painful, urgent need worsening every minute, as she idly and casually sipped at the drink, slower than anyone else.

Every girl present could drink. There was no doubt about that.

Could they endure, though? Could they withstand agonizing, searing pressure for countless hours on end, feeling it grow worse every second and having nothing to do but bounce, squirm, dance, whimper, and pray for mercy that never, ever came? Could they do what Aoi did during every single shift?

“Nnnnnghh!” Kira set her glass back down, squirming around in her seat. “This is just like being back in the courtroom…”

Etna was, perhaps, the only one to show no effect from being near Kira’s outbursts. Riona had a habit of setting her drink down, as if the act of drinking and listening to a competitor’s suffering would be just a little too much. Mozhdeh’s ears twitched as she openly squirmed, every single time. Aoi, however, was more interesting.

Every time Kira complained, Aoi took a big gulp of her drink.

Minutes passed, wine slowly going from glass to girl with each passing second. They all felt the undeniable pressure. Kira finished her glass second, and complained loudly- by Etna’s frighteningly accurate count- every three minutes, on average. Aoi had been dead last for some time, but having to listen to Kira’s shameless caterwauling lead her to finish third, nearly in time with Riona herself.

Etna finished last, by a matter of two minutes and thirty seven seconds. As the bulging visible through her jumpsuit grew larger, so did the number of things she kept mental track of, as a distraction. The passing of minutes and seconds. The number and frequency of Kira’s complaints. The number of times Mozhdeh’s chair audibly cracked under her squirming. The number of times Aoi gave someone a death-glare. The estimated number of fluid ounces contained in that wine bottle. The estimated number of credits each of those fluid ounces cost, in station credits.

The one thing she kept herself from calculating, the one thing she couldn’t bear to think of, was the total cost of the bottle. In credits, or on her own body. She -could- make a reasonable guess of how many planets they would have to strip-mine to make up a fifth of the cost, or how many drink crates it would take to have the same effect as a single glass of that wine.

She just really, really didn’t want to.

“I guess I’ll do the honors, then…” Riona spoke, halfheartedly taking the wine bottle in her hands.

Etna sighed again, her thighs trembling visibly as her glass was poured. Kira shook all over when she received hers. Aoi managed a truly venomous, frightening smile, that only Moz took as real. Mozhdeh herself clapped her hands together just as she had for many rounds prior, but her face wasn’t one of giddy, mischievous, twisted delight- if anything, watching the swirl of that dark wine was nearly enough to bring her to tears.

Riona could sympathize. Watching the last of that wine spill into her own glass, she could only feel two things. The first was immense regret for her choices, choices she hadn’t even begun to pay properly for. The second, and far more potent, raw, and overwhelming sensation was lower, deeper, and even heavier than the weight of her decision.

The agony of delaying, denying, and worsening her most basic Need, by an order of magnitude most girls couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Or, as Moz so eloquently put it, “divine suffering”.

Round two of the Captain’s ultra-potent, powerful, super-distilled, purified wine wasn’t at all like the last cup the ladies at the table had. Then, they could put up some kind of pretense, making progress, taunting and looking over each other, trying to still their squirming and not show the agony of their situation. Being hit by another glass, and knowing exactly how much it would make them suffer, as they were already groaning beneath the effects of glass one? It changed the mood in the dive maintenance bar.

Trying to pretend everything was normal gave way to grim desperation. The light went out from even Moz’s eyes. Normally she was such a beacon of good cheer. Her ability to smile at despair in the name of hope was well-known, and sometimes very annoying, to her fellow crew. Some of whom were secretly watching this very livestream as it went out, much as it would eventually become impossible to control certain other kinds of flows, if the pressure kept building and building without end. She drank at her best pace, slowly and with great difficulty. Several times, she was at risk of letting some drops of the wine spill, or even being tempted to do it on purpose, but her faith in God was too intense to be such a dishonest girl.

The mere thought of what the Captain would do about wasted wine of such astounding quality and value, and how she would make up for that ‘lost value’ with the station’s pear-shaped kitsune chaplain, also helped her be diligent.

Kira, never the most logical girl, was delirious with joy, on the other hand. Or something approaching it. The tears welling in her eyes were probably that. Or maybe, in spite of being such a debased, perverted deviant, even this amount was simply too much, too strong, too quickly. After all, a masochist enjoyed pain, but not injury usually. The degree of such things mattered; limits emerged when where a girl thought there were literally none. When the whole audience expected Kira to just keep going, to love it, to drink endlessly, now, that outward facade was cracking to pieces. Her knees knocked together in fear, and of course, mostly, in Need.

She started slow, but then realized she was slowly falling behind, so she tried to drink faster. Even as she groaned, her abject, pathetic moans rolling through the cramped, dimly-lit compartment, her mouth opened to receive another sip of that wine. A-After all, misery shared is misery halved. Right?

Aoi wouldn’t agree with such a foolish philosophy, if her mind was capable of such thoughts anymore. She was being broken, in a way that was typically reserved for the patients under her cruel, heartless, merciless care. A normal person might use this waking eternity of painful perspective, and the bulge in her own lower body that only grew and grew, as a learning experience. They might take more empathy with girls who needed the restroom, and add to their Need with less reckless abandon. That was why those normal girls were weak, and Aoi was strong.

Even in this situation. No, especially now, when it seemed like she was bring brought down to the level of all these other women, Aoi knew she was superior. She had her dignity. Even if it was being overshadowed by the humiliating way she had to confess her need to the greedy lens of the camera, as she drank at a steady, arduous, pace, making slow progress.

Riona, the cause of this Hell they were all trapped in, was reflecting on all of her life choices. From a young age, she’d known that she had Certain Inclinations; it was part of why her own personal code said that she never refused any drink. Ever. Under any circumstances. Even if she knew going in it was going to be a terrible, aching experience. In that moment, suffering for her sins, she couldn’t deny that it was more than that. She loved Need, even as she hated it. In that moment, she came to new understanding about herself. Not that any of that self-realization relieved one drop of the endless fluid pressure on her bladder, as she sipped and dimidly drank more and more, slowly.

If anything, being tormented, by her own choice, made the redhead look around the room and see all four other contestants in this absurd game. Their full bladders from earlier rounds weren’t necessarily all Riona’s fault, but this was. They were getting more full from this one glass, even just glass two of two from the Captain’s wine, then they were from the last ten rounds in a row. All her fault, which meant all this suffering was her just desserts.

Finally,  Etna brought up the rear, trying to pace herself. Normally a smart move in such a situation. Although, when the need was constant and no relief could be even conceived of, all she really accomplished was drawing out everyone’s suffering. The next round couldn’t proceed until every girl had drained her glass, after all. Etna could calculate exactly how much she had to go, and how long it would take, and how much she would suffer for it. Her stoic personality and calm, level-headed demeanor meant she could hold it together longer than any of the others would.

That was no mercy, of course. It was more like being trapped in her own personal hell. She knew exactly what was wrong, why it was wrong, how much wrong was there, how much Need, how much humiliation. She just couldn’t do a single thing to stop it, or get away, or relieve this pressure. The one route open to her was, as it was with every girl, truly unthinkable.

Every member of Hyper Station’s crew would rather die than do That. At this rate, if this kept up, and the game would indeed continue even though they’d conquered enough of the Captain’s wine to move on, they might end up doing both. The amount of pain they were in far exceeded actual injury and death that they faced as part of a space station’s crew; some of them had been cloned and brought back to life seemingly from the dead before.

It still was far less terrible than this ordeal, by now. And all they’d done was pass the next hurdle. This was hardly anything that could be called a victory… except for the depraved, constantly growing audience, of course. The number in the corner of the screen on the camera, like the amount of fluid in all of these women, only went one way.

An increase without end.

“W-Where were we?” Moz wondered, voice wavering, eyes glassy and unfocused, staring off literally into space out the window.

Etna was the only one who could answer that question, and even she struggled to recall exactly how many rounds it had been since the cruel game started. “We’re about to start round 14, now…”