S69Q_1

by Aline Riva

  “Stay there, keep your legs open, I want to try something.”

  Sin felt too exhausted and aroused to move, despite the lack of feeling where she needed it the most, the rest of her was turned on. Jinx had toyed with her breasts, fingered her vaginally and anally, pausing only to wash his hands before turning his attentions back to the place that needed it the most.

  She gave a deep sigh and turned her head, watching as he opened a cabinet and took out a silver box.

  “What's that?” she asked.

  “Something that might help – it's made of zestion -”

  “I don't want that stuff near me!”

  On hearing the panic in her voice, Jinx quickly laid her fears to rest.

  “This,” he said, taking a small bullet shaped silver object out of the box, “Is quite safe. It's earth manufactured zestion with a sealing alloy to prevent the organic material from attaching to the flesh. It's the kind that improves circulation, I could use it on you for the rest of this journey and it wouldn't cause harm. But it is very powerful. Because the metal is so heavy it's fifty times more powerful than a regular stimulator. There's a warning with it that too much use can make the pelvic bones ache and cause bruising. So I won't use it for long, I just want to try it and see if it helps.”

  He turned the bottom of the small device and it began to vibrate with a low hum. She felt nothing as it made contact with her flesh but the rest of her body trembled with the vibration of it, he caught a look of fear in her eyes and spoke softly to her, calming her worries.

  “This metal has been treated, I told you it's safe. Just relax and see what happens.”

  “I'll try,” she said, then as she felt the vibrations running deeper and shaking her pelvic bones, as a flash of throbbing pain cut through the numbness, she gave a gasp.

  As her face flushed, Jinx noticed and carried on applying the powerful massager.

  “I knew you could do it,” he said softly, turning his attention back between her legs, “Come on, let it happen... “

  A throb and then another cancelled out the pain as a sharp, brief ripple of pleasure burst through her body and then vanished. As she cried out, Jinx turned off the device and placed his hand between her legs, where she felt wet but if any throbbing had happened, it had stopped now.

  “How good was it?”

  It felt like a victory even though the sudden, brief sensation had been vague. It had been a brief, distant ripple, but as she lay there, she was aware of a slight sensation now, like heat and soreness from all the attention, although her reddened flesh still felt more or less numb and this was probably as good as it would ever get, she had regained a small fraction of feeling.

  Jinx put the device away and returned to the bed and lay beside her.

  “You're shaking,” he said, pulling her closer.

  Finally she found the strength to speak.

  “It was almost an orgasm...and I can still feel something...not much at all, but something.”

  “I told you we can fix this,” he reminded her, “And we are. I'm glad you can feel again. I want you to feel everything, I love you.”

  As he held her she clung to him and sobbed as Jinx said nothing, silently vowing again to find the man who had forced this damage on to the woman he loved, because he definitely wanted to kill him for it...

  Sin slept for many hours, missing dinner with Jinx and Neve as they discussed the approaching destination, just outside the orbit of S69Q-1. Then Jinx took some food to the bedroom, woke Sin with a kiss and informed her they were almost there. Sin had sat up, met his gaze with love reflected in her eyes and told him she would get dressed. Then Jinx went back to the flight deck, once again activating the details of the colony mission. Then as he read changed data, his eyes widened in panic.

  “No...”

  Neve had just entered room, as she heard him speak aloud as he stood over the controls looking down at the screen, she felt a flicker of alarm.

  “Something wrong, Jinx?”

  He turned around sharply, fear shining in his eyes.

  “They changed the date! We haven't seen the ship because we're early, we're actually late, they arrived a week ago, they're already on the surface!”

  “Then track the ship and hail them?” Neve suggested.

  Jinx had turned from a confident man into a shaken, nervous mess at the thought of landing on a planet full of the parasites, the same kind he had just had cut out of his head...

  “Yes.. hail them. Good idea. No way do I want to set foot on that planet!”

  He turned back to the controls, activated the communications system, locked on to the only ship that registered as active on the planet and waited.

  Static hissed, then a message came up in red:

  Unable to communicate.

  “Shit!”

  Jinx turned away from the controls once more.

  “We've got no choice – we'll have to go down there. If they're analysing, they will be taking soil back to earth – soil full of those parasites!”

  “I'll go back to the lab and get the shots ready,” Neve replied, “I'll strap in for landing while I'm in the lab. Just start taking her in, we need to get to those people before it's too late.”

  Then she left the flight deck and Jinx sat down heavily in his seat at the controls, breaking into a sweat as he looked towards the planet looming closer and took the flight off auto.

  “I think it's already too late...” he said in a low voice, his gaze reflecting starlight and darkest space as he looked to looming planet and felt a cold sense of sick despair...

  Jinx took the descent through the atmosphere of S69Q-1 in silence, Sin had joined him before they had gone in, but he had kept his mind entirely on the descent, getting the strangest feeling as the mist and cloud slipped away and they headed for a rocky, barren surface where on one side, a desert beckoned and on the other, the cracked ground began to soften and the plants that sprang up led the way to dense foliage.

  The ship touched down with ease close to the site of an old wreck that lay buckled and half buried on the surface thanks to several years of sand storms carried over from the nearby expanse of desert. Jinx shut down the engines and paused to check the readout that confirmed the planet's air was breathable, the list contained no hint of the hidden danger beneath the surface, where the microscopic creatures underground lurked waiting to claim a human host.

  “I've prepared the shots, Jinx,” he heard Neve say through the communications system.

  “Thanks,” he replied, “We'll be along in a minute.”

  As Sin rose from her seat she noticed Jinx looked pale. After recalling the man turned into a killer and worse by the parasite back at Shyra-K1, it seemed such a contrast to see him now, sane and quite rightly afraid of what they were about to face.

  “I'm worried,” he told her as he got up and joined her and they stood by the closed door, “I couldn't reach the research vessel. Radar indicates it's in a clearing somewhere past the tree line. It should have picked up my signal. I'm thinking maybe they're already dead.”

  “It's only been a week,” Sin reminded him, “How hungry can those creatures be?”

  Something was tugging at the back of his mind as Jinx got the oddest feeling he had once known the answer to that question.

  “Most likely starving,” he replied, then he opened the door and they left the flight deck and headed for the lab, where Neve was waiting with the shots to protect them from parasite infection.

  On the way out they stopped at the armoury to grab some guns. Jinx had thought about suggesting Neve stay behind as she was only one who would be taking the warning back along with the dissected parasite – but with a group of people unaccounted for, it seemed safer to stay together.

  Leaving the ship was an odd experience for Jinx as he got the strangest feeling of being here before – although he recalled nothing of ever visiting this empty planet... Someone else had been here and most likely died here, too – the nearby wrecked sh
ip was an old Pharaoh – Two, it was battered and sand blown and dented, but there was something familiar about the ship as he approached it and then paused by the open doorway. Inside was dim but broken viewing ports were wide and missing their transparent panels and the sun was high enough to let in enough light. That ship seemed so damned familiar now…

  “Rik...it's just an old wreck, maybe I should take a look, there doesn't seem to be much to see,” Sin said as she hurried to catch up with him.

  Jinx stopped at the open doorway, then looked about towards the clearing where cracked ground gave way to shrubbery and the beckoning darkness of a dense forest.

  In his mind's eye, he saw the flicker of campfire flames, the flash of a hunting knife.. Mack was on the ground, wounded and covered by a blanket. A man was carving scars into his own chest by the firelight, scars identical to those Mack had earned years before in battle...

  Scars that looked like his own.

  “Rik?” Sin said again.

  He gave no reply as he stood there, his hand inside his shirt as he ran his fingertips over the old scars.

  “What's wrong?” Sin asked.

  “Nothing,” he replied, drawing his hand from his shirt, then he looked to the doorway of the ship.

  “I want you both to wait here. Have your weapons ready in case you run into trouble. If anyone approaches, don't be afraid to hold them at bay by threat of firepower – even if they seem friendly, they might still be infected.”

  He reached for the rail and stepped up to the entrance.

  “Jinx?” this time Neve had spoken up.

  He glanced back at her.

  “You wanted us to stay together, you said it was safer.”

  “But this ship is a wreck and I know my way around these old vessels...I flew a Pharaoh once...I can't remember exactly when, but I know the layout of this model of ship. You ladies really are better off waiting outside.”

  Then he went into the ship, leaving them behind on the ground below.

  On entering the vessel, the whole layout was totally familiar. So were thoughts of Mack, memories of flying with him many times in an old ship just like this one... Mack was still on his mind as he made his way towards the flight area, where the light was ever decreasing and the floor sloping as he headed for the front of the vessel, where it was partly submerged on point of contact on crash landing:

  It must have been a rough descent, slammed into the ground as everything went dark... Jinx grasped Mack's hand as they sat side by side and Mack let go of the manual gears and the ground rushed at them.

  “I'm sorry, I tried!” Mack yelled as the ship hit ground.

  Jinx was breaking into a sweat once more as he glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see faces of passengers, but the ship was shadowed and empty. Then he carried on up the walkway. The door was open leading to the flight area, there was an eerie silence about the place as he stepped inside and passed seats where passengers would have sat for take off and landing. Each seat brought a face to mind, each memory shimmered ghostly and vanished as he wondered exactly why he had asked for certain memories to be removed and others to be reinforced... He recalled nothing of crash landing with Mack, but he was sure that he had. But not this ship on this planet, it seemed impossible...

  He made his way over to the controls and looked from the pilot's seat to the other seat, then chose the other one, sitting where the co pilot would have sat. He placed his hands on the control panel, ran his fingertips over the buttons and smiled as he wondered if any back up power sources had lasted out and if there was still enough juice in the back up system to at least light up the controls. The communications system looked damaged, but not all of the system was shattered and he knew these old vessels had a lot of back up to run basic functions - a Pharaoh could last for several years on emergency power if routed to basic function only in a crash landing situation... He flipped a couple of switches and as the panel partly lit up, he smiled fondly as he patted the console.

  “You're a good old vessel for sure,” Jinx said, “The older ships are the best, so much resilience...Now, I wonder if the Captain kept an electronic log of what happened after the crash...”

  He keyed in a few common codes that ran as requesting menu list on all Pharaoh ships, and as the screen lit up, he touched it selecting Log.

  Scan required, state ID, read the reply.

  He laughed as he shook his head. He didn't have a hope in hell of breaking into this system, not when it wanted hand print and voice ID...who ever had been on board this ship was long gone, either dead or picked up by a rescue party long ago...

  But just for the hell of it, he put his hand on the scanner and as it lit up, he spoke into the voice activation system.

  “Ritchie Gregory Mason Jinx, Co Pilot.”

  As a response flashed up his blood ran cold:

  Access granted.

  Jinx stared at the message.

  “What?” he said in disbelief.

  Then the screen switched to a series of entries. He scanned down the list, noting the final three were several years old and ended abruptly. His hand was shaking as he selected the option to play all three back to back.

  The screen switched again to the co pilot's seat, and as he saw himself looking into the camera, Jinx stared at the recording in horror as it began to play:

  “We ran into some trouble and had to crash land. Mack was injured,” said the slightly younger Jinx, who paused to blink away tears before speaking again, “Jody doesn't know if he's going to make it – there's only so much she can do for him and the radio's dead and no one knows how far out we are... Most of us made it. Some of us are wounded. I don't know what to do, everyone keeps asking me what to do but the kitchen and the food storage was wrecked and part of the med bay is gone...How are we going to survive? It could be months before they find us! I don't know what to do, I think we're all going to die!”

  The screen rolled and hissed static, then the next recording came up dated ten days later. Jinx could only stare at it in silent disbelief as he watched himself on the screen, this time with a deranged look in his eyes.

  “Hello!” he said, eyeing the camera closely, “Back again...Things have changed. It's so easy now. You see, I just had to realise something important. We're not human any more. Not of the earth. Humans live on earth and we are the only people here so that makes us the population of this planet and we have to adapt and survive. It's like evolving...I can feel it,” he tapped the side of his head, “Like these thoughts are growing inside me each day...Making me a better person – making me make all of them better people...” he smiled a sly smile, “The women are easy to look after. I keep them happy. I satisfy them and they love it and so does Mack. I'm feeding us all now, too! The dead ones were easy to cut up but the ones that lingered just took our medical supplies and made us wait for food, so I started killing them. First one was messy but then it got easier...That's the secret. Adapt and survive. Understand the true meaning of that phrase and you have your way out, Jinx...” he smiled as his eyes glittered darkly, “We are all so close now. We belong together, we have embraced a new dawn of existence and it feels so right for all of us...”

  The static crackled again as the screen rolled and Jinx could only sit there with tears stinging his eyes as nausea turned his stomach.

  The final recording was brief.

  “Me again,” said deranged Jinx, leaning back in the co pilot's seat with his shirt wide open, displaying fresh scars he had carved into his chest to match the wounds Mack had long ago received in battle, “A rescue ship is on the way. It took them months to find us. We buried the bones and the left over meat. We have to get back to earth because Mack needs treatment. But once he's over this, we can make some proper plans...” he laughed darkly as a demented look came to his eyes and he stared into the camera, “We are cannibals now. We really need to find a place of our own where we can carry on like this because we can't go back to how things were before. It can never go back. T
his is too fucking good to let go of! Rik Jinx signing out. Adapt and Survive, it's all you'll ever need to do...”

  The recording ended.

  Jinx sat there in the semi darkness for a moment as the lights on the half dead control panel flickered like ghosts and the static hiss filled the room. Then he switched off the power and the lights went out and the hiss vanished.

  He gave a sob and then coughed, turned from the control panel and threw up violently on the floor, leaning against the panel as he gagged again, then as he wiped his mouth he was still weeping. Tears streaked his face as he trembled in shock and disbelief...

  This had been his ship?

  They had crashed here?

  They were the infected crew?

  He and the others had ate human flesh?

  Now it made horrible sense why he had asked for his memory to be wiped...

  Jinx was shaken up and feeling unsteady as he rose from the co pilot's seat and turned away from the controls. As he left the flight deck and made his way down the walkway back to the place far off where the door was open and sunlight beckoned, it seemed the corridor was suddenly crowded by memories that came at him like violent ghosts as voices hit him with clarity and snatches of shattered memories flashed in front of his eyes:

  “We kill them and eat them,” he heard himself say, “It makes perfect sense..”

  “It gets easier after the first one,” said Jody as she took the hunting knife from his grasp and licked blood from the blade.

  Someone screamed and blood spattered his face, then ran pooling on to the dusty ground.

  Human flesh was cooking on a campfire.

  “It tastes like chicken,” said Cora.

  Jinx staggered towards the open door, desperate to be off this ship as the horrors of the past hit him, feeling so terribly truthful even though his memory had wiped most of it out...

  Suddenly a hand clamped heavy on his shoulder. Jinx turned back, his eyes wide with terror as he saw himself standing there as the other, crazy, deranged Jinx wearing a necklace of human teeth.