by Lucy Snow
Melissa nodded, and rolled off of me onto the surface of the bed, and I stood up, not bothering to put any clothing on - the shuttle interior was climate controlled and Melissa and I were beyond the need for clothing around each other, as it should be between mates. Melissa curled up into a ball for a moment, as if to protect herself from what was about to come, but almost as soon as she got into the position she straightened out, and looked at me as she got out of bed.
That was my mate - good or bad, she wanted to get the news at the same time as me. Her hand slipped into mine as we walked barefoot into the shuttle cockpit, and I knew right away that this was not as dire as the first time the alarms sounded. I smiled at Melissa and she looked relieved.
I sat back down in the pilot’s chair. This time, Melissa sat on my lap, and before I did anything else, she turned her head around, looking at me over her shoulder, and we kissed. When we disengaged I asked the computer for a status update.
Melissa stared at me, not the panel, while the computer showed me data, readings, and telemetry. “What is it, Ark? Give it to me straight.”
“The scan was successful. The computer has located a power source strong enough to allow us to break atmosphere.”
“For real? You’re not shining me on?”
“My skin is naturally shiny in this form, Melissa.”
She shoved me, a smile on her face. “That’s not what I meant, you big lug. You’re telling me the truth?”
“I would not lie to you. Not only is that wrong in principle, between mates it is unconscionable. You are mine, Melissa, and I am yours. I will never hide the truth from you.”
Melissa’s eyes welled up with tears and she kissed me longer and stronger than she ever had before. “You…you have a way of saying the hottest things, Ark, and I can tell you don’t even know it….” She trailed off while wiping the tears away and sniffling.
“And you have a habit of attacking me at inappropriate times.”
“I know,” she sniffed. “I do! I’m sorry.”
“I am not wounded by your attacks.”
“Well, that’s certainly good to hear! I’ll try and, you know, not do that anymore.” Before I could reply, she turned to face the panel in front of me. “OK, so what’s the deal with this power source? Where is it? How far away? When do we leave?”
I focused back on the panel. “It looks to be near the mountains we can see from the crash site. If the forest is as dense as it was when I tracked the beast, it should take us about 3 days to get there, about 1 or 2 to get back.”
Melissa clapped her hands with glee. “That’s not so bad! We have plenty of supplies, we can be off this rock and back in space in less than a week!” Suddenly she stopped, and a pensive look came over her face. She turned to face me again. “Power sources don’t just, you know, sit there out in the open, Ark. It’s gotta be guarded, right?”
“We do not know the nature of the power source, that is correct. The readings are incomplete, and the computer warns me it will not be able to increase its accuracy or its depth of data. The power source is on the outer edge of the scanner’s effective range.”
Melissa nodded, taking that in. “Well, it’s definitely the best lead we’ve got. The scanner doesn’t think there are any other sources within range?”
I shook my head. “It looks like that is our best lead, in fact.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“I think we should go take a look,” I said. “It is better than staying here.”
Melissa smiled devilishly. “Getting sick of making love to me already, eh, Ark?”
I pulled her close, and she squirmed underneath me. I could tell she could feel how hard I was starting to get. “Never, my mate. As long as I live, I will never grow tired of being inside you.”
“I will hold you to that, you know.”
“I expect nothing less from the mate of a Kreossian warrior.”
“We should probably rest up, though, before our trip, right? We don’t want to spend all our energy back there.”
“We do have plenty of rations, Melissa. We will not run out of energy.”
We ended up having sex right there in the cockpit of the shuttle, Melissa just adjusting slightly to allow my hardening length inside her. She turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck as I lifted her up and down around my cock, and she cried out my name each time she came, and finally I bellowed out loud as I filled her with my seed.
It was a long time before we left the cockpit and prepared for the journey to come. It was going to be the longest either of us had been away from the shuttle and I wanted to make sure that we left things secure here, but also packed enough to make sure that we had everything we need, no matter what crises came up along the way.
On a foreign and unexplored planet, to do anything less was folly. We ate again, more of the beast from earlier, and then packed away portions of it for travel. I gathered more nutritional supplement containers than we would need, just in case we were away from the shuttle for longer than we expected.
All that’s left was to prepare the portable shelter and gather the weapons we would need. I brought a complement of blades in various sizes as well as one portable blaster. It only had a capacity of 5 shots before it required time to recharge, so we had to use it sparingly - it was only for emergencies.
I divided the supplies into two packs, one much larger than the other. Melissa tried to take more and more supplies onto her pack, but each time I stopped her, and explained that I needed her to be more mobile, and that there was no reason for us to equally distribute the load when I was used to carrying several times her bodyweight all around worlds much less hospitable than this tone.
Melissa didn’t want to hear it, but when I started to explain to her what I had experienced during the Death March of the Grand Fields of Levitor XI, she quieted down and consent to carrying a lighter load than I. It was good to learn that once in a while she listened to the voice of military experience and reason.
Night approached as we finished our preparations, and Melissa and retired to the bed for one more night on the shuttle before we left for the power source. This time our lovemaking was much more gentle as we tried to conserve energy for the long journey ahead.
The next morning we rose early and dressed, donning our survival suits for the first time in more than a day. Now, whenever I looked at Melissa clothed, and thought about her sleek and sexy body underneath, I had the experience of a man who had undressed her, who had touched her, enveloped her, and been inside her.
That knowledge made seeing her in the skin-hugging survival suit a welcome combination of tantalizing and frustrating. I could tell Melissa thought the same thing, because I was sure she moved around in a more exaggerated style, swaying her hips back and forth, and giving me naughty grins throughout the morning while we prepared to leave.
As a last step, after we had hoisted our packs and made sure they were securely attached, I told the computer to engage its automatic defenses, and that we would be leaving for a few days.
The ship acknowledged as Melissa looked at me. “The ship has defenses? Shouldn’t we, you know, have been using those all this time?”
“They are not what you think. This ship has no weapons. But the hull itself can be charged to repel attackers. Energy-wise, it is a very expensive operation, and given how we have been on a budget, I did not think it wise to engage the systems before now.”
Melissa thought about that for a second, before nodding. “That makes sense. Plus you handled the beast alright.”
“I did.”
“Ready to go?”
“Yes, let us go.”
I opened the door to the shuttle and the morning heat came rushing in. It took a minute to get used to the muggy weather, but soon we were off and headed toward the source of the energy.
I walked in front, and before long I felt Melissa touch me on the hand and pull on me. I stopped, turning around. “What is wrong?”
“Look,” Melissa said, turning back toward the shuttle. “We’re leaving home.”
I almost laughed that she called it home after such a short time staying there. “It will be here when we return.”
“I know,” Melissa agreed, looking up at me. “I just hope we come back soon.”
“We will return soon. And when we do, it will be with the power source.”
We kept walking in silence, away from the shuttle, deeper into the jungle.
“You know what, Ark? I sure hope we can carry whatever it is back. Wouldn’t it suck if it was too big? Too heavy?”
CHAPTER 09 - MELISSA
Trekking through the jungle with Ark was the toughest thing I had ever done in my life, and that was no joke. It was a nonstop hike that went on for days. We took turns hacking through the dense forests with our knives - Ark would take the lead for a few hours, then I would do maybe an hour in front before I couldn’t go any further, and by then Ark would be rested enough again to get back in front.
It was an interesting system we worked out over the first day. The jungle stretched out before us, but at the same time, it felt almost claustrophobic - just so much to either side and above. At times it felt like it was regrowing so fast all around us that when I turned around I swore I saw plants I had just cut through already back in place.
I wouldn’t want to get lost in a place like this - if I did, I might just sit down and cry myself to death, and not end up going anywhere. Of course, with Ark around, that wasn’t likely. He was almost like a machine at times, pressing on through the thick brush, his arms swinging back and forth carrying those huge blades of his, clearing the plants of the way and creating a path for us.
It was amazing to watch him work. I couldn’t help but admire the singular focus that he was able to apply to whatever he was doing. He was able to shut out the rest of the world and just do the task that was right in front of him, and for that I admired him, and I was more than a little jealous too.
We hiked all day, as long as there was light out. We took breaks every couple hours to take a bite of food, and sit down for a few minutes, but it felt like as soon as I was starting to get comfortable, Ark would pull me back up and we would be back on our way. I couldn’t imagine how explorers back on Earth during the old times did it. I mean, I had a particular goal, and I knew it was a certain distance away from my current position, and we vaguely knew which direction to travel in.
What must exploring have been like when all of those were unknowns? I shook my head each time I thought of it. I enjoyed a journey as much as the next gal, but that was not the life for me.
Of course, as I was starting to realize, any life could be the life for me as long as I got to spend it with Ark. Sure, he was gruff, sure he sometimes came off like a willfully petulant child, but at the same time, he had this way of looking at me, that just made me crumble.
And the sex, I could barely get started on the sex. We would hike all day, taking breaks to eat, and at night we would assemble the portable shelter, which was basically a super technologically advanced tent on steroids, and we’d lie in it and have incredible sex. We tried to keep it quiet and not too energetic so we could rest up for the next day, but most of the time once we got started that went right out the window, and Ark fucked me hard, and I moaned at him to give even more of himself.
It was fucking hot, what we were doing.
And each morning we would wake up, roll out of the portable shelter after having a little slow and sensual morning sex, and we would start our day all over again, moving toward the power source. Ark had a device tracked our position relative to where we were going, and he was satisfied that we were making a good pace.
If was being honest with myself, I was having a blast just traveling with him like this - if we could have continued doing this for a lot longer, I might have been OK with that, even if we didn’t have the immediate goal of getting off this planet and back to our respective homes.
That last part stuck in my head each time I thought about it - our respective homes. My home was on Earth, and Ark’s was somewhere in the vast Kreossian Empire, wherever they wanted to send him next so he could pillage and conquer planets.
It struck me as strange each time it came up, but I couldn’t really escape the truth - I was more or less dating an intergalactic warlord. I laughed to myself each time that title came up, and I wondered what my mother would think if she saw me now.
Walking all day, having sex all night before we collapsed into deep sleep. This was the life. Who needed civilization, responsibility, stress, all of that nonsense? I had everything I needed right here in the tent with me.
I lay in Ark’s arms, hearing him sleep, and wondering when daylight would come again. It was the morning of the 4th day since we had left the crash site.
We got up and broke camp, getting off to a good start - Ark had noticed that the jungle was starting to get less and less dense as the mountains that we needed to get to started to loom closer in the distance. That was a good sign.
We started moving faster and faster, and the ground stopped being littered with blue and yellow leaves and started showing more and more gravel with each step.
By that afternoon the trees around us grew sparse and the wind picked up, pushing us close together as ground began to angle upwards into the foothills below the mountains. We took a break and ate before continuing our trek upwards.
It was almost nightfall and we were deep in the mountains, alternating between climbing up and down as the temperature dropped. Luckily, our survival suits were equipped to handle cold as well as warmth, and aside from our heads, didn’t bother either of us much.
We were walking between large boulders when Ark hissed and stopped. I almost collided into him and barely stopped myself in time. “Watch out, Melissa,” he whispered back to me as I looked at him.
“Why, what’s up? What do you see?”
“We are not alone here. There are signs of other creatures around. We must be careful.”
“More of the same beasts?” I asked, leaning against him, suddenly terrified for the first time in days. We were all alone and so far from the crash site, what would we do if we were attacked? Ark had been able to take one of them out, but what if there were more than one?
What if they hunted in packs, what would we do then? We had nowhere to run, except back toward the shuttle and that would take days.
We stood behind the rock, and I peeked out from behind it, under Ark, to see what I could see. The coast looked clear, but I wasn’t taking any chances, not when Ark thought there was something up.
After a minute or so, Ark let out a long, deep breath and whispered. “We can continue. More slowly, though. We do not know what is ahead.”
“How far are we from the power source?”
Ark pulled out his tracking device and consulted it. The screen lit up, and he shielded it with his hand so that it wouldn’t alert anyone looking in our general direction. “The readings indicate,” he said, still focusing on the screen, “that the power source is ten minutes in front of us.”
“Let’s go,” I whispered back, and Ark put the device away and nodded. He look the lead, his blade in his hand. I took my own blade out for good measure, but I knew that in a fight I would be as much a liability as an asset, if not more.
We moved more slowly now, taking our time and avoiding making as much noise. The boulders grew more numerous, and luckily we had many places to hide. We still couldn’t see any actual creatures around, but at the same time, signs of their presence grew more numerous. We were now traveling across paths that existed before we got here. That was a first.
And then we started seeing the bones. One or two at a time at first, but soon we were passing near full-skeletons worth of bones with no flesh left on them. It became impossible to tell how old they were, but we could see one thing - the creatures who had owned these bones were gigantic, even bigger than the wolf-life beings that we already knew about.