Planet of the Valkyries

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Planet of the Valkyries Page 17

by Callista Hawkes


  “Prepare for immediate dust off.” You reply, ushering Juno and Zoë aboard. “There are hostile organisms beneath the surface.” He quickly returns to the pilot’s seat and you sit down next to Zoë behind him while Juno sits opposite. The Ensign gazes warily at the raven haired android, her right hand close to the butt of her blaster. The thrusters roar as the pilot throttles up, the shuttle lifting off and climbing rapidly up into the sky.

  An hour later, you step out of the shuttle onto the deck of the hanger bay.

  “I’ll make my report to the Captain.” Juno mutters, glancing darkly at Zoë before hurrying across the cavernous chamber.

  “She doesn’t believe me.” Zoë murmurs. “I think she hates me. The humans aboard the Zephyr hated me too. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” You reply. “But we will still need to have the techs carry out a full diagnostic for your own sake as well as ours.”

  “You don’t trust me.” She replies coldly, her eyes narrowing. You barely have time to see the punch she throws, let alone react. The blow strikes you on the side of the head and you crumple to the floor, your vision fading to black.

  You groan as you regain consciousness, klaxons blaring loudly all around you. Reaching up to your pounding head, your fingers come away bloodied. Wincing with pain, you sit up and look around you, your blood running cold at the sight. The hanger bay is utter carnage with bodies lying scattered across the cavernous chamber. You reach for your blaster, but find only an empty holster.

  “Shit.” You curse, clambering to your feet and reaching for your communicator.

  “Bridge, it’s Chase…” You begin.

  “Ensign Anderson has told me everything.” Captain Madison snaps back at you. “What the hell were you thinking, bringing an android aboard? That thing is tearing through my ship and killing my crew!”

  “I’m sorry, Captain.” You reply, the awful reality that this is all your fault hitting you harder than Zoë’s sucker punch. “I’ll deal with this. Get everybody else away from her.”

  You follow the path of carnage, the corridors littered with bodies and the walls scorched from blaster fire. As you move deeper into the ship, a heavy thud echoes from around the next corner. Peeking cautiously, you can see Zoë, or what’s left of her, pounding against a blast door that has been closed over the entrance to the mainframe. Her flesh has been burned away over large portions of her body, revealing the complex mechanisms and microprocessor systems beneath. As she repeatedly smashes her fist into the blast door, you can see that all that remains of that limb is a black skeletal plasteel arm. Your blaster is still clutched in her other hand. The blast door is beginning to buckle beneath her relentless assault. She is only moments from breaching it and you guess if she accesses the mainframe, the ship is lost. Zoë didn’t kill you in the hanger bay, so you take a chance that she won’t now.

  “Zoë.” You call out, your hands raised as you step towards her. She turns towards you, her face now partly melted away. “Why are you doing this? You’ve killed all these innocent people.”

  “They would have shut me down.” Zoë replies, her voice sounding synthesised now. “If your techs had carried out a diagnostic, they’d have found out that I was responsible for what happened on the Zephyr.” You nod, noticing that the housing for her main microprocessor has been melted away, exposing the CPU. If you can get close, you can pull it free. It’s risky, but she seems to have made a connection with you. Perhaps you can reason with her, get her to voluntarily stand down.

  Try to talk her down

  Get closer and pull out the CPU

  “Do it.” You tell Juno. She instantly squeezes the trigger, the laser bolt searing through Zoë’s chest. A look of disbelief crosses the android’s face as electricity arcs from the smouldering wound. Her eyes narrow and she clenches her jaw.

  “I thought you were different.” She snarls at you. “But you’re just the same as the crew of the Zephyr.” She lunges for you and you step back just out of reach. Juno fires again, this time the blast sizzling through her face and exposing the sophisticated black plasteel skull. The ivory white teeth glint back at you as she takes another step towards you.

  “Again!” You shout at Juno. She fires again and again until finally what used to resemble the beautiful raven haired Zoë is nothing but a twisted smouldering wreck lying broken on the sand.

  “Thanks.” You tell Juno, echoing her own grudging sentiment a few minutes earlier. She opens her mouth to respond, but her words are drowned out by the roar of thrusters. You glance up at the rescue shuttle circling overhead before it slowly descends, setting down next to you. The door slides open and the pilot steps out onto the sand.

  “Commander.” He says with a crisp salute.

  “There are hostile organisms beneath the sand, so we’ll dispense with the pleasantries.” You tell him gruffly before nodding at Zoë’s remains. “Give me a hand with this and prepare for immediate dust off.”

  “A tragedy that your efforts were in vain.” Captain Madison tells you grimly once you are back aboard the Ranger. “Still, at least you fried those metal bastards. Any indication as to why the androids murdered the crew?”

  “We didn’t have a chance to recover the Zephyr’s black box,” You reply, “But our working theory is that the advanced android I encountered on the surface reprogrammed them. Perhaps the techs will be able to determine why once they have studied its remains.”

  “When they’ve finished, I want that thing off my ship.” She growls, clasping her hands together on the desk before her. “I won’t have the same thing that happened on the Zephyr happening here.”

  “Understood, Captain.” You reply.

  “Both you and Ensign Anderson have shown exemplary courage and selflessness.” She tells you. “I will recommend a commendation for each of you.”

  “Not necessary, Captain.” You reply, not feeling particularly courageous or selfless after abandoning Juno on the Zephyr.

  “I think that’s for me to decide, Commander.” She smiles. “Bravery should be celebrated. In fact, why don’t you join me for dinner tonight? I think after the day you’ve had, you could do with a few glasses of wine. Sofia always says we should invite you.” For a moment, you think you see a curious glint in her eye, but you must have imagined it. Captain Madison is a happily married woman and after all, her wife will be there.

  Attend dinner

  Make your apologies

  “Let’s try the electromagnetic pulse.” You tell Juno. “You’re sure you can trigger it?”

  “I specialised in starship computer systems at the Academy.” She replies confidently. “Get me to the mainframe and I’ll make it happen.”

  “The mainframe on these old freighters is normally amidships.” You reply. “It’s not far, but let’s hope there’s none of our metal friends between here and there.”

  As you hurry through the maze of corridors, you hope you don’t lose your bearings. Getting lost aboard the Zephyr with countless murderous androids hunting you could be fatal. You reach a broad door which slides open before you. As you step inside, you find yourself facing the brightly lit mainframe, a dozen tall towers of blinking lights all arranged in a ring within a hermetically sealed glass room.

  “That’s the access point.” Juno tells you, pointing towards a waist high pedestal in the centre of the room with a monitor screen and keyboard on top.

  “How long to trigger an EMP blast?” You ask her.

  “Depends on the operating system on this museum piece.” She shrugs, moving towards an airlock which leads into the mainframe room. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” To your right, opposite the mainframe room, you notice a series of three circular hatches on the outer wall of the vessel. You smile. Escape pods.

  “If it all goes to hell, we’ve still got plan B.” You tell her, pointing towards the hatches. She nods and steps into the airlock. The door closes and the airlock hisses as the air is replaced by the clean air of the
mainframe room. The inner door slides open and she steps towards the pedestal.

  “Damn, it’s cold in here.” Juno grumbles, her voice muffled by the glass walls of the enclosure. Her fingers drum on the keyboard before a moment later, she sighs, her shoulders sagging. “My God, this operating system is older than you are! Sorry Commander, this might take a while.”

  “Understood, Ensign.” You reply, your hand tightening on your blaster as you glance warily towards the doors into the room.

  Minutes seem like hours as you watch her fingers glide over the keyboard, her brow furrowed and her eyes fixed on the screen before her. She is silent other than an occasional muttering or grunt of frustration and your enquiries into her progress are answered with testy responses. With a certain inevitability, you hear the doors behind you sigh open and several synthesised voices announcing in unison:

  “Hostiles located.”

  “Shit.” You breathe, turning and bringing your blaster to bear. You squeeze the trigger, the first two androids dropping to the deck in a shower of sparks, their bodies arcing with electricity for a moment before falling still. More step through the door as you fire again and again.

  “Tell me you’re nearly finished!” You shout out to Juno.

  “Nearly.” She shouts back. “Just a few more minutes.” Another door slides open and more androids advance towards you.

  “We don’t have a few minutes!” You call back, turning your fire on the other door. “Come on out of there. It’s time for plan B!”

  “I’m so close! Just hold them off!” She shouts.

  “Goddamn it!” You growl, firing shot after shot into the advancing hordes of androids. They are spilling into the room faster than you can pick them off and you watch in horror as they close in around you, cutting you off from the airlock into the mainframe room. You back away as dozens of the androids slowly step towards you until you feel the hatch of one of the escape pods at your back. The androids are just a few paces away and will be upon you in moments. You glance over your shoulder at the control for the escape pod hatch.

  “Don’t you dare leave me!” You hear Juno call out from the mainframe room beyond the advancing pack of androids.

  Abandon Juno and use the escape pod

  Hope you can hold out until she activates the electromagnetic pulse

  “Now, Ensign, now!” You shout as the endless hordes of androids close in all around you, metallic fingers glinting as they stretch out for you. You desperately sweep your blaster around you, keeping the nearest at bay, but it is hopeless. There are just too many of them. Then in an instant everything falls into complete darkness. You hear a metallic clatter all around you. Your pulse races as you stand there, unable to make out anything at all. Without even the constant background drone of the Zephyr’s air filtration systems, the only sound is your elevated breathing. A moment later, dim emergency lighting winks on and your eyes widen at the devastation around you. The androids are all lying face down and dormant on the deck before you. You hear the airlock door creak, slowly sliding open. You step over the deactivated androids at your feet and peer through the gap between the doors, Juno grinning back from the other side.

  “That seemed to do the trick.” She tells you.

  “Well done, Ensign.” You smile, glancing at the carnage behind you. “And not a moment too soon. The EMP blast has fried every last one of them.”

  “And everything else, including the doors.” Juno replies, panting with exertion. “I’m having to hand wind it open using the emergency crank.”

  “As the shuttle’s systems have been knocked out too, we’ll have to wait for rescue.” You tell her.

  “Weren’t we the ones supposed to be doing the rescuing?” She replies dryly as she squeezes through the half open door.

  “We’ve neutralised the threat at least.” You reply.

  “Let’s move into the hold.” Juno murmurs, glancing around her at the dozens of deactivated androids. “It’s creeping me out in here.”

  After laboriously hand winding another couple of doors, you enter the hold. With only the dim emergency lights, much of it is now in shadow, making it seem even more cavernous than when it was brightly lit. You sit down on one of the plasteel crates, Juno sitting next to you.

  “How long until the Zephyr burns up in the atmosphere?” She asks.

  “Two or three hours.” You reply.

  “And how long will it take the Ranger to send another rescue shuttle?” She asks.

  “A couple of hours.” You reply.

  “Oh.” Juno blanches.

  “It will be okay.” You tell her, putting a comforting arm around her. She leans into you slightly, her body warm against yours.

  “I know it will.” She smiles up at you. You sit there in silence for a minute or two. While you know you should pull your arm away, you feel protective of the young Ensign.

  “Well, if we only have two hours left to live,” Juno murmurs, finally breaking the silence as she glances at you, “I can think of something we can do that’s a little more fun than sitting here and waiting to die.” You meet her sultry gaze and blink in surprise at her sudden overt advances.

  Shun her advances

  Allow her to seduce you

  “Really?” You smile, twisting towards her. “I didn’t know you’d brought a deck of cards.” Juno rolls her eyes and smiles.

  “You know exactly what I mean.” She murmurs, reaching up, her hand on your cheek. You take her in your arms, your pulse racing with excitement. As you draw closer, you can smell the faint aroma of her perfume. Her head tilts to one side, her pouting lips meeting yours. You kiss tentatively at first, enjoying the taste of her, the feel of her soft lips and the gentle caress of her tongue against yours. She moans softly and the kiss becomes more passionate as you both surrender to your desire.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.” You moan weakly as you kiss her. The Galactic Navy’s rules strongly prohibit fraternisation with a subordinate and you know you could end up in the brig. Yet the excitement of tasting the forbidden fruit is intoxicating.

  “Yes we should.” Juno replies, pulling away, her eyes gleaming as she reaches up to slowly unzip her uniform jacket. Your gaze drops to her chest as her cleavage is revealed. Beneath her jacket, she is wearing a black cotton vest. It clings tightly to her small though pert breasts, the buds of her nipples pressing proudly through the fabric. She shrugs off her jacket and smiles coyly, biting her lower lip and gazing up at you from beneath long eyelashes.

  “Keep going.” You hear yourself murmur.

  “You do it.” She purrs, reaching for you and pulling your face back to hers, kissing you deeply for a moment. Your hands glide down her sides, fingers hooking beneath the hem of the vest and slowly peeling it upwards. You pull away, taking your time as her toned stomach is revealed, her midriff and then her small but shapely breasts, the dark pink of her swollen nipples contrasting with her pale flesh. She raises her arms as you pull the vest up and over her head and toss it to the deck.

  “Damn, you’re beautiful.” You murmur, taking her back into your arms and kissing her again, even more hungrily than before. Her tongue flicks against yours and you slide a hand up to her chest, cupping a firm breast, your thumb flicking over her engorged nipple and making her gasp with delight. As your shaft unfurls, hardening against the inside of your thigh, you squirm uncomfortably. Juno stretches down, her hand resting on the bulge.

  “Guess you’re not quite as reluctant as you were making out.” She murmurs, breaking the kiss, her eyes gleaming.

  “Maybe I’m just playing hard to get.” You grin.

  “Definitely hard.” She giggles, giving your cock a playful squeeze through your trousers. “So what are your orders, Commander?”

  “Orders?” You ask.

  “You are the ranking officer.” She reminds you as she holds your gaze. “I am under your command and as such, will obey you without hesitation, no matter how... questionable your orders might be.” She
smiles sweetly up at you, her icy blue eyes glinting with mischief. You blink in surprise.

  “You’ll do anything I want?” You murmur, reaching up to loosen your collar, your pulse racing.

  “Anything.” She breathes, elongating the word to twice its normal length, her eyes continuing to hold your gaze.

  Ask her what she has in mind

  See how wild this might get

  “What do you suggest, Ensign?” You ask, your hand continuing to gently massage a breast while her fingers trace the outline of your hard cock.

  “I would have thought that was obvious.” Juno replies. “Listen Commander, our situation is grim and we may only have a little time left to us and there are certain things I have yet to experience…”

  “You’re a virgin!” You gasp.

  “No!” She replies, letting out an exasperated groan before playfully punching you in the arm. “No, I’m not a virgin. I enjoy sex though I have to admit I’m not very experienced. I’ve slept with a handful of the cadets during my time at the Academy….”

  “At the same time?” You ask, cocking an eyebrow.

  “No!” She gasps before her eyes narrow when you smirk. “You’re teasing me!”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” You laugh.

  “Well, they were young and inexperienced too and I never had the confidence to ask them to do anything… dirty.”

  “Dirty?” You raise an eyebrow, your pulse racing at the direction the conversation is heading. She bites her lower lip, her eyes darting up to meet yours. She takes a deep breath and smiles awkwardly.

  “You’re older, more experienced.” Juno tells you, chewing her lip. “I feel I can ask you to do things and you won’t judge me.”

  “Out with it, Ensign.” You tell her, growing impatient.

  “I’ve never had a man come on me.” She murmurs, half turning away as her face flushes. “Or ever had a man inside my arse.” You reach for her, your hand on her cheek and she reluctantly turns back to you. “I’ve disappointed you.” She sighs.

 

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