Mind to Body

by Sandra Bard

  "No," Florence said. "He was in his room when the pirates attacked and they shot him. We think he didn't clear out in time because he was busy passing them information."

  "That still doesn't mean—"

  "Back on track," Tyler said. "From what you say, Inspector, we don't have much time. So we just need to ask them."

  "How?"

  "We could lure the pirates into the station," Tyler said, his shoulder pressed under Hideki's as if they were friends. "Pretend our guns are offline and … how would you let them know …"

  "Why don't you leave the thinking to me and get some sleep." Florence turned to Hideki and smiled despite the tired look in her eyes. "I'll have a couple of pirates on the station in a day and you can ask them if Jasper Croinsky is with them. At least if it's worth losing our home over …"

  "You'll get another day," Hideki said, getting to his feet slowly. Despite the low g he felt heavy and clumsy. "Then it'll be too late to ask the Fleet to turn back."

  "I'll come with you," Tyler said, getting to his feet. "We don't need another airlock accident."

  "I can manage myself," said Hideki as he turned towards his room. "I don't need the help."

  "I'll come, just the same," said Tyler, falling into step beside him. "Plus, I must admit, our last—" he made a quick, crude gesture with his hands which couldn't be mistaken for anything else, "—was a little too short for me, and I was thinking …"

  Hideki stopped walking and looked at him in disbelief. "If you think I'm going to let you get close to me …"

  "I promise not to drug you or—"

  "No."

  "I promise you a blow job you won't be able to walk away from."

  "N—no."

  "There's this air of mystery about you," Tyler whispered into Hideki's ear. "I want to know more about you."

  Hideki shuddered. "I don't want to talk about myself."

  "Then how about a slow, long fuck." Tyler had the just the right inflection to make Hideki's toes curl in his boots. They'd reached Hideki's room door and he turned around to face Tyler, who was looking at him, face serious, eyes wide, breathing hard.

  Hideki took a deep breath. "Fine," he said. "But you leave afterwards."

  "Why Inspector, you say the nicest things," Tyler fake-simpered, batting his eyelashes exaggeratedly.

  "It's Hideki," Hideki said as he palmed the door open. The name felt odd, though it'd only been a couple of months since he'd shed his former identity. "My name is Hideki, not Inspector."

  Unlike their earlier sexual encounter, this time they bothered to take off all their clothes. It was a slow process since depressurization suits weren't exactly easy to wriggle out of. At least the suit had stopped Hideki from emptying his bladder involuntarily, which would have been a bit of a letdown.

  Tyler took off his clothes slowly, his eyes on Hideki, until he was dressed in flimsy underwear. He had a hard body, with multiple scars and imperfections. A birth mark on his chest, freckles on his shoulder blades. As he leaned in for a kiss, Hideki noted Tyler had two crooked teeth in his lower jaw. Why would he have gone through all the trouble of fixing his face but not the rest of his body or his teeth?

  "Whatever hypos you have on you, I don't want them anywhere near me," Hideki said, glancing at Tyler's discarded clothes with suspicion.

  Tyler drew back with a scowl but complied. "I told you I made a mistake."

  Hideki didn't back down. "I didn't mean to offend you," he said sarcastically.

  Tyler shrugged, leaned forward until Hideki thought he was going to bite his ear. Instead Tyler whispered into his ear, making him shiver as hot breath tickled his sensitive earlobe. "But admit it, you want this." A tilt of his hips, a rub of his groin against Hideki made him painfully aware of just how aroused Tyler was. His head snapped back as his penis rubbed against the soft cloth.

  "I'll just lift my legs and you can slip off my underwear and slide into me …" Tyler rotated his hips, holding Kaishi firmly against him, and Hideki moaned, his hips thrusting down involuntarily. "Just imagine you fucking me hard on this bed … You can spread my legs and pound me so hard, you'll forget you don't even like me."

  "I don't want to …" Hideki said with difficulty. Oh, he wanted to, but he knew he shouldn't. The image Tyler had created in his mind was so hard to resist—especially since he could feel their erections against each other despite the layer of cloth separating them. He didn't dislike Tyler, he was in a way, becoming quiet fond of him. "I want you to," Tyler said as he slid a hand over Kaishi's body, ghosting over his bare skin to cup his butt. The body felt too new, no scars, no birth marks. Hideki suddenly wanted Tyler to mark him, bite him, scratch him, make him feel as if the body was his.

  "Sometimes I don't feel things in this body," Tyler said. "I can send my pain off … like this isn't mine. I'm just a stranger, living in it, like one of those hermit crabs inside a shell."

  Hideki froze, but when he looked up, Tyler pulled him down for another kiss. Tyler smelled of sweat, smoke and man, and he tasted even better. Before Hideki could put together a lucid thought, Tyler pushed them both down so they landed on the bed hard.

  Hideki wondered if he should try to have a proper conversation before venturing into uncharted territory and then gave himself a mental shrug. At the rate things were progressing, conversation was the last thing they needed—if there was anything to talk about, they would do it later, though he had an idea there might not be. He was leaving and knew better than to expect a lifetime commitment—a couple of quick fucks with Tyler seemed to be the best he could do, so he decided to grab the opportunity presented. He could deal with the emotional backlash later on. Right then, his entire body was far too turned on, and all he wanted to do was bury himself in the warm, inviting, willing body underneath him.

  Taking a deep breath to centre himself, Hideki reached out to Tyler. "Is that why you take the drugs?"

  "In a way, yes. It helps me feel one with my body, but sometimes it's hard to explain. Ever feel like you're just temporarily living in your body? With me … it's different because …"

  "What?"

  Tyler shook his head. "You don't want to hear it. I'm not complaining, mind you. I gained a lot from it. I can switch off pain, I can … I can …"

  "Tell me."

  "Don't want to, not now," Tyler said dismissively. "You could make me feel in this body."

  In answer to the challenge, Hideki began to tweak and tease Tyler's nipples. Bending his head, he took one in his mouth and began to suckle and nibble lightly. "Don't move."

  Hideki sat up, straddling Tyler's slender body. He slid his hand lower, exploring the perfect body, tracing the scars and the small indent cause by the navel. He slid lower, leaning down to dip his tongue into the navel and then further down.

  Tyler's erection was standing up, begging for attention, but Hideki ignored it. He slid off the bed so he could kiss the back of Tyler's knees and then he nipped at the smooth skin, eliciting a moan. From his position he could see Tyler's ass clearly and his cock gave an excited twitch as he thought of being buried to the hilt. He finally reached his destination, the junction where the inner thigh met the groin—nipping there caused Tyler to squirm and moan loudly.

  Hideki slowly moved his hands over Tyler's erection before moving closer and running his tongue along the underside, evoking a gasp from Tyler. Then he took it into his mouth, carefully swirling his tongue around the head. He almost pulled back sharply at the first taste—it was strong, salty, a little bittersweet, his new body processing old tastes differently. He deep throated Tyler easily, holding his breath like a professional diver thanks to his new body's lung capacity.

  He was about to draw back when a hand in his hair pulled him up.

  "I think we should get to the main event." At least Tyler sounded breathless.

  "We need lube," Hideki said. "I don't care if you can distance yourself from pain …"

  "I don't do it during sex," Tyler said, panting a little. "I like it whe
n I'm feeling pleasure."

  "Then we need something."

  Tyler groped around his discarded clothes and pulled out a foil packet of lubricant and gave it to Kaishi. Hideki grimaced when he recognized what it was. Most pilots carried it off for emergencies in case they needed to work out a loose panel in their ship. While non-toxic, it smelled horrible and tasted even worse.

  Still, he took a generous amount to his hand and worked Tyler open slowly before sinking into him.

  "Wait," Tyler said as Hideki sank to the hilt. "I want to feel this."

  "Am I hurting you?"

  "Not really, but let my body adjust. Just … a … second." Tyler breathed, his eyes closed tightly. Then he nodded a little. "You can … move."

  Hideki wanted to wait it out a little more, but he was not sure if he could. Instead, he started to move slowly as he moved a lubricated hand to the long, slender penis in front of him and began to stroke. His hips moved insistently as they spiraled towards completion, hands clutching, fingers gasping.

  They lay there gasping until Hideki slowly extracted himself and rolled over.

  "We should get some sleep," Tyler said after he'd caught his breath.

  Hideki hummed noncommittally, wondering whether Tyler would stay with him or leave. This time, he wouldn't ask Tyler to leave.

  "Well, I …"

  Tyler's comm cheeped. He leaned down, picked it up from the foot of the bed and grimaced. "Let's go. Florence has a plan."

  *~*~*

  "I'm glad they agreed to the exchange," Florence said, sounding confident. "When the two pirates come, you just walk up to them. Don't worry, you won't have to leave with them. Tyler will stop them. All you have to do is stall them long enough that we can catch them. And … and you can find out who exactly is running their base."

  "It's so crazy, it might work." Hideki tried hard not to wriggle, knowing the restraints around his wrists were not that strong.

  "We don't have to do this," Tyler said as Hideki moved towards the meeting point. "We could … I could leave …"

  "If it's you the ISF is after, they'll chase you," Florence said quietly, head bent, face set. She walked fast in her flat-heeled shoes, her fists clenched.

  "They're not after you," Hideki said. "Believe me, if they were, they'd have come here and arrested you."

  "What do you think the last ISF inspector wanted?" Tyler said coldly.

  "If you think you are that important …" Hideki said automatically, nervousness making his hands sweat. He clasped his hands together around the restraints and wondered just how crazy he was for getting on with the plan.

  "Oh, please," said Tyler, leaning against Hideki so he could whisper in his ear. "You know I'm special."

  "Once this is over, I'm leaving and we'll never see each other again," Hideki said, though he realized he didn't really mean it. He actually felt a stab of regret that he wouldn't see Tyler again. But he wanted Tyler to know he couldn't distract Hideki by using his body. That trick should work once before it became stale.

  He was rather fond of Tyler and wondered what it would have been like if they'd met under other circumstances …

  The airlock door opened into the cargo bay and Hideki stood up straight, ready. He had people to save and pirates to kill. He hoped Florence's plan to lure a few pirates into the station would work.

  They cleared the airlock and waited as the pirates got off their rust bucket of a ship, patched and dented, hardly space worthy. Tyler swore, and both Florence and Hideki turned, surprised.

  "We underestimated their need to get their hands on an ISF inspector," Tyler said in a low voice. "See that big guy there? He's Marshall Foster, this lot's leader."

  They'd not planned for this. Though the pirates seemed to have brought very little firepower with them, which was a relief. Foster wore a gun on his belt and their ships in the docking bay didn't look as dangerous as the powered down MAU … Avis did.

  Hideki looked over Tyler's and Florence's shoulders at the MAU and wished Tyler was piloting it, but a part of the agreement with the pirates had been that Tyler wouldn't pilot it. They luckily didn't seem to be aware of Tyler's ability to remotely control his mech unit.

  "So, Madam Tan," said Foster as he strolled towards Florence, the odd, rolling gait of someone who was little used to gravity. "Is that the ISF inspector you promised me?"

  "Yes," Florence replied over the empty space of the docking bay. "He's the one; I sent you his credentials yesterday."

  "This …" Foster gestured at Hideki derisively. "In exchange for that, you want me to stop attacking your station."

  "You do know there's a fleet of Space Cannons headed this way," Florence said. "If you take him captive, they won't attack us and we won't have to move. It's a win-win situation for us."

  "You really think I'm going to want this piece of shit?" Foster said. "I know how much trouble a piece of ISF ass can be. I'm not like Croinsky—"

  "Is he with you?" Hideki asked quickly, even though nowhere in the plan was it necessary for him to speak.

  "Who, Croinsky?" Foster scoffed. "He's too busy hiding from the space police since that Moon base thing he pulled. Last I heard, he was hiding in the Avros sector … Not easy to do when you've got dead weight."

  "So he's not with you?" Florence asked, mostly for Hideki's benefit.

  "Of course not," Foster snapped. "Even if I let him in, that Moon bitch mayor he's dragging around will bring the entire force after him."

  "She's alive?" Hideki said.

  "Of course she's alive." Foster seemed annoyed by the direction of the conversation. "It's just not the same when you drag around a dead body, you know."

  "So," Tyler said, cutting that conversation short. "Since you aren't interested in the ISF inspector, we'll—"

  "Not so fast," Foster said. "We're taking over the station." He was, if nothing else, predictable.

  "You'll have to leave," Florence said.

  Foster smirked. "But you see, lady, you made a mistake when you let us in. You lowered your defenses and in that time, we moved our drones closer. Marion is surrounded…"

  "You wouldn't destroy the base."

  "Tell your men to drop their weapons, or mine will blow a hole in your lower deck. We don't need the extra space anyway."

  "What's in the lower deck?" Hideki asked.

  "Family quarters." Tyler grimaced. "There's no one there now, but that much damage would make Marion uninhabitable and we'd have to evacuate anyway. The pirates just need the stronghold; we need the living space. Knew we should have met planetside …"

  "We'd have had to fly too close to their base to reach any of the planets," Florence told him tartly. She stepped around Hideki, letting Tyler hold the restraints. "You can hardly take over this base—"

  Foster took out his gun and shot Tyler in the head.

  There was a deafening silence as the shot echoed in the large space, and Hideki moved automatically, catching Tyler as his body sagged. He barely noticed the restraints had snapped as planned while he lowered Tyler to the floor. There was a clean hole in the middle of Tyler's forehead. A smoking black hole.

  They hadn't planned for this. They'd planned for the pirates to move in, they'd even predicted they'd try to shoot the station so they'd kept their guns ready … and …

  "Kill them all," Florence said as she knelt beside Hideki.

  Foster brought up the gun again to shoot them, but Florence was quicker. She grabbed the gun Tyler had been holding and shot Foster through his heart, quick and neat. The station shook. The pirates were attacking them from all sides.

  They had planned for that. Tyler was supposed to be out there now in his MAU, with Hideki as backup, and … he was dead.

  "You didn't have to kill him," said Florence, tears in her voice even as she lifted her hand to shoot the next pirate, but he was quicker, and only Hideki pulling them both back stopped him from shooting them also.

  "This was not supposed to be this way," Florence said. "They were
supposed to leave … and then shoot."

  "Well, they didn't." Hideki didn't have time to think about it as he scrambled to his feet. Then he fell back hard as an explosion rocked the station. The pirate who'd accompanied Foster was quicker to his feet and as he lined up his shot, Hideki braced himself to run.

  Something large landed on the pirate, reducing him to a smear on the docking bay floor.

  Both Hideki and Florence looked up in surprise, mouths open as Avis shook its leg free from the dead pirate and turned until the head was facing them.

  "Didn't think I was dead, did you?" said Tyler's voice.

  "How …?" Hideki asked.

  "No time now," said Tyler. "I believe I have some cleaning up to do outside. Want to come with me, Inspector?"

  Hideki looked at Florence, who was kneeling by Tyler's dead body. "I hope the tech looking over my ship managed to fix it."

  "It'll fly," Florence replied quickly. Not very reassuring since he hadn't taken it out on a test flight but it'd have to do.

  Hideki nodded. "Give me five seconds to warm up the engine."

  *~*~*

  Hideki had been ruthless, showing no mercy as he'd fought them off with the help of Tyler. The MAU had moved with even more grace and agility than before, faster, more flexible. By the time the last of the pirates were gone, Hideki was exhausted, but less than an hour had gone by since the time he'd gotten into the Assumption. Hideki opened the hatch and rolled out. He ran to the MAU in its original niche, silent and imposing.

  "Tyler!" he called, not even bothering to wait for the all clear signal of the dock indicating full pressurization as the airlocks popped open and footsteps rushed in. He heard Florence's high heels, but he was far too engrossed to look behind. Tyler's body had been moved, and whatever blood had fallen had fizzled away when the bay doors opened into space.

  "Tyler?" Florence called as well, coming to stand near Hideki.

  "About that …" Tyler sounded slightly embarrassed. "We need to talk."

  The chest hatch of the MAU slid open.

  It was empty.

  *~*~*

  "You're a machine," Hideki said. "I always thought you controlled the MAU, but … it's the MAU that controlled you—it?"