by Johnny Stone
“I’m… I’m….”
A wave of heat washed through me and I tensed with seizure-like contractions while white lights danced before my eyes deafening me with the delicate sound of thunder. It was a straining effort on my part to keep my hips in motion, riding out the pleasure as a hot trickle of release seeped around my fingers, soaking my inner thighs amid the sound of wet, slapping skin on familiarly worn metal. My world faded in a kaleidoscope of harmonious sensations the only way it could during climax, hiding me from the ghosts of the past, and the memories that haunted me. I was free again. Free!
Everything happened so fast that it was impossible for a primitive creature like the human mind to process the cacophony of individual sounds quickly enough. There was a thunderously loud bang, followed by a gut wrenching sound of explosive decompression and warning klaxons. Machinegun-like impacts hammered against the hull a split second later, instantly bringing me back to a time long gone. We’re taking fire! The rush of noise ended just as quickly as it began, telling me the bulkhead doors had isolated the breach. Two seconds had passed since my heaven-sent release.
The cabin was bathed in darkness, replaced by dim red emergency lighting, as my stomach flip-flopped from sudden weightlessness. I was expecting the deathly chill of vacuum space to hit me at any moment, and there was no way I could get to an environmental suit in time. I had to get to the emergency locker; I had to try!
I began the lazy journey upward, drifting above my bed, while my sweat-soaked body continued to reel under the effects of a mind-shattering orgasm. John continued to cum, following the last command he’d been given. Shimmering spider-web strands of inorganic passion filled the air around me, clinging to my skin or hair whenever I came in contact with it. I frantically reached for his outstretched hand that promised nothing but the illusion of stability. John was just as helpless to the laws of physics as I was, worse actually. I’d been through this before, and knew how to harness what little momentum and control you had in zero gravity, John didn’t. Soon, he was floating above me in an out of control, horizontal spin, while I drew closer to my bed, secured to the deck.
“Margo, we seem to have suffered a-”
“I know we’ve suffered a hull breach! Mark, status!” The artificial gravity returned and I fell, bouncing off the bed, landing heavily on my back. My eyes went wide in terror when John dropped like a rock, narrowly missing me as I rolled out of the way.
“Mark, status goddammit!” I staggered to my feet.
“Hull breech in compartment three and main access corridor to engineering. Damage to ship main power distribution network and auxiliary control systems. Hull integrity at 64%, 63, 59-” Another explosion came from somewhere deep in the bowls of the ship. I smelled smoke now, followed by the popping hiss of the fire suppression system activating. “Deflector shield engaged, returning to normal space. Life support failing.” Mark’s computer generated voice warbled, broken and distorted. The impacts against the hull stopped after the defensive screen enveloped the ship.
“What’s happening, Mark, are we under attack?” I pulled John to his feet, trying to drag him behind me into the corridor. I gave up making a break for it. I didn’t have time to play around; seconds could mean the difference between life and death. “Auto engage, all weapons free,” I yelled dropping into my seat, strapping in, pushing my flight helmet snuggly into place.
“AI shut down initiated, fatal error in progress.” Mark’s voice had changed, reverting back to its lifeless factory version.
“Shit!”
I punched up the forward display and was immediately greeted with hundreds of computer generated images. Meteorites… We’d flown into a goddamn meteor field during jump space! I couldn’t believe it, what were the odds of that? They were supposed to be cleared out on a regular basis by sweeper drones and maintenance crews, but more importantly, why hadn’t Mark taken appropriate action to deal with them? A sinking feeling hit me as I answered my own question.
AI’s were great things to have at your disposal, but even today the old xenophobia about them trying to take control, becoming too powerful, lingered in the periphery of man’s paranoia; limitations and safety nets were always placed within their brains to keep this from happening. Even though Mark had a defective, out of control personality, and played games pushing it to the limit, he was still forced to obey his programming and any command to the letter. That was exactly what he’d done in this case. My horny forgetfulness had created nothing but a classic recipe for disaster.
The jump corridor around the ship as it followed the string was narrow and allowed little room to maneuver within it. Deflectors were useless, unable to be powered up due to the massive energy drain from the jump drive requirements, at least on a smaller ship like the one I owned. I’d placed the weapons in a hold status during the decent on Orvus Prime and I’d given Mark a privacy command with the additional, “I don’t want to be disturbed” rider tacked on the end of it, instead of an emergency override. Unable to disturb me, maneuver, raise deflectors or break the predetermined navigation imputes for jump space, he did nothing. I’d fucked up, plain and simple in my haste to get laid, and now I was paying for it. Damn it, I knew something didn’t feel right. Always trust your gut, Margo.
I cleaned up the display, removing all the small meteorites that were no longer a threat. The remaining ones appeared nearly stationary, but in fact were traveling upwards of fifty thousand kilometers an hour. With Mark fading fast, I was forced to take manual control to avoid the worst of them. The stick felt mushy and slightly unresponsive. This isn’t good.
John hadn’t been idle beside me after catching up, repairing several of the power issues and a myriad of other problems plaguing the ship. “Captain, life support power has been rerouted and is currently stable. It appears we’ve taken damage to the engines and main power distribution conduit. Weapons and long range sensors offline, navigation is functioning properly. A massive power surge bypassed the redundant overloads of Mark’s brain destroying it. I’m reading zero output on his synaptic coupling. The ship intercom as well as the long-range burst transmitter is also temporarily inoperative. We are unable to send an emergency distress at this time.” Damn, I’m screwed.
“Changing course to 254-115.5. There is an opening in the field.” I rattled off, seeking the relative safety of open space again. My thoughts suddenly changed direction. “How’s the cargo doing?” If something happened to it, the Cartel would want their money back, and that was money I didn’t have to spare at this point.
“Ship systems are still experiencing intermittent power failures; I cannot get an accurate scan or status on the cargo at this time.” The stasis tubes are running off ship power to keep the occupants alive, and with all the issues we were having, there’s a good chance they were dead already.
“Go back and check, we can’t afford to lose it.”
“Yes, Captain.” John stood, starting to inch by me in the narrow two-foot gap between our seats. I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye, powerless to stop the inevitable. When John turned above me, Mr. Adonis slapped the front of my visor, rocking my head back, leaving a smear mark in the center of my vision. There’s nothing like a colossal dick-slap in the face to make a woman feel better, is there? Why me?
“Sorry, Captain.”
“It’s all right, John, just…just go check on the cargo and report on its status, okay?”
Years of training finally took over, allowing me the level of control I would need to make it out of this abortion alive and in one piece. While waiting for an update from John, I began checking the damage we’d sustained. I made what repairs I could from here, continuing to avert a near disaster. It wasn’t good, but things could have been much worse.
“John, what’s the status on the cargo?” He’d been gone awhile now. “John? Respond.” Surging static came through my helmet from periodic power fluctuations. Damn, I forgot the intercom was out, and with Mark gone,
I had to keep manual control now. I didn’t like it; I wanted to know what was happening. The minutes slowly ticked by with no word from John. The cargo must really be messed up, if it was taking him this long to get everything up and running again?
Yes! I managed to get the intercom working by rerouting it through the emergency lighting.
“John, can you hear me? What’s the status on the cargo?” I waited several tense moments. Nothing.
“John, come in, over.”
I felt the slight, but heavy vibration of him coming down the corridor through my bare feet, letting out a sigh of relief. “So how’s the cargo, get everything straightened out?” That odd sense of imminent doom hit me again just before a length of electrical wiring crossed in front of my visor, and two large hands flashed in my peripheral vision.
My hands flew from the stick, blocking my neck just in time to stop from being strangled. The pull from my assailant momentarily jerked me back against my flight harness. My turn asshole… I bucked forward, pulling him with me, and he crashed into my back, easing the pressure at my neck.
“What the…?” A high pitched male voice cried out, followed by my elbow coming up and back, connecting against the side of his head with a sickening crunch. The electrical cord garrote disappeared from view, and I fumbled at my harness, panicking to get free.
“Get her, hurry up,” a deep commanding voice yelled.
Now free, I turned from my seat. The man I’d just hit was crumpled on the deck, bleeding profusely from his ears and nose, while a large bulge continued to swell on the side of his shattered skull. Despite my heightened reflexes, it had been a long time since I’d been put in a situation like this, and it showed.
I failed to block the huge fist that descended towards my face from a human mountain and I staggered under the relentlessly pounding. My vision blurred with stars, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth while I slumped against the bulkhead. His iron grip dragged me from the cockpit, effortlessly tossing me into the corridor in a heap where several of his companions waited. Faces spun about me and my first impression was that the dregs of society were loose on my ship. Somehow the cargo had gotten free, revived from stasis and released. Damn… I’d forgotten it was a built in safety feature of the cryo-tube in the event of power failure. John! O’my god, what happened to John?
“Hurry up, get control of the ship,” Deep Voice yelled in the background again.
I cried out, trying to shield myself from the heavy boot that stomped at my midsection. My instinct for self-preservation finally took over and I caught it, twisting it sharply at an unnatural angle. My effort was rewarded by a loud crack, followed by screaming as the man above me crashed to the deck. A hard jerk on my hair preceded a solid kick to my side, and I crumpled like a house of cards before being pulled back to my feet.
I’d never been very good at hand to hand combat. I was a damn good pilot and could fly a fighter up a gnat’s ass backward, but a martial artist I wasn’t. Regardless, I lashed out blindly, fueled by desperate fear and primal instinct. I connected with the knife-edge of my hand on one of their throats, crushing his windpipe. He fell to the deck fighting desperately, but in vain, to breathe. Another received a quick but deadly punch to his solar plexus. The air left me with a solid uppercut below my floater rib, doubling me over in agony. I gritted my teeth in reckless anger, clutching my side, doing the first thing that came to mind; I kicked him between the legs.
His face locked in an expression of deathly shock; he didn’t even have time to scream before dying. Servo assisted implants had amplified my strength to the point of delivering a deadly kick to his sensitive and vulnerable groin, shattering his pelvis like glass. It splintered, rupturing both his femoral arteries in an explosion of crimson. If it weren’t for the bone laminate reinforcing and the tinsel strength enhancement of my muscles and ligaments, I’d tear my body apart doing things like that.
I heard more than felt the solid thunk, as my head rocked forward, paralyzing me. It came again.
“Crazy, fucking bitch!”
My vision dimmed and the back of my head exploded with pain. I wobbled briefly before collapsing, blacking out.
***
I floated in and out of consciousness, surrounded in the darkness of eternity. I hurt everywhere and welcomed the painless bliss of sleep whenever it found me. Apparition-like voices teased my dreams; who were they? What’s happening? One sounded oddly like my Father. Daddy, is that you? No, it couldn’t be, he’s dead.
“She’s valuable, see that tattoo and bar code on her arm? All Fleet personnel that received the Wolverine II upgrade during the Seth’Kelain War were marked for later identification in the event they survived. I bet she still has a half million worth of implanted gear, even after they took out the combat related hardware.”
“No shit? Maybe we should chop her up for parts.”
“We could, but it would be nothing but junk for the most part; everything is tuned to her neural network. Trust me, she’s worth more in one piece; there aren’t many of her kind around any longer. The enhancement program was stopped after only one year and the casualty rate for the recipients was upward of 80%, from what I remember.”
“Bullshit, anyone can get jacked up like her. Strength, speed-”
“No, it’s more than that; we’re talking a total enhancement package like you wouldn’t believe. Look, here’s her service number, it can be verified.”
“I guess you would know, wouldn’t you?”
Darkness…
“I know I can rig something up, we removed the defense programming and anti-tamper shit before she was discharged. The Federation can’t have civilians running around with a tac-nuke inside them, can they?”
“You really think so?”
“Sure, no sweat man. I can-”
“She’s dangerous though.”
“Not after I’m finished with her, she won’t be.”
Darkness…
Bright lights assaulted me, forcing my eyes closed even though I was lying on my stomach. I couldn’t feel my body.
“There, all done. She should be good to go after this.”
“You better be sure, if we let her up and she gets loose again…?
“Just relax, Quin, I’m an expert, remember?”
“Nobody touches her, understand?”
“Sure thing, boss, not much of a looker anyway.”
“We make planet fall on Regilain in twenty hours. Kelly got the jump drive working again.”
Darkness…
My eyes cracked in a haze of blurry light and pain. I felt sluggish and disoriented. I tried to focus on something to get my bearings, but my brain didn’t seem to work right. Wait, what am I doing in the med-bay?
“Get up,” Deep Voice barked impatiently. My body protested but I sat up regardless, flipping my feet off the edge of the auto doc. It felt like my brain was sloshing around inside my skull. I stumbled, dizzy, almost falling before I caught the wall, propping myself up on feeble knees. What the hell’s going on? Things just didn’t make sense; my internal clock said I’d been out for over twelve hours, but there was a discrepancy in it, a break in the time somehow. Impossible, that wasn’t supposed to happen unless…? I reached back, probing at the sensitive bald patch near the base of my skull.
“What’s your name?” I looked up at Deep Voice, wobbling numbly. It was one of the voices from my dreams.
He was a bull of a black man with shimmering ebony skin blacker than night. A red glowing cyber-eye set beside a bright hazel one stared mercilessly back at me. The sleeves of his blue stasis suit had been ripped off exposing overly powerful tattooed arms that reminded me of two cobras poised to strike. Some of the tats moved with a life of their own just under his skin. One of them looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it in my foggy memory.
“Winters, Margo L. Cpt., United Planetary Federation, 34898212,” I mumbled automatically, giving only the information deemed
appropriate under the rules of war.
What happened, am I a prisoner? Why am I naked? I’m an officer and entitled to customary privileges. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, demurely covering my nudity in a rare display of abashment.
“I demand you return my clothing under article 52 of intergalactic law pertaining to the treatment-”
“Shut up! See, Quin, I told you she was prior Fleet.” A tall, lanky white guy with glasses and long black hair pulled back in a ponytail spoke from beside Deep Voice.
Glasses? That’s odd; no one wore antiques like that any longer. He held something in his hand, something small and nondescript. It looked like nothing more than a small computer pad. I couldn’t take my eyes off it though, or Glasses, as the first tickling of jumbled complacency and unnatural surrender began to snake its way through my bewildered mind.
There were six others in the cabin with the same smug expression as Glasses and Deep Voice, four men and two women. All of them were armed to the teeth with weapons looted from the cargo bay.
“Come here,” Deep Voice growled and I shuffled a little closer, lowering my head, cowed by the intimidating ferocity in his voice. My mind started to clear, remembering where I was, and what had happened.
The meteor’s…
The ship’s damaged; Mark’s gone…
I’d sent John to check on the cargo…they’d gotten free! This is the cargo I’d been hauling for Carlos. I recognized some of their tats now; they were members of Sesik Cartel, the most vile and degenerate group in the entire Outer Rim. I wouldn’t even work for these guys. They also happened to be blood enemies of the Mandolins.
“Where’s John?” I croaked weakly, still not looking up at him.