by M. D. Cooper
The woman wasn’t dumb; Katrina could see a bright wit and sharp mind behind the hazel eyes. Juasa simply seemed uninterested in playing the class game.
Juasa winked before replying. “Well, the captain recalled our shuttle. Told me I’ll have to hop a dockcab to get out to the ship. Problem is, I just paid for three days at a spa, and they don’t give refunds for short cancellations, so…”
“Sounds like KiStar has some personnel issues they need to deal with,” Katrina said. “Who is Uriah, anyway, that she can make a mess like this?”
Juasa gave a rueful laugh. “She’s the owner’s daughter. Likes to think she runs the place.”
“The owner’s daughter runs sales out of the showroom?” Katrina asked and then gestured at Juasa’s uniform. “I’m surprised that she wears the same outfit as the rank and file.”
“Her father makes her. I think he’s trying to teach her humility. It doesn’t bother me; some good things have come out of her working the floor.”
“What might those be?” Katrina asked before taking a sip of her martini, wondering at this woman who was sharing all of this information so freely. What are her intentions? Or maybe she is just an open book type of person.
Juasa grinned and continued. “Well, for starters, the old uniforms used to be a weird muddy brown and purple. Uriah wouldn’t stand for that, and got us this much nicer design.”
Katrina chuckled. “At least she’s good for something.”
Juasa nodded slowly. “She’s actually good at her job. I mean…it’s all she has now, and she’s managed that transition well enough.”
“All she has?” Katrina asked.
“Oh, you didn’t notice,” Juasa pulled her skinsheath away from her neck. My uniform comes off. Hers doesn’t. She even blushes blue and purple.”
Katrina shook her head and laughed. “I’d noticed that. You’re saying that her skin is her uniform, or something like it?”
“Yup,” Juasa nodded. “Her dad thought she was a flighty little dumbass—which wasn’t far from the truth. Anyway, he told her how she had to prove that she’s KiStar through and through. He meant it literally. That’s been her skin for six years now. She still has another nineteen to go.”
“Then what?” Katrina asked, setting her empty martini glass down and signaling for another.
“Put it on my tab,” Juasa said to the man as he walked past.
Katrina didn’t know if she should accept, but given the state of her account, she’d take the generosity.
“Where was I? Oh, right. So, she wears the company uniform for twenty-five years, purple eyes, lips, the whole deal. Now, mind you, she can go and get her pink and fleshy skin back whenever she wants. But if she does, she’s disinherited. But if she pisses blue, white, and purple for the full twenty-five, he gives her KiStar.”
Katrina snorted. “Seems like a strange ritual to force on her to get her inheritance. The ability to wear clothes doesn’t mean she can run a company.”
Juasa nodded. “Yeah, there are some other stipulations in there about sales and whatnot, but you don’t know how Uriah used to be. She had a different outfit for every hour of the day. She modded herself six ways from Sunday every other week. That girl has had horns, a tail, tails for horns, flippers, a shark fin; if you can dream it, she’s turned herself into it. Her father made her sacrifice all of that for the chance to run KiStar.”
“When you put it that way, I can imagine that it has been a disciplining experience for her.”
“You can say that again. I didn’t think she’d last a week. Needless to say, I’ll never see those hundred creds I put into the ‘quitting pool’ again.” Juasa leaned in and held a hand to the side of her mouth. “Now we all call her the White Queen—but not to her face, of course.”
Juasa’s casual and friendly banter was infectious. Even though she had obviously shown up just to mooch a ride to her ship, the woman seemed genuine and sincere—either that, or she was a consummate actor.
Katrina supposed that was possible. It could be that every word out of her mouth was a lie, and she was just having some fun at the expense of a new client.
But that didn’t seem like a wise career move—though, airing your company’s dirty laundry didn’t seem smart, either; even if it did make Uriah seem a bit more relatable.
At the very least, it explained why Uriah had negotiated the terms with Katrina on her own. She was far from being a lowly salesperson—sort of.
Either way, it was nice to have someone talk to her like she was nobody special—someone other than Troy. It had been a long time since Katrina had engaged in casual banter.
She accepted her new martini from the bartender and raised it to Juasa before taking a sip.
Juasa raised hers as well, a slight smile on her soft lips. As they had talked, the young woman had turned on her seat to face Katrina full-on. There was nothing guarded about her posture, no tells that she was hiding anything.
It fact, it was quite the opposite. Juasa’s gaze had mostly stayed on Katrina’s face as they’d spoken—mostly on her eyes, but often on her lips as well.
Once or twice, Juasa had even made a gesture like she was going to touch Katrina’s arm, but pulled back at the last minute.
As they spoke, something had happened to Katrina, too; something that she had not felt in a long, long time. So long that she had forgotten all about it.
It was a quickening of her heart when Juasa met her eyes, when the young girl smiled, when she raised her arms to gesticulate as she spoke.
Am I lusting after this young woman? Katrina wondered. She knew what Verisa would do. The aristocrat would take Juasa onto her pinnace, and take what pleasures she wished from the eager young woman.
She tried to tell herself that it was for the cover; that wooing the crew chief on the ship was a good move, and would help with the subterfuge she would have to employ. But as the delicious sensations of her blood pressure rising and her breath quickening flowed through her, she found that she didn’t care.
Katrina reached out and placed a hand on Juasa’s knee while a smile danced on her sparkling red lips. “And when would you like me to give you a ride to the Havermere?”
Juasa placed her hand over Katrina’s, and the understanding in her eyes was plain to see. “Thanks for not making me ask; you’re a very gracious woman, Verisa—even if I was certain you’d be a she-devil when I first saw you. I’m still surprised that you don’t have horns to go with that outfit.”
Katrina barked a laugh at Juasa’s continued audacity, and gave her a haughty glare that Juasa grinned at before asking, “How does ‘as soon as you’re done with that drink’ sound?”
HAVERMERE
STELLAR DATE: 11.14.8511 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Bay 1342, Tsarina Commerce District #3 (station)
REGION: Tsarina, Bollam’s World System (58 Eridani)
“This is nice,” Juasa said as she settled into the copilot’s seat in the pinnace’s cockpit. “So clean too, like it’s new.”
“I like to keep things tidy,” Katrina replied as she pulled her harness on.
“You expecting something I don’t know about?” Juasa asked as she eyed Katrina’s harness.
Katrina bit back a curse. She had hoped that, in this world, a small craft like her pinnace didn’t normally have artificial gravity systems; now she saw that it had been a fool’s hope.
“No a-grav in here,” Katrina replied casually as she lowered the pinnace’s canopy.
“Well, that’s weird,” Juasa scowled as she pulled on her harness. “Top of the line skiff like this…you’d think it would have all the bells and whistles.”
“It’s retro,” Katrina said as she ran the pre-flight checks. She was slowly adjusting her speech patterns to match Juasa’s. Making the woman feel comfortable around her was key to success. “I like zero-g, so I never bothered to get it upgraded.”
Juasa was giving Katrina a curious look. Then she laughed and shook her head
. “You’re a strange she-devil, that’s for sure. Aren’t you worried about atmo leaks, or flying around without a shield? A stray pebble, and you and I are both sucking vacuum.”
“What does a devil have to worry about such things for?” Katrina said with a laugh. “Seriously, though; the ship has ES shields capable of holding atmosphere, should we blow a seal.”
“ES…as in electrostatic?” Juasa sputtered.
“Yes, do you still want a ride?” Katrina said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
“Uh…yeah, I guess. You weren’t kidding about this being old school, though. I’ve only seen a few ES emitters. I’d love to have a look at yours when we dock on the Havermere.
“Perhaps,” Katrina said. “We’re green for liftoff—they’ll shoot us out any moment now.”
Juasa just barely finished fastening her harness before the pinnace rose above the cradle on an antigravity column, and shot out of the bay.
“Holeee shitting stars!” Juasa exclaimed. “Er…sorry about that…I don’t often get to feel raw gs like that.”
“It was only three,” Katrina replied. “And don’t worry about the language. I’m not as uptight as I was putting on back onstation.”
“We’ll that’s good,” Juasa said. “Stars, was I ever nervous about hitting you up for a ride—especially after I saw you. Where did you get that outfit, anyway? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I got it on Lourmis Boulevard.”
“No…no one on station sells anything like that.”
Katrina laughed as she remembered the struggle she had with the salesperson. “Well, it was supposed to hint at a beautiful meadow through what looked like pink ribbons, but the forced perception was off; it couldn’t do the distance properly. I was having trouble finding anything to taste, when I saw it glitch and I wondered if it could show something simpler.”
“So you picked a hellscape?” Juasa asked with a laugh.
Katrina shrugged. “It was the best thing that they had. The flames are all indistinct and right at the surface, so the forced perspective issues aren’t as hard to deal with. Either way, he was glad to finally sell it, I think, so when we agreed on the software patch, he was more than happy to do it and get it, and me, out of his store.”
“I wonder if you’ll start a new trend on the station,” Juasa mused. “I could stare at it all day.”
“I’ve noticed,” Katrina replied with a smirk, then shook her head. The alcohol and her emotions were blurring the lines between Katrina and Verisa. She could use her internal mednano to clear out the booze and normalize her hormones, but where would the fun be in that? What she was feeling…it felt too good to stop. A little lessening of the inhibitions may be just what she needed right then.
“I have the Havermere on scan,” Katrina said as the pinnace’s sensors picked up their destination. “Looks like it will only take us about forty minutes to get out there.”
They had cleared the station’s no-thrust zone, and Katrina brought up the chem boosters. The pinnace leapt forward, and Katrina set it on a course for the Havermere before shutting the drives down and letting the ship drift through the traffic around the Tsarina Station.
Juasa whistled. “You fly manual, too? With chem boosters? You’re quite the enigma. You’re lucky traffic is light. Dockmaster would be up your ass for using chems so close to Tsarina, otherwise.”
Katrina reached over and placed her hand high on Juasa’s thigh. “Don’t worry, Juasa. I only like to live a little dangerously. Unless you can’t handle that.”
Juasa smiled and placed her hand on top of Katrina’s. “I can handle it all right. They have NSAI where this thing’s from, right? It can autopilot?”
Katrina nodded and her eyes narrowed hungrily. “Yes, yes, it can. There’s a small cabin in the back. I think it’s time you paid me for giving you a lift.”
* * * * *
If there was one thing that Katrina had learned over her decades of operating as a spy for the Lumins, it had been compartmentalization. She had also leveraged those skills after Markus’s death, during her time as President of Victoria, and again during the search for the Intrepid.
Never before had she been so thankful for the skill.
Not just because she needed to tuck away the betrayal she felt to Markus, but because she honestly needed the release.
A release that Juasa was well-able to provide. The woman was adept both with her fingers and her mouth. For someone who worked with their hands for a living, hers were surprisingly smooth, and the nails on the ends of her delightful fingers were thankfully short.
Katrina had returned pleasure for pleasure, bringing Juasa to orgasm more than once, ensuring that the thought of more would constantly be on Juasa’s mind.
They had careened across the cabin, pushing off the deck, the walls, and the overhead, eventually losing all sense of direction—only intent on one another’s bodies.
By some miracle, they had eventually found their way back to the bunk, above which both women now floated; chests heaving, arms and legs entangled, and a sheen of sweat glistening on their skin.
“I have to admit,” Juasa said, her voice soft and almost timid. “I thought you’d be stiff, demanding. But damn, Verisa, you know how to give a good time.”
“I’ve been around,” Katrina replied. “Learned a few things here and there.”
Juasa smirked. “Just a few? Seems like you’re a living database of just the right moves.”
Katrina twisted to the side and looked down at Juasa’s flat stomach and the EVA sustenance port that stood out from where her navel should be. She reached out and traced a finger around it, causing Juasa to giggle.
“Stop it! I told you that tickles,” Juasa said with a snort.
“Sorry,” Katrina said, wrinkling her nose a smidge.
“I’m just wondering about what you have to go through for your work. You and I live such different lives…. You must spend a lot of time in the black to have one of these.”
Juasa sighed. “Sometimes, yeah. Done my share of multi-day stints in the black before. The paste that KiStar loads the EVA suits with is pretty gross.” She patted the port. “This little mod means I don’t have to taste that shit.”
“Maybe someday you’ll be free from all this,” Katrina said as she grabbed a strap and pulled them back down to the bed.
Katrina was surprised that she’d uttered the words aloud. The thought of offering Juasa a ride out of Bollam had occurred to her as she made love to the woman.
It shouldn’t have; her quest didn’t have room for hitchhikers, but as she gazed at Juasa’s smile, she couldn’t help but be enamored of such a free spirit.
That she should be shackled to a stratified oligarchy like that of Bollam’s World was the height of misfortune.
Well—not the height, but it was up there.
“Yeah, right,” Juasa said. “Take a miracle for me to get out of this system.”
Katrina swung a leg out and hooked it into a strap on the cabin’s floor, swinging herself up and stretching to reach one of the hooks on the overhead. She gasped in surprise as Juasa’s fingers slid up between her legs, causing her to let out a long moan of pleasure.
There may be an ancillary reason why I wouldn’t mind having Juasa come away with me….
She turned and looked down at the dark-haired woman, her lithe body stretched seductively and now resting against the bunk, pushed down into it from the motion of sliding her hand into Katrina.
Juasa pulled her fingers out and gently stroked Katrina’s thighs before pulling her hand back.
“You’re such a tease, Juasa,” Katrina said with unfaked longing in her voice.
Juasa sucked on the fingers that had just been inside Katrina’s body, and gave a coy smirk. “I know.”
Katrina turned and bent over Juasa, smelling her own scent on the other woman’s lips before giving her a passionate kiss—which she abruptly cut off. “Two can play at that game,” Katrina said
as she pushed off and drifted toward the san unit, posing seductively as she floated away.
“Oh stars, I’m so glad it’ll take three days ‘til we get to your ship,” Juasa said from the bunk.
Five minutes later, Juasa was in the san, moaning in delight at the luxury of a water shower on such a small pinnace. Katrina had to admit that she was surprised to find a water shower as well, but wasn’t going to question the provenance.
She shimmied into a green skinsheath that sported shifting red and gold highlights—the red a perfect match for her hair—and pulled up the fastener, which then all but disappeared into the outfit.
She gave a shake of her head to reset her hair, and Katrina knew she would knock the socks off her next target, Captain Ferris. From what she had learned of him from a few brief queries—plus Juasa’s comments—she would need to get him to play along with her scheme to trade stasis pods for tech.
He also appeared to have two weakness: a desire to elevate himself to a higher station, and women. Luckily for Katrina, she embodied both of those desires in one person.
Before she made her way back out to the cockpit, she leaned over Juasa’s KiStar uniform and touched the inside of her lapel, depositing a dose of nano onto it.
The tiny robots would seed themselves within the uniform and provide a backup to the nano she had already inserted inside Juasa. With the limited nanotech at Juasa’s disposal, the young woman’s body would never even know it had been infiltrated.
Once the nano had done its job, Katrina would be privy to everything Juasa did, and have access to all her Link communications.
It felt like a betrayal, and she didn’t do it lightly—but even though the tryst with Juasa had felt amazing, Katrina still had a mission and a ship to keep safe out in the far reaches of the system.
She set aside her reservations and confirmed that the nano had properly settled in. That task complete, Katrina slipped on the red, non-hovering boots, and pulled herself through the cabin’s door and back into the cockpit.