BURNING PASSION by Kinto Mythostian -- BOOM. Fuel ignited in the combustion chambers and set the drive motors into motion. The sudden, shrieking wail of the engines roused every bird within a kilometer; they rose above the forest in a squawking cloud. With ignition achieved, the engines settled down to a steady thrum that set the ground vibrating. With deliberate grace, the ship began to move forward, trailing a shimmering wake of heated air. Ponderously, the ship turned in place until its bulbous, pitted nose was pointed down the launch strip, angled slightly upwards. The engines revved up and down in increasingly urgent guttural sounds. ROAR. A jet of super-heated air shot straight back 40 meters, withering the fresh green buds on the trees at the edge of the clearing. A bird unlucky enough to be flying behind the engines was reduced to a speck of ash in a split second; a brief speck of orange flared in the almost colorless cone of heat and was gone. The massive ship shot forward and up, accelerating rapidly. Three kilometers above ground, the ship punched through the sound barrier and continued to accelerate, leaving a sonic boom in its wake. Seconds later, it was out of sight and well on its way out of the atmosphere. Heart had watched the whole process from her position at the edge of the woods, 20 meters off to the side. That was as close as she could get; a high chain-link fence surrounded Rothann-Reia spaceport and separated it from the Academy. Even here, she had felt the heat roll over her as the ship blast past on its way into the sky. Now, though, the ship was gone and the spell was broken. Her hand felt sticky. With a trill of shame, Heart realized she had been unconsciously masturbating the entire time. Between the sound and the heat, she'd hardly even noticed when she'd cum into her panties as the shockwave of the passing vessel had rolled over her. She carefully removed her hand from under her dress, glad that no one was around to see her embarrassment, and wiped it off as best she could on her handkerchief. Heart stood up and began to make her way through the forest back to the Academy. She was a vulpine, with rich orange fur over most of her body with brown and black on her pointed ears, hands, and feet. She was probably somewhere in her teens, although she didn't know her exact age; she had a petite build that often made people think she was even younger. Her eyes were orange; Heart liked to think of them as fiery. She was wearing the traditional informal uniform of the Academy, which was intended to be worn when at work or at play. The informal uniform consisted of opaque white tights, a long-sleeved white underdress, and a sleeveless lightweight jumper. Heart's jumper was Light Blue, though devotees at the Academy might have uniforms in any of the Twelve Noble Hues. A lot of devotees complained about how uncomfortably hot the uniform could be, especially during the summer. Heart, however, didn’t mind at all. Heart loved heat, and reveled in warmth in all its forms. To her, the musky scent of her own sweat on a hot day was intoxicating. She yearned to be surrounded by heat, to feel it consume her, to let herself be subsumed by a force of pure warmth. *One week later* Heart stood in the shade of the trees beside the fence surrounding the spaceport. Her heart was pounding in her chest; if everything didn’t go to plan, she could get caught, and then she would be in big trouble. She was about to break at least five of the Rules. If everything did go according to plan, however, no one would ever have to know. Heart would be dead, her disappearance a mystery. She would be beyond the realm of Academic punishment. On the tarmac in front of her, the crew of the interstellar freighter Raccoon was going through their preflight routine. Heart had watched this routine for every week for a year. By her estimation, she still had fifteen minutes, and then she would have a one minute window to get where she needed to be without being seen. To her right, a wide, shallow stream disappeared into a concrete culvert that went under the fence and then under the wide expanse of the tarmac. Directly next to the culvert, the soil had been eroded by runoff from the spaceport, leaving a small gap under the fence. The gap had been enlarged further by wild canids that snuck onto the spaceport at night to scavenge the dumpsters. Even though it would mean having to crawl through the mud, Heart had chosen this as her entry point for two key reasons. First, it was near the Raccoon’s landing site, and second, if she was caught, she hoped it would help her case that she hadn’t cut through the fence to get in; she didn’t need property damage added to her violations. Hidden behind a clump of bushes, Heart undressed. She had gone back and forth with herself as to whether or not she should do this. From day one at the Academy, the importance of modesty was pounded into devotees’ heads; going nude was a flagrant violation of the Rules. Keeping to the bushes as much as possible, Heart approached the culvert. She dumped her sweaty clothes on the downstream side of the logjam at the culvert’s entrance so that they wouldn't be found. Peering under the fence, she watched and waited. She used the time to pray to the gods, for forgiveness for her violations and for success for her plan. Right on schedule, the ground crew disconnected their equipment from the Raccoon and began driving back to the main buildings. A horn on the ship blasted loudly and set Heart’s ears ringing. Red lights set into the tarmac flashed to demarcate the restricted area around the ship. At a larger spaceport, personnel might be on guard to make sure no one entered the danger zone around the ship, but Rothann-Reia was a small spaceport with a small staff. Heart had worried that when the time came to act, she would freeze up and miss her opportunity. Now that the moment was actually here, however, she acted without hesitation. She scrambled under the fence, dragging her stomach across the rocky, muddy gully, the metal wire of the fence snagging briefly at her twitching tail. Heart darted excitedly across the tarmac, terrified that someone would see her and try to stop her. Heart stood under the ship panting, ears pricked for any hint of a reprimand, but none came. Luck was on her side; Heart was now convinced that she had made the right decision. This was how she wanted to end her life, and the gods had made no action to stop her or change her mind. Heart looked up. This close, the engine looked much larger, and a good deal higher off the ground; she was suddenly worried she might not be able to reach it. She jumped, arms outstretched; her fingers just touched. Heart tried again, willing herself to jump higher. Her fingers hooked over the lip of the nacelle; she dangled for a moment before her fingers slipped off the slick metal. On the ship’s undersides, the anti-grav units began to power up. Heart was on the verge of tears. Then, something that Heart had never seen before happened. The landing gear retracted before the anti-gravs were at full power. The Raccoon dropped a few feet closer to the ground. Heart didn’t even stop to wonder why; she scrambled easily inside the nacelle. Now she was crying, but they were tears of elation. She looked ahead of her into the depths of the engine. Without even thinking about it, her right hand strayed down to her nude crotch and slipped a finger between the moist lips of her aroused vagina. It was so beautiful. A clicking sound inside the engine returned Heart to her senses. She quickly removed her hand from between her legs. Self-control was another virtue espoused by the Academy, and Heart desperately wanted to savor the moment. She definitely didn’t want to accidentally climax too soon. She stood up, steadying herself with one hand on a support spar. The clicking was the pre-ignition sequence; the toxic scent of fuel flooded Heart’s nostrils, making her feel lightheaded. A small yellow light appeared in front of her. BOOM. The shrieking wail that quickly followed went beyond sound; it felt like a solid object. Heart clapped her hands over her ears, pressing them flat against her skull, waiting for the sonic torture to stop. A wave of heat more intense than anything Heart had ever felt washed over her. She smelled burning fur and realized it was her own; her chest was completely denuded within seconds. The sound of the engine settled down to a steady thrum and Heart cautiously removed her hands from her ears. One of them strayed again to her vagina. Heart could feel the engine nacelle vibrating beneath her feet, but couldn’t hear a thing. Either the ignition wail had deafened her or her hearing had simply shut down in self-defense. The ship began to move forward, knocking Heart off-balance. She grabbed a support spar with her free hand to steady herself and shrieked in surprise. The metal was burning hot. Heart forced herself not to let go, mentally overpowering her reflexes and instincts. She gripped harder, reveling in the pain as the flesh on her palm boiled. The delicious smell of cooking meat now filled the air around her. Heart knew it was coming from her chest, which was raw and blistered in some places and charred black in others. Wispy curls of smoke emanated from her burning flesh and streamed behind her. Heart was being roasted alive and she loved it. The ship’s forward movement stopped; Heart knew what was coming next. In front of her, the mighty engine revved up and down. Heart stroked her vagina in rhythm with the rise and fall of the engine vibrations. Heart moaned passionately as successive waves of heat washed over her, ignoring how dry her mouth felt, how raw her burned flesh was. Each cycle was a little bit faster, a little bit louder, a little bit hotter. On the final cycle, the revs kept growing louder and faster. A faint shudder went through Heart’s body as she felt a valve open wide deep within the engine. Her finger was buried deep in her vagina; she was only moments away from climax. Heart watched in awe as the air in front of her turned white. She believed she could feel her flesh beginning to dissolve. The cone of pure heat hit her just as she climaxed. Heart howled. The engine ROARed. The normally colorless exhaust burned orange for a second as the Raccoon rocketed forward and up. There wasn’t even any ash. -- Once beyond the planet’s gravity well, the Raccoon shifted into Hyperspace. Captain Andy Carter turned to apprentice pilot Uriah Jacobs and spoke. “Good job on your first launch.” “But I messed up the anti-grav sequence and…” “Common rookie mistake. Don’t say anything more about and I won’t tell your instructor. You deserve full marks, in my opinion.” “And the portside engine sensors said there was too much carbon in the exhaust…” “Birds. It happens all the time at remote spaceports like that.” “Oh.” -- Later, during a post-flight inspection, the chief engineer found a pair of charred footprints burning into the metal of the portside engine nacelle. He elected not to say anything about it, as it would only lead to more paperwork. ** Author’s Notes Completed September 8, 2009