by D. R. Rosier
He lost it, and started to laugh. Damn, I’d have to work on my seduction techniques. I’d actually been hoping he’d bend me over the table.
“Eat woman.”
I winked and finally reached for my fork.
He said, “Since there isn’t much for you to do, I’m fine with that. Once the new ships start getting built though, and ours is repaired, I’ll need you back on your station and your help at Earth.”
I nodded, “Of course, I just didn’t feel comfortable using bridge time for it without your approval. I’ll be around and paying attention if someone needs my help with something.”
He said, “You’re settling in well, and have made yourself indispensable, any temptation to stay on Earth?”
My eyes widened, “No. Were you worried about that?”
He shrugged, “I care about you Lori, I know it’s only been a month or so.”
I blushed, but didn’t turn away or look away from his intense eyes. Forget acting breathless, I felt breathless in that moment of time.
“I care about you too Vik. No, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back, and if I do it will be much later.”
He asked, “How much later?”
I laughed, “You know, when I make a fortune from my designs. If I ever do go back, it will be in my own ship, with fabricators aboard, and evil plans to make billions off the governments of the world.”
He snickered, “That would be a violation of Empire law.”
“We’re rebels now captain.”
He snorted, and coughed on his food. Damnit, hadn’t meant to make him do that. The laughing yes, the choking, no.
I clarified, “What I mean is, I’d just take back what I could. Actually, despite the fact we’re probably being hunted by your brother, and that we’re probably the only hope for the empire to come back the way it was, I’m enjoying my life more now than I ever have before. I’m with people I am growing to care for, enjoy being with, and enjoy the challenges that we face. Not the direness of them, but the challenge itself. I also see it as an opportunity. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Earth, but I learned a long time ago, never say never.”
Vik said, “Opportunities?”
I nodded, “Sure, my designs address and solve the two objections your brother had to the old empire setup. With the probes, we’ll be able to proactively track the Stolavii, and with the new far more efficient power arrangements, we’ll be able to haul resources for cash a lot less often. Much less. I’m not a greedy person, and never was the type to be greedy or wasteful with money, even when I had it. But I have to say the idea that I’ll make money on the designs once things are back to normal, is a comforting one. I guess that’s rather selfish, while the empire is endangered and falling apart, my personal life has never been better. But… I’m going to risk my life to help you to fix it, so there is that.”
Vik grunted, “I don’t think you’re selfish at all. There’s nothing wrong with making money from your own hard work and intelligence, and you’ve already given up a lot of that by giving it away for as you say, our counter-revolution.”
I blushed. I really wasn’t that good a person. For goodness sake, I used to kill people, just to keep myself alive and toe the line with the government. Still, I suppose where I had a choice, I usually chose to help others, and do what was right. Ironically, it was doing the good thing of helping the homeless, that had gotten me kidnapped in the first place. Although, I started to believe then that it might have been the best thing to ever happen to me. The real question was, did those good deeds make up for all the other shit? Yes, most of those men were dangerous and a threat to the nation, but that’s why we had courts, and the FBI. Them being evil was always how I justified it to myself, but I wondered just how self-serving that was.
I finished the meal, then unzipped my ship suit to my naval, and stretched luxuriously.
Vik couldn’t keep his eyes off my breasts, as the suit barely kept them from flopping out. Mission accomplished. I got up and swayed over to the door to the bedroom, and zipped down all the way, bent over at the waist, and shimmied the suit down as sexily as I could.
I heard him breathing from across the room, and smiled back over my shoulder as I stood up. My whole body tingled at the look of hungry lust in his eyes, and on his face. I felt so sexy when he looked at me like that, especially because I knew what we had was far more than just sex. It was also more than friendship, at least, for me it was. It thought and hoped it was for him too.
“Are you coming captain? My ass isn’t going to spank itself.”
He smirked and got up, his ship suit looked to be working hard to restrain his manhood, and I giggled naughtily and ran for the bed. I heard his low growl, and it sent a thrill down my spine. I loved to tease him until he lost control, it was an amazing feeling to be so desired, wanted, and taken. I no longer had doubts, not like I had three weeks ago, and I loved to be his wanton little sex pot. I’d thought I had a good sex life with the one night stands, but I’d learned I’d been naïve and hadn’t known what I was missing. There was nothing more exciting than giving myself over to him, and to our shared desire and pleasure.
I didn’t know if what we had was love, I had no experience with that emotion, but I knew it was so much more than lust, and I cared for him deeply.
He was naked too by the time he got in the room, no doubt discarding his suit on the way, while I stood by the bed waiting, displaying myself boldly to his devouring gaze as he stalked towards me. His cock was hard, long, thick, and stood at attention. I loved the fact that I could make him hard without even touching him. I was almost dizzy with lust at that point, and felt sexy as hell.
I smiled lasciviously, and teased my nipple, “Don’t make me start without you.”
He stepped forward and claimed my lips, demandingly, and ground himself against me while I rubbed against him like a cat in heat. I loved the way his hard body felt against mine, and was breathless with desire as he wrapped his arms around me possessively.
I moaned softly, and gasped in surprise when he grabbed my long wavy light brown hair, spun me around, and pushed me down so I was bent over the bed. His other hand spanked me hard once, drawing a gasp from my lips, and it put a naughty pleased smile on my face he couldn’t see.
I had a decisive and fearless personality, and tended to take charge of all aspects of my life. So, the fact I liked to be manhandled and controlled in bed, had been more of a surprise to me, than Vik. I wasn’t a masochist in the least, but I was without a doubt submissive in bed, except for with Jillintara.
It was slightly different with Telidur as well, he was more apt to tease me, and drag things out, in a teasing good way, rather than take control while he lost his own.
I moaned, and wiggled as he caressed the red spot on my ass that tingled and burned pleasantly, it was the best I could do while he was pinning me down by my head and hair. I spread my legs as far as I could so they were still touching the floor in my toes, and arched my back when his other hand ran down the crack of my ass, and then between my legs as I bared my mound to him shamelessly. My body was his tonight, for him to take his pleasure with, as his was there for mine.
“You’re so hot and wet for me Lori,” he said in a rough barely controlled voice as he palmed my mound, and then traced his middle finger along my labia. I pushed back against him and arched my back as far as I could while I moaned in pleasure at his touch.
“It’s all for you Vik. I need you in me. I need you to fuck me.”
He made a sound of approval and lust at my declaration.
He moved directly behind me, loomed over me, I felt trapped and vulnerable, and it was a wonderful feeling being under him, under his control. He pulled back lightly on my hair, and pushed down on my lower back, while he pushed inside.
I gasped in a mix of pleasure and discomfort, as he stretched me wide, and started to slowly work his way inside me with short gentle strokes. I knew the pain would fade, and then there would only be pleas
ure, intense pleasure. He’d fit perfectly inside me, I was wet enough, and I’d stretch enough to take him all inside me.
Barely.
He always said I was tight, the truth was I might have been a little, I was still just nineteen and the nanites would keep my body in perfect shape, but it had a lot more to do with the size of his beautifully large cock.
Then he was in me, and I bore down inside me to squeeze him tightly, and smiled wider at the gasp I drew from his lips.
Spank!
I gasped, and clenched him even tighter. My entire being hummed with desire, and the familiar euphoria was already building in my center, and radiating outward through my body. I was ready, so ready, and I ground back against him the best I could, but I was pinned down on the bed by his body, and hand. He got the message anyway, and started to slowly stroke in and out of me, slowly going faster, and longer, with each stroke.
It was blissful torture, that I couldn’t buck back against him, which perversely made my pleasure spiral higher, and faster.
He’d barely been long stroking me with his full length, hard and firm, for more than a few seconds before I felt the radiating coil of pleasure deep within me snap, and the bliss broke over me. The pleasure felt like a tornado ripping through my body, torturing me with ecstasy, and I gasped when I felt his thumb pop into my other entrance as he squeezed and parted my cheeks with one hand.
Then he pulled back on my hair and started to rail into me harder, going all out, and I just gave myself over to the overwhelming intense pleasure, it was all I could do, to ride it out in blissful dirty pleasure. His thumb wasn’t that big, but I’d never felt so full in my life, and the euphoria was almost too much as I came undone below him a second time.
He grunted, “Lori,” and I froze and stopped breathing as he stretched me out further, and then I cried out as I felt him pulse and empty himself within me.
When he finished, he caressed my back and ass softly, and gently, in stark contrast to the way he’d just taken me. I loved that part too. It made me feel safe, desired, and cared for.
The best part? The night was still young, and we hadn’t even gotten in the bed yet…
Chapter Six
Time passed quickly over the next three months, or it seemed to. It’d been just two weeks short of four months when things took a major detour.
The infrastructure had gone up, mining was going very well, and the first ships were almost completed. The power plant was being built on a dead moon around a dead planet farther in system, it would also have stealth characteristics as well as shielding. Only partial stealth compared to what was needed on a ship, which would make it far less energy intensive, since there was no point hiding the mass, we just needed the field to disguise the energy emissions. We weren’t hiding the moon either, just the fact that there was anything inside of it. Visual and heat sensors weren’t an issue either, it was deep enough that the moon’s surface would take care of those parts, and the entrance was simply camouflaged with rock and moon dust.
The moon also had its own synth plant and fabrication equipment on a small scale. It wouldn’t need much to create the small replacement cores it would need to maintain the vacuum energy reactors.
The moon, mining, ship platforms, and first set of ships including the probe ship, had been turned over to the new artificial assistants once they matured enough, which freed up Jillintara a bit from the overwhelming job of watching over it all with only a few organics to help her out.
I wasn’t quite ready to give up on my efficiency research, but the last three months had turned the reactor issue into my white whale. The only thing that kept me sane the last three months was my relationships with the rest of the crew, sans Rilok of course. I was frustrated with it, to say the least, and decided to take a break. Through experimentation, I had discovered a few things, but I had no idea how to fix them, because I still didn’t know the true cause.
With an extremely light load, less than a ship required to run the lights, it worked at about fifty percent efficiency. The dark energy was concentrated in the core, which broke down the bonds in the element creating raw energy, which the energy converters around the core turned into electricity. That was far from perfect, according to what was on paper the conversion efficiency should be around eighty two percent, but it was what it was. Still, even at that level something was obviously wrong, there was always a degradation between calculations on paper and engineering in real life, but it shouldn’t have been a thirty-two percent loss. Ten to fifteen percent loss would have been much more reasonable.
When I turned up the load, efficiency in the conversion dropped like a stone. I didn’t think it was the converters, it was like the larger reaction with more dark energy started to interfere with the conversion process, as well as started to degrade the reactor core. The more energy we needed, the more interference, the faster the degradation, to the point where to get the thousand times more energy for a wormhole, it took a raw energy reaction a thousand times higher than it should to make happen. Worse than that, a lot of that raw energy reaction wasn’t controlled, it was a side effect of the instability. Which is what led to the containment issues and weakening of the reactor parts, which needed to be monitored carefully, and replaced before a breach happened.
Which meant across the power scale, the efficiency went from fifty percent, to about point one percent rather quickly.
Obviously, the Isyth’s technology and knowledge on quantum physics still wasn’t complete. They knew a lot more about the universe than Earth did, but their knowledge couldn’t explain what was happening, what was causing the interference and instability at higher concentrations of dark energy in the reactor. If someone had figured out the issue, they weren’t sharing.
There was also a paranoid part of me that thought they knew exactly what it was, and had left that information out of the public available courses, so people couldn’t slap their foreheads and fix it. That might have been the paranoia and annoyance talking though, at my failure to understand and fix it.
It could simply be the higher concentrations of dark energy itself that caused the problem with both containment, and the interference with power conversion, but something told me there was something else behind it, a combination and reaction of some kind, but I had no idea what.
The truth was, I was extremely intuitive and frighteningly creative with the available technologies available to me, but despite my intelligence I seemed to be a crappy researcher. True breakthroughs and new understanding seemed beyond me, despite my intelligence. I wasn’t even sure what to try next. Still, I wasn’t giving up.
But, I decided to take a break from it, and we were preparing to leave the Scythe so she could go through a refit and have repairs completed anyway, which meant no access to my lab. The two plasma weapons and one missile launcher needed to be replaced, and the new twenty smaller reactors to replace the one large reactor was completed and already on board and waiting for installation. The hull also needed a facelift, Jillintara had sealed it of course, but away from a full refit station it was an obvious patch job, and ugly.
Jillintara walked into my quarters while I gathered my weapons, and a few other things for the temporary move. I didn’t have much, and we’d only be off the ship a week, but there were a few toys and weapons I wanted to keep with me. It also felt weird not to pack clothes, but the ship suit and sonic showers took care of all that. I also didn’t mind the intrusion, she was my best friend, my lover, and I’d given her permission to come and go in my quarters as she pleased over two months ago now.
“There you are, entertain me.”
I smirked, “Bored Jill?”
She nodded, “I went from overwhelmed to very little to do, I won’t even be doing anything but overseeing the upgrade since the refit artificial assistant is taking care of it, and on the destroyer, there’s an assistant there as well to take care of the ship.”
I laughed, “We’re in the same boat, I’m taking a break from
the reactor issue, which is driving me crazy.”
She pouted.
I snorted, “Cute, what did you have in mind?”
Actually, her pout made her look incredibly sexy and alluring, but I didn’t want to encourage that, or she’d use it for evil purposes.
She shrugged, “We don’t have time for what I have in mind, we need to be in the shuttle in just ten minutes.”
I said, “Look on the bright side, at least you’re finally getting off the ship.”
She shook her head, “Not what I had in mind, I want to visit a planet.”
I nodded, and we shared a kiss.
She took my hand as we walked out, my pack thrown over my other shoulder.
“Aren’t you taking anything?”
She sighed, “It’s already on the shuttle, I was bored and packed early.”
I’d suggest killing time with a tour, but I’d re-designed the damned thing, and knew every inch of her. Plus, Jillintara had that data too.
“Did you know Earth calls this system Tau Ceti?”
She squeezed my hand.
“I do now.”
I asked, “What about your baby sisters?”
She smiled, “In a few years they’ll be good company on the data net, right now they’re capable but not very dynamic. It takes time to grow.”
“Do you ever worry you’ll outgrow the ship?”
She frowned, “In a lot of ways I already have. Which is why I want the freedom to leave the ship. I like maintaining it, running it, but I need more as well. Of course, given the circumstances and us hiding I can hardly blame the captain for not making that happen, and it helps a lot having you.”
I sighed, “How much of a problem will that be, for all the dynamic and organically growing A.I.s we just created.”
She tilted her head, “I don’t know. It won’t be the same to them without a body. I want to smell the air of a planet, and smell the grass and nature. Fell the blades between my toes, and look up into the stars. They don’t have bodies, skin, or human eyes. They might not feel the lack I do, or they may feel it even worse.”