“I don’t know about that.” I chuckled.
“She does. That is enough. Kasta and Paula feel the same way. They had lives before us, but no purpose.”
“The twins had their vendetta.”
“And then it was gone, and your words showed them that they have another calling.”
“Zea thinks we will lose to the SAVO,” I said.
“She can be the Yang to my Yin. I know we will win. I already explained why they are not prepared for us.” The vampire’s eyes glowed red in the dim light of our room.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter. I’ll fight no matter what. We have two hundred and ninety-eight days or so. If this lead with Dance to the Dirge doesn’t pan out, we might find something in the video we can use.”
“I agree.” Eve sighed and then sat up on the bed. My eyes strayed down her naked body, and I drank in the shape of her breasts, stomach, and hips. “There is something else we have. A power I just discovered.”
“What?” I asked.
“I am not hungry,” she answered with a shrug.
“Uhh. What do you mean?” I sat up on the bed and leaned against the headrest.
“I was hungry a bit before I came to your room. Not starving of course, but it has been over ten days since I drank from Commander Tunar-Roz and her marines.”
“But you aren’t hungry anymore?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure how it works, but I received sustenance from terror and fear when I killed someone. Yet now I feel wonderful, and not just from the effects the love making had on my soul. I feel as if I have just fed. My magic feels as though it wants to release from my body. Every part of me is vibrating with untapped power.”
“This is great news,” I said as I pulled her into me. “You were worried you’d have to kill someone to refresh your power.”
“Yes. I ahhh…” Eve paused and took a deep breath. “I felt your pleasure and Zea’s when we made love to each other. I also felt my own, of course, but I don’t know how to describe the feeling other than saying that I’m filled with love from both of you. I am eager to experience it again.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
“I was worried my inexperience would leave you unsatisfied, but my powers helped.” She smiled at me, and my heart filled with warmth.
“You were amazing. So was Zea.” My mind spun through the haze as I tried to grasp the correct words for my emotions, but all I could say was, “I’m happy.”
“I understand your emotions. I am happy as well.” She leaned into my chest again and let out a thankful sigh.
We didn’t speak for a few minutes, and my mind wandered back to memories of the shower and bed. I felt Eve’s heart began to quicken its beat, and I ran my fingers down the smooth skin of her back.
“Are you reading my mind?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It is fun to compare your memories to mine.”
“More fun than actually having sex?” I asked with a laugh.
“Oh no, but this is endearing in its own way, and it is arousing me.”
“That sounds like you want to--”
“I’ll always want to with you, my love,” she said as she wiggled into my chest more. Then her fingers ran down my chest, under my sheet, and toward my groin.
“Zea isn’t here,” I said as Eve’s fingers wrapped around me.
“She will not mind. When she left, she expected us to enjoy each other. She still believes she has intruded in our relationship. I do not feel that way, and neither do you, but it will take her a while to understand she is an equal.”
“Ahh,” I said, but it might have been more of a gasp of pleasure.
She kissed my lips gently, and I pulled her on top of me so we could enjoy each other for another half hour. Her powers really did help us, since she knew exactly how to move her body to give me pleasure, and she knew when to hold off so that I didn’t reach climax too quickly. My eventual orgasm arrived with her third, and we lay again in each other’s arms afterward.
“We should go watch the video,” I whispered after I felt we basked in the glow of our passion for a good ten minutes.
“Yes, I was thinking the same. Being with you as a lover almost makes me want to abandon our mission and drift through space wrapped around each other.”
“You say that, but it isn’t true. This is the most important quest for you,” I said.
“It is not more important than you,” she whispered.
“It is though,” I said, and I pulled her dark hair back from her face so I could look into her eyes. “It doesn’t detract from the feelings I know you have for me, or I for you, but there is a high probability that we will both die trying to save the galaxy. I’m committed to it though. I owe you, and you owe your prayers.”
“That I do,” she said with a sigh. “I swore I would try to help, and I will. Perhaps I am too selfish because I want us to live and love forever.”
“No, you are far from selfish,” I said. “Come on, let’s get dressed and go see what Zea has found on the video.”
Eve and I slid out of my bed and moved to put our clothes on. She put on the suit she’d shed at the entrance of my bathroom, and I went to my closet to put on a fresh one. The clothes and armor I’d worn on Queen’s Hat were still on my floor where Zea left them, but they were also spattered with blood and smoke from gunpowder. I’d sort through the pile later and then put them in the laundry machines so Zea wouldn’t have to.
Eve ran her hands through her hair as we walked through the hallway, but her ministrations did little to organize her wild mane. She finally gave up when we walked past the elevator and gave me a gentle smile.
Zea was alone on the bridge, and she was typing frantically on the pilot’s terminal. She was deeply immersed in her work and didn’t hear us walk up behind her.
“Hey,” I said as I set my hand on her shoulder.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Sorry. In the zone, didn’t hear you two walk in.” Zea smiled at both of us, and her cheeks turned a bit red.
“How is the video?” I asked as I returned her smile.
“My fix didn’t fix as much as I wanted it to fix, but I wrote some adjustments to the code. I’m about to run it. There is only about ten percent that is left corrupt, so this should get the last of it. It will only take a few more minutes, then we should be able to watch it.”
“Great,” I said. “Where are Kasta and Paula?” I asked.
“Working on Kay and Arthur. They were damaged a bit from Elaka Nota’s bullets.”
“I’ll call them up,” I said as I moved toward the captain’s chair. During our last trip from Uraniel to Queen’s Hat, Kasta showed me that each of the officer chairs had small control terminals under the arm rests. They could do everything from pilot Persephone, to fire the cannons, but their interface buttons were combo key versions, with only a bare-bones set of digital control sticks. Piloting Persephone with them would have been like trying to drive a car from the rear seat with only one hand holding a pair of chopsticks.
“Okay, I can’t figure out how to call them,” I said after I flipped up the controls from the arm rest and stared at the thirty buttons for a bit.
“I will do it,” Eve said as she slid into her copilot seat next to Zea. As soon as she sat, she turned to Zea and smiled. “Hello, Zea.”
“Uhh. Hi, Eve.” The blonde hacker’s face turned red, and she bit her bottom lip as she looked at the dark-haired woman.
Eve turned from Zea and then pressed a few buttons on her console. “Kasta and Paula, please report to the bridge.”
“Coming!” both of their voices said in unison.
“Anddddd that should do it,” Zea said as she hit a few more keys on her terminal. “By the time they get up here, we should be able to watch the video.”
“You said you watched part of it?” I asked.
“Yeah. Just the first fifteen seconds or so, then the image and sound went to shit. I clicked on a few parts after my code tried to pat
ch it up. It’s almost perfect, but I didn’t really watch it.”
Zea hit a button on her terminal, and a progress bar popped up on Persephone’s main screen. Every few seconds the percentage points went up a bit, and I guessed we had another few minutes before it was done.
“We’re here,” Paula said as they walked around to the officer chairs. Each of them took their usual seats beside me, and they gave me identical smiles.
“Did you have a good rest, Captain?” Kasta said with a wry smile.
“Yeah, it was great.
“Oh, I’ll bet it was,” she wiggled her blonde eyebrows and then bit her lower lip.
“Give it a rest, Kasta,” her sister said.
“Everyone else gets to have fun,” Kasta pouted.
“We just had fun fixing the drones.” Paula shrugged.
“That’s not the kind of fun I’m looking for, you either. They could have at least let us watch.” Kasta crossed her arms.
“Uhhh. What are you two talking about?” Zea asked.
“Took you a long time to get the captain’s laundry. Eve had to help as well.” Kasta shot Zea a shit-faced grin, which had the intended effect as the hacker’s face started to turn red.
“It’s, ummm, not really, uhhh,” Zea stuttered.
“We don’t need to talk about it,” I said to Kasta. “Let’s keep our relationship professional.”
“Yep. That’s fine,” the android said as she waved her hands. “I want to keep it professional. Which is why I would like to sign up for laundry duty, Captain. I’ll come in your room every night, and-or every morning, and help you out of your clothes.”
“For the love of--” Zea started to say.
“Oh shit! I said, ‘out of your clothes.’ That must have been a Freudian slip or something.” Kasta started to giggle.
“Sis, you don’t have Freudian slips,” Paula said with a sigh. “And you are going to get us kicked off the ship, again.”
“I believe the video is ready.” Eve pointed at the front display, and her soft voice cut through the banter.
“I’ll play it,” Zea said. “Cross your fingers that I don’t have to spend another three hours on it.”
The video materialized on the screen. It looked like it was inside of a tent. There was a young man in a uniform bending over to look at the camera while he adjusted the view.
“Ahh. It’s on,” he said. I couldn’t identify his accent, but that was somewhat expected. Most of the planets and systems developed their own tweaks on the common language they took with them.
“How to start?” he asked as he took his hands off the camera. The device fell over suddenly, and the man cursed before he got it upright on the table.
“See what I mean about him being wet behind the ears?” Zea said. “File started getting corrupt after this, so I went to work on it.”
The young man tapped his finger to his chin dramatically. “I’m Fredrick James Gammon, of Gammon Explorations, Incorporated. We’ve come to System PAR-876 in search of rhodium.” He laughed a bit and shook his head. “Everyone is looking for rhodium. It makes the universe turn and the ships burn, or so the saying goes. This is my family’s third exploration run and the first I’ve been put in charge of. Father said I’d learn a lot from this experience. He told me he wished he had video logged his first excavation. I thought it was a clever idea, so here we go.” He looked around the tent and let out a long sigh.
“We picked this system because it has three Goldilocks planets with a rocky mantle and the type of tree flora that our computers thought would grow with a high platinum grouping in the soil. We used a new software my elder brother wrote. It has worked very well so far in helping us mine rhodium from its sister metal veins.”
Fredrick rubbed his hands together and then breathed into his palms. “We’ve named this planet Parnarta. The other two are slightly closer to the sun in this system, so they are at the closest orbit. Temperatures there are a thirty-eight degrees celsius at the coldest points, so we decided to begin operations here. Temperature is a bit cooler, but I can actually take off my coat when the sun is out.”
“This is rather boring, but I feel like something terrible is about to happen,” Kasta said, but everyone else ignored her.
Fredrick talked for the next fifteen minutes about the logistics of the mining operation. Kasta was right about it being boring, but the young man was excited about his mission. His energy was charming.
“We finished our base camp set up a few hours ago. It’s about midday, but we’ll take the rest of it off. I’ll update tomorrow after we send our scout team into this large cave system we’ve set up next to. If the scanners are correct, it will lead down a good two kilometers. That will help us get started with our excavation. More tomorrow!” He reached over to the camera and switched it off.
“I bet they found something in the cave,” Paula mused, and the rest of us nodded in response.
“Day two,” Fredrick said after his camera turned on again. “I sent survey craft into the cave. It’s much deeper than we originally thought. We are picking up traces of rhodium, but we haven’t begun our mining operations yet. We want to map the shaft first so we can ensure any weak parts are reinforced properly. There is some fighting between the survey staff and the engineers. Jesse Keegan started it all by--”
“We don’t care about the politics, just tell us more about the cave!” Kasta moaned.
“I can fast forward closer to the end,” Zea said as she looked back to me.
“How long is the video?” I asked.
“Hmmm, shit. It’s three hours.”
“My brain will melt,” Kasta moaned with despair.
“You are so sassy today,” Paula said as she rolled her eyes.
“Sexually frustrated,” her sister replied. “Everyone else is get--”
“Can you go to the last fifteen minutes?” I asked Zea.
“Yeah. Here.” The hacker pressed on a few buttons.
“--incredible. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It almost seems like a starship hangar, but we have no idea how it could have ended up so deep under the surface of the planet. I’m going to make the trip down tomorrow with the camera so it can be documented properly. This will be my first trip down into the cave, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this ship. The video the surveyors took is inspiring. It’s funny. We came here for rhodium, but the discovery of this hanger and the alien ship will probably lead to exciting advancements in our earning potential.”
He reached to turn off the video, and I noticed that all of my friends were sitting forward in their chairs.
“So he didn’t find a SAVO temple,” Zea said.
“Did they find a ship that looks like Persephone?” Paula asked, but no one answered her question because the screen flashed with light again.
“Took almost an hour to fly down here,” Fredrick said. “We are some eight hundred meters below the surface.” The man was carrying his camera, and we saw a dozen lights play across the black area.
“The ground is metal,” he continued as he pushed the camera toward his feet. “We tried to take a sample, but our drills couldn’t even penetrate the surface with our standard bits. We’ve got a few other drills we can try today, though. The place is vast.” The camera swung upward, and the view showed that the flashlight beams disappeared in the inky blackness.
“Sir! It’s over here,” a disembodied voice called out through the darkness.
Fredrick carried the camera toward the man at the point position of his team. As the video panned between the group of men and women, I saw most of them carried heavy looking rifles.
“Wow,” the young man said as the flashlights all focused on the wing of a dark metal craft.
It did look a lot like Persephone’s wing.
“Is that--” Zea started to ask.
“Angle is bad, and the light isn’t great. It looks really close though,” the android interrupted. “If I can get another angle, I’ll be able to
know for sure.”
“It looks beautiful,” Fredrick said as the lights panned over the side of the wing.
“Sir, there are no thrusters or weapons I can see,” another voice called out.
“So it isn’t a starship?” the camera swung around as Fredrick moved along the side of the dark vessel.
“No, it isn’t Persephone,” Kasta said. “The wing arch on the aft isn’t as pronounced. The design is really close though.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m fairly confident, but I just compared the ratios. Didn’t match. Also, didn’t Eve say they found Persephone drifting in space?”
“Yes. That was the information I learned from Elaka Nota.” Eve shrugged. “How does this compare to the Dance to the Dirge?”
“Hmm. Not a match either,” the android said after a few seconds of consideration.
“So there are three of these ships out there?” Zea asked.
“Maybe,” I acknowledged, and our attention shifted back to the screen where Fredrick was walking to the front of the ship.
“See? There is a spot for a front intake, but no engine. It’s like someone stripped the ship and left it here,” a disembodied voice informed Fredrick.
“Can we get inside?” Fredrick asked.
“There looks to be a ramp in the rear!” another voice called out.
“Coming!” Fredrick shouted, and the camera drifted across the ship as the young man ran to the rear.
“It’s smaller than Persephone,” Kasta said. “Only one hundred and twenty meters in length.”
“Interesting,” I said, but then Fredrick made it to the back area and pointed the camera at where the bay doors were. The door looked similar to Persephone’s iris shaped circular hatch. The ramp wasn’t extended, so someone in the group went to grab a lift.
We watched in silence as the miners drove a lift platform to the edge of the hatch. The device extended upward on scissor hinges, and Fredrick zoomed the camera so that he could get a better image of the door.
“I don’t see any way to open it,” one of the men called.
“Look at the sides!”
“I am!”
“Maybe on the far side. It looks like the ramp comes out of the bottom and might be wider than the door,” Fredrick said as his camera zoomed on the slot below the circular hatch.
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