Scouts

by Nobilis Reed

  Grecca stroked her slim, pale body and let her head sag backwards. I let my eyes drink in the sight of her, enjoying her erotic display. I didn’t know whether she was really trying to orgasm, or if it was all for my benefit, and I didn’t care. I just enjoyed it.

  A momentary vibration sang through the ship. I passed it off as the first rumblings of orgasm manifesting in the orgone collectors of the ship and refocused my attention. My hand was slick with the first secretions mixed with the lingering gel from the gentank. With the growing tension in my body, it became impossible to keep my eyes open. All the anxieties of our escape, all the excitement and rage and pain and confusion mixed together right behind my navel and then shot down into my pelvis. I came with an intensity and desperation that I had never felt before, and as the drumming concussions of the ship’s drive hammered in my ears, Grecca threw herself on top of me.

  “We did it, Challers! We did it!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  We did it! We had successfully escaped from the Scout headquarters.

  I climbed onto the bench ringing the chamber, heedless of the mess of gel and semen on my body, and opened a terminal from a side panel. We hadn’t gone far—only a fraction of a parsec—but it was enough to put us out of danger for the time being. Not only that, according to the plotted course, we had gone straight to our rendezvous point in one jump.

  I pressed the control for the bridge. “Robert? Looks like we made it.”

  No reply.

  “Robert?”

  Grecca made a panicked cry and ran up the narrow passage to the bridge. I followed close behind. Robert lay unconscious in the pilot’s seat.

  She made a quick check of his pulse and breathing. “We have to get him into the gentank.”

  “You go get it open,” I said. “I’ll get him out of the seat.”

  “Got it.” Grecca ran back into the passageway to open the floor plates that covered the small gentank built into the Scout ship, while I opened the controls and slowly dialed down the gravity. When Robert became light enough to lift, I slowly eased him out of the control couch and into my arms.

  There were bruises on his head, fresh ones, and more on the rest of his body. Had he fallen on the way to the control couch? It didn’t matter; the gentank would make him right. I lowered him down into the gel and Grecca fixed the oxygen mask over his face before letting him fully submerge.

  The little screen on the side of the tank read, “Diagnosing.”

  I stared at it, feeling my own heartbeats counting out the seconds. After what felt like days, I asked, “That should flip over to ‘Treating’ very quickly, shouldn’t it?”

  Grecca’s brow furrowed. “Yes, it should. It’s been like that too long.”

  She touched the control next to it to get a more detailed readout. “Multiple subcutaneous and internal contusions, cause unknown. Heart, lung, and liver function seriously compromised. Brain damage extensive.”

  I shook my head. “Brain damage. That’s not good. How did he get brain damage? He got shot in the arm.”

  “I don’t know. This doesn’t make any sense.” She stood up and looked towards the bridge. “I’m going to check the ship’s logs, see if there’s anything in there to explain this.”

  “Good idea. I need to clean up.”

  After a quick shower, I made a visit to the pantry to get some protein bars and electrolyte drinks. There wasn’t much else there, but there was enough food to get us to wherever we were going.

  Which would be where? I put the food on a tray and started back towards the bridge. The plan for “where to go from here” lay in the injured brain under the deck plates. The gentank wasn’t good at repairing brains; that was its only real weakness. Suddenly, our escape seemed a lot less secure than it had been.

  I set the tray down next to Grecca’s control couch and sat in the copilot’s seat. “Find anything?”

  “I was just pulling up the sensor records.”

  A holographic display appeared between us. Dozens of contacts had shown up shortly after we took off from the side of the station.

  “They look like fighters,” said Grecca.

  “They’re fast.” The little blips swarmed after us, quickly overtaking the ship.

  “Yeah. See that warp signature? It’s pulling a hell of a lot of orgone. Whoever’s piloting those things, they’re going to be one hurting . . . whoa!”

  Ten of the drones suddenly disappeared from the screen. “What happened?”

  Grecca shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s like a bunch of them self-destructed. There was a huge ripple in the space-time structure. Look.” Grecca added new data to the screen. Bright lines streaked out from the disappearing drones towards the ship. “See those green spikes? Those are focused warp energy. A weapon.”

  “What would those things do to us, if they hit?”

  “To the ship? Not much. It’s hardened against that kind of thing, or we’d never be able to make a jump.”

  “But not us.”

  “No. Any of that energy that got through the hull would scramble our insides.”

  “Or Robert’s.”

  Long seconds of silence stretched as we watched the pursuit. The ship dodged and weaved, evading the deadly lances of green that shot out from the diminishing swarm of pursuers.

  Grecca waved her hand at the display. “I can’t believe all those people committed suicide to try to stop us. If there’s anything the Scouts can’t afford, it’s to throw away lives like that.”

  “No, wait. Look.” I froze the display and zoomed in on one of the drones. “That thing’s tiny. No way to put a pilot, life support, and a warp drive in there. They’re not using grown people. They’re using Ovor eggs.”

  She looked over at me, eyes wide with horror. “They can’t!”

  “It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.” The hologram sprayed flickering red and green light across her face.

  Grecca took data from the sensor record. fed it back into the computer, and put the math up on a secondary screen. “It’s impossible. Look, there isn’t enough basal orgone in something that small.”

  “Then it’s not basal orgone.” I felt my stomach tighten and I nearly moaned out loud from the pain of it.

  “What?”

  “They’re not just using Ovor eggs to power those drones, Grecca. They’re torturing them. That’s stress orgone.”

  Grecca gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “No one could be that evil. What could motivate someone to do that?”

  “It’s a war, Grecca.”

  “What do you mean? There’s no war.”

  “The Pirates. How long has the Fleet been protecting the stations against them? As long as I’ve been alive. As long as my grandfather was alive. How many lifetimes before that? You were at the headquarters. How well is that going? There’s hardly anyone there. They’re barely holding things together.”

  “That’s no excuse! I don’t care how badly you’re losing a war; you can’t use babies like that.”

  “It’s not a war like they had after the Scattering. It’s not fleets and conquest; it’s raids and counter raids. Atrocities and massacres. Remember those holos we saw of the bodies floating outside Ureela Station? It doesn’t matter which side did it. That’s the kind of war this is.”

  I was nearly shaking with rage and despair. Searching for something else to focus on, I pulled up a status report from the gentank. “Robert’s stable, but he’s not coming out of the tank for a little while.”

  Grecca pulled up the navigation system. “We’re at the spot where we were supposed to rendezvous with the ship carrying Valka. Nothing on sensors, though.”

  I tasted bile. All I had gone through, all Grecca and Robert had gone through—it would all be meaningless if Valka hadn’t made it.

  “When were they supposed to show up?”

  “Robert didn’t tell me the plan.” She turned back to the sensor recordings and ran it forward, zoomed out to maximum range. T
he arc of the station stood out, its immense form dwarfing the buzz of attacking drones. “There,” she said, pointing. “Another ship leaving the headquarters.”

  “Who?” I peered at the little blip streaking away from the station.

  “Shirley and Masters. It was their job to get Valka.” The recording ended. “And that’s when we jumped.”

  “Were they leaving from the right place? That was coming from a different part of the station than we did.”

  “Valka wasn’t in the prison.”

  “Where was she?”

  Grecca sighed. “Ovor maternity school.”

  I cringed. “Oh, vack.”

  On top of everything that had happened to her, with her father, and Masters, now this. As much time had passed, she would probably be carrying eggs, eggs fertilized by one of their professional rapists. It sickened me to think that she had been subjected to that.

  I looked up. Grecca’s eyes were full of sad sympathy.

  I swallowed my rage and took her hand in mine, drawing strength. “So was that their ship?”

  “It looks like it. I can’t tell if they made it, though. They hadn’t jumped by the time we did.”

  I looked out the front window, as if my eyes could make some kind of contribution to the sensor array.

  Grecca touched my shoulder. “All we can do right now is wait. For Shirley and Masters to show up, or for Robert to wake up.” She took one of the protein cakes, took a bite, and waved it in my direction. “Eat.”

  I waved her off. “I’m too worried. My stomach gets funny when I’m like this.”

  She lay back in the control couch and stared out into the void. There was nothing more to say, so we said nothing. There was nothing more to do except sit and wait.

  Sleep crept up on me while I stared out into the void and the blackness covered me like a shroud.

  An alarm on the console woke me. While I blinked and swallowed, trying to fight my way to full consciousness, Grecca brought up a display.

  “Sensor contact,” she said. “Just one. It’s Shirley.”

  I reached for the communicator controls. “Glad to see you made it.”

  Shirley’s face appeared. “We had a little trouble, but we made it. No one’s seriously hurt.” Her brow furrowed. “Where’s Robert?”

  “He’s alive,” I said, “but you better come aboard.”

  We maneuvered for docking, the belly of our ship to the belly of hers.

  Shirley was first through the hatch. “Where is he?”

  “In the gentank.”

  Shirley pushed past me, hit the control to lift the deck plate covering the gentank, and activated the diagnostic screen.

  “Severe brain insult to the right parietal lobe,” she read from it. “Multiple cerebral hematomas, autolyzed. Damage to motor cortex.” She let out a shuddering breath. “Paralysis.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s get him out,” she said. “The gentank has done everything it can.”

  Grecca and Shirley pulled Robert’s semi-conscious body out of the gel and maneuvered him into the fresher to wash off the gel.

  “Go talk to Valka,” said Shirley. “She needs you.”

  I found her in the main chamber of Shirley’s ship, sitting crosslegged in the middle of the bed-floor. She had a white robe wrapped around her body, but even so, I could tell that she still wore an Ovor body, belly swollen with eggs, four breasts piled on top.

  She looked up at me with eyes full of hope and shame. Her mouth opened to speak, but I bent down, took her hand, and pulled her into an embrace.

  “I was so worried about you,” I said.

  “We had to stop,” she said. “I wanted to get back to my old body before the rendezvous. Challers . . .” She choked back a sob. “I can’t. If I did, I’d destroy the eggs I’m carrying.”

  “It’s all right,” I said softly, holding her head to my chest. “It’s you I love. It doesn’t matter what your body looks like. Once you’ve delivered your eggs, we’ll get you back to your old body.” I felt a surge of pride in her. She had put the lives she carried ahead of her own immediate interests, and mine.

  We held each other, there, for a time, until the communications panel on the side of the chamber beeped. I walked to it and pushed the button. “Go ahead.”

  Shirley’s voice came through the link. “I know you need time together, Challers, but you need to come back here. We have to sort out what happens next.”

  We gathered in the drive chamber of Robert’s ship. The bed geometry had been altered to make a seat for him. His left hand was stuffed into his pocket at an odd angle. His left eyelid drooped and the corners of his mouth didn’t match. Even so, his aura of authority was still there. Shirley, Masters, and Grecca had distributed themselves on the benches around the edge of the room.

  “Challers, Valka,” he said, speech slowed and slurred. “Sit down. You deserve an explanation.”

  We sat next to each other. I took her hand in mine and held it in my lap. She smiled at me, then looked to Robert to continue.

  “You’re probably wondering why I took the suicidal step of rescuing the two of you from the Scouts. After all, what possible benefit could I gain from it? It would have made more sense to just keep my head down and just . . .” He groaned and took a raspy breath. Shirley jumped to his side, but he waved her off with his right hand. “No, no. I’m fine.”

  He chuckled hoarsely. “Looks like I’m going to have to make this short. I am a Pirate agent. It was my job to infiltrate the Scouts and send back information about where the Scout cruises were going, so our fleets could stay one step ahead of them.”

  “So why end it to help us?” I asked.

  “Cassandra’s why,” he said with a half-smile. “I knew she existed, I knew how valuable she was to the Scouts, but I didn’t have a way to investigate without risking my cover. You handled that part for me.”

  I leapt to my feet and crossed the chamber. “You burner! You were playing me the whole time, weren’t you? You had me on your string, watching me, through Shirley! I wasn’t doing it for you, vacuum take you!”

  He sat there and looked me in the eye, cool as space. “And where were you planning to go once you had rescued her? You need me, Challers, and I need you, and we don’t have time to play games. You help me rescue Cassandra and I’ll sponsor you for the Pirates. I’ll vouch for your actions. We have to move fast, though. When the Scouts figure out what’s happened, they’re going to act to secure her.”

  I glanced at Valka. She nodded.

  My guts were clenching and spasming, threatening to bring up what little I had in my stomach, but I knew there was only one way out of the situation I was in, and that was to change sides.

  I gritted my teeth. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Globular Cluster X-42 was, like any other, a tangle of gravitational pits and twisted warp-lines. Navigating there by anything but jump would be impossible. Not only that, the more time we took getting there, the more time the Scouts would have to get word to the station. If that happened, Cassandra would be beyond our grasp forever.

  Valka and I stood in the chamber. The moment had finally come, though not by any circumstance we ever could have imagined. We would be powering the ship together. Masters and Grecca were in the bridge, monitoring the systems, but giving us a bit of privacy.

  The other Scout ship held Robert and Shirley, also finally together and also making the best of the situation. Robert couldn’t pilot the ship—couldn’t handle a gun or help with the mission, either—but he could power it to come up behind us for another rendezvous at a random set of coordinates beyond sensor range of the research station.

  I started by peeling the robe from Valka’s body, exposing four breasts and a swollen belly.

  She closed her eyes, bracing herself as if about to be struck.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said, caressing one full breast and leaning in for a kis
s.

  She smiled. “You lie so sweetly.”

  “No lie,” I said, bringing my hand up to her chin. “You would be beautiful to me no matter what shape you wore. I love you, Valka. I always will. Besides, you have four breasts. What’s not to like?”

  She pulled me in for another kiss, this time furiously passionate, and when we parted again, I could feel a tear wetting my cheek—hers or mine, I couldn’t tell. She pulled the hem of my shirt up over my head and threw it aside, then removed my shorts.

  “I love you, too,” she said, and took my cock in one hand, stroking it lightly as it grew firm.

  “How would you like to do this?” I asked, letting my hands roam over her body, as well.

  “It’ll work best from behind,” she said, “but that can come later. You really don’t mind what happened to me?”

  “It hurts me terribly what they did to you.” I knew her stomach wouldn’t be so distended unless someone had fertilized her eggs. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she said, bringing my hand up to her cheek. “I want you to make love to me. I want us to go out into the stars. I want the moment we have been waiting for, for so long. I want the moment we joined the Scouts for. Talk can come later.”

  I smiled, took her face between my hands, and kissed her again.

  She broke off the kiss and laughed. “We need to get started, Challers!”

  “I’m in no rush.”

  “Well, I am.” She knelt and licked the underside of my cock, and a shudder ran up my spine.

  “All right, okay, I get the point,” I said, my voice starting to get hoarse with desire.

  She giggled again, gave me another lick, and then put her lips around the head. She tickled the underside with her tongue, and for a moment, the thought sprang up that this was something she had done a hundred times with Masters. Rather than push it away, I accepted it, let it join my memories of Shirley and Grecca and all the things I had done without Valka. It was history, it was fact, and it was irrelevant to that moment.