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A Scanner Deeply Ch. 01

By: Nathaniel_Selene



Outer Ring Region – 7-692B System – Orbital path – Hel Supercarrier-class ship

First day on base and he was already running late. He had gotten a text message on his NeoCom from Cal, his assigned wing commander, welcoming him on board the carrier class ship and asking for him to set an example to his squad by being prompt. Emerson didn't want to disappoint him. He knew that the carrier was a maze and had planned ahead, making sure he had plenty of time to get from the officer quarters to the briefing room. But the sheer size of the ship and its complexity hadn't sunk into his head at the time and he was sure he had counted too short, now. All he was feeling at present were first-day-at-school butterflies in his stomach and a growing feeling that he was going to be very very late, making his legs leaden and his intestines feel like slithering ice in his abdomen.

"... Starboard line to. Aft Deck Observatory. Servicing. LQ 3. LQ 4. CA 1. CA 3. FD 1, CC and Aft Deck Observatory. Boarding. Please mind the gap. Stand clear of the closing doors. Starboard line..."

He ran through the rapid transit turnstiles, flashing his wing commander badge to the attending guard. This automated transport would shuttle him, along with scores of other pod-pilots and ship staff to the flight decks. As he piled into the train car, barely making it before the automated door swished closed, he was crammed between a couple of burly guard and a few other pod-pilots, recognizable by the same off-green shimmery jumpsuit he wore that they used to climb in their pod. One of them was a woman. And quite beautiful at that, even in her unflattering suit. Beautiful auburn curly hair and dark brown eyes was all he saw at first glance. She was leaning against the wall of the train, her back pressed against it and her arms gripping a vertical support bar.

The train slowed and jerked silently to a stop, entering the next station. More people. However was everyone going to fit in here? Some people got off the train, the two guards among them. They jostled Emerson as they did so, buffeting him close to the woman. Then all the other passengers came in. Pushed in. Squeezed in as the train door forced a few to suck in their bellies and press against the mass of people. Emerson quickly grabbed an overhead support bar and was pressed to the side of the female pod-pilot. His arm was still vaguely upward, now pressed against the woman.

Emerson looked apologetically at her and around him. She didn't look at him. She seemed totally unconcerned with anything happening, as if she were very accustomed and weary of the whole sardine thing.

Emerson realized, though, that his elbow was about level with the woman's sternum and was therefore cradling the woman's breast. That realization brought a slight stir to his pants. He tried to repress it but the more he thought about it, the more insistent the idea was.

The train jerked back into motion, throwing Emerson slightly away from the woman, maybe a fraction of an inch, for a few seconds, then jerking him back into his position. He felt the heavy brush of the woman's breast against his arm and forearm. He started to enjoy the rhythm with which the train was making his arm move against it. He stopped resisting it and lost himself for a moment in the warm sensation of serendipitous proximity with what felt like a very well formed breast. How long had it been since he last had sex. He feared to count. His officer rotation had taken weeks. And there had been no woman contenders in his group...

Eventually, he came out of his reverie and glanced at the woman. He noticed she was now looking at him. Her gaze was indecipherable. He chose to ignore it for the time being. The next few stations saw a decline in passengers and eventually, Emerson had no more excuse to be leaning on the woman. The next stop was his. He disengaged himself, turned towards the door and followed the crowd out onto the platform. He hoped his hard-on wasn't too visible in his jumpsuit.

The station was huge. Lighted placards were indicating directions by acronyms he wasn't quite familiar with yet. This was so different from station time... The excitement tingled in his brain, making the butterflies flutter wildly.

As he stood baffled on the platform, waves of passengers pushing slightly at his back, the woman appeared by his side.

"You look new here. Where are you going?" she asked offhandedly.

"Command Center. Briefing room corridors."

"Follow the CC signs after the elevator to the 74th floor until you get to a hall with two clear glass reception desks. They can tell you where to go, based on which briefing you are supposed to be in", she answered with a crooked smile, almost a chortle. "You shouldn't dilly-dally; it's still a long way to go. Follow me, I am going there too."

She turned and started towards an elevator lobby. He locked step with her. Of course, the elevator was going to be packed as well. She told him the first groups of express shuttle elevators served all the flight deck areas and weapons command centers, directly up to the 24th floor. After that, he would need to take the "executive elevators". 

As they squeezed in, he ended up being sandwiched between a briefcase of some kind at his back at the level of his butt (he felt better than others might, particularly those stuck against the spiky sample of some kind that one of the mechanics in orange jumpsuits was carrying) and the woman's back at his front. Now she had her butt firmly lodged against his groin.

Had she done it on purpose? Nevertheless, he enjoyed the heat of their proximity again. He had no doubt that she would feel his growing erection as the firm cheeks of her ass pressed on his cock. Was she swaying from side to side? It seemed her ass was rubbing against him, making him harder by the second. Now he was almost sure she was grinding ever so minutely against his cock. He hoped she was enjoying this as much as he was and discreetly brushed a hand against the top of her thigh and her waist.

The elevator dinged at the 24th floor. Everyone hastened out. The woman grabbed Emerson by the wrist and tugged him towards another cluster of elevators where many less people were waiting. Her crooked smile still on her lips and a glint of lust in her eyes. Emerson's butterflies had settled. Now all he felt was an intense desire blinding all other intentions. They took the third elevator. No one in it besides them.

Their portfolios clattered to the floor. The woman swiftly parted her jumpsuit shoulder to crotch to reveal perfectly formed breasts, a flat stomach, a slightly fuzzy navel and a smooth pubic area. Emerson did the same and squirming out of his jumpsuit at the same time as her. The woman gazed longingly at his firm chest and hard abs, glided her hands on his large shoulders and pressed herself against him, her other hands already stroking his very firm cock.

"We have but moments." she whispered in his ear.

She turned her back to him, spread her legs, parted her pussy lips with one hand and said "Fuck me."

Emerson was only too eager and plunged his cock into her, making her gasp with pleasure. He leaned bodily against her and thrust his cock in and out, enjoying the sound of her breath against the plated glass of the elevator.

Glass?

At that moment, bright light erupted into the elevator. It was continuing its ascension along a vertical transparent tube, taking them far above the open space of the huge flight decks and hangars where rows of fighters were being prepared for launch. The view was breathtaking, but Emerson and the woman were more involved in enjoying the heat of each other's body rubbing against them. He pressed her firmly against the glass panel and put a hand on her pussy, swirling her clit faster and faster as he increased the rhythm of his hard cock up her pussy.

Their moans became frantic and she gripped the banister as her moans almost disappeared under the wave of pleasure. He came hard and spurted hot sperm into her pussy. Gallon after gallon in each intense spurt, it seemed. She spasmed at each one, riding the wave of her orgasm.

"... 69... 70... 71..." The numbers on the digital screen of the elevator started slowing as the elevator swished upwards into a dark shaft.

They scrambled back into their jumpsuits, rearranged their hair, smoothed the front of the suit, grabbed their portfolios and stepped out onto the landing as the door opened.

"Good luck. Fly safe." said the woman as she walked swiftly past the clear desks and disappeared into a wood-paneled corridor, waving her badge at a guard.

Emerson gathered his senses and stepped gingerly up to one of the attending guards at the desk, showed his badge and asked where he should be going. The guard pointed him towards a corridor and gave him a room number.

As he entered, he noticed that he was one of the last ones and took his place towards the front of the small amphitheater. A map of the solar systems in their current constellation was flickering on the back screens. A middle-aged man, probably no more than 35 years of age, broad-shouldered and thick-framed, stepped up to the podium.

"Ladies and gentlemen of itchy trigger-fingers, welcome to Fleet Beta. You might all know Wing Commander Sanka, by reputation if not personally." This elicited a few chuckles among the pilots, as they glanced towards a crew-cut veteran, smirking in a corner, a parrot perched on his shoulder (a parrot?) "And myself, your Fleet Commander".

"For those of you who are new here, you will quickly get familiar with the rest. We have a tight knit family of fighters and you'll find we can be quite welcoming, as long as you have credits to lose to cards and crude humor when it comes to squids." More chuckles.

"I'd like to introduce you to a newcomer in particular. This very talented person was just assigned to Wing Command and will take the place of Xal Terveris while he is on 'sabatical'. Please welcome Wing Commander Calixte, aka the Deadly Whip of Faurent." 

The pilots gave her the golf clap, even a few whistles, and the woman that Emerson had just moments ago filled with his semen stepped onto the platform and walked to the pew.

Calixte. Cal. Cal was not a man. Oh god... He had just fucked his Wing Commander....

Incongruously, he noticed that somehow there was not a single wet trace on the crotch of her jumpsuit. She must, indeed, be very talented to keep all that inside her for so long...

"Thank you FC and thank you all" she glanced at Emerson "for a warm welcome. I believe we are going to have lots of fun together in the coming missions."

A Scanner Deeply Ch. 02



Heimatar Region -- Dammalin System -- Planet 3 -- Vherokior tribal plains

It should be easy... Just like with the other women... Just like when she did it in the circle of elders... They had trusted her. They had let her go in on her own. They said she knew what she was doing.

Was she? Not really. She had winged it. All bluff. Yet she had gotten through. Maybe she was OK at it. They said it was unsafe to go it alone.

Yet what she had seen in there.... what she had felt and touched and breathed while walking the « little smoke »... she had never experienced anything like it. Granted, at age fifteen, in one of the most isolated systems in the galaxy, in the middle of the ochre and red desert, there wasn't much to witness and compare... Yet. She knew that what was in there was most surely beyond anything she could ever find in the « real world ».

She had to try again. She had to see if she could manage it on her own. Maybe find a way to go there when she wanted... a shortcut... she wished it in her bones...

Calixte walked to the edge of the circle she had painted saffron on the powdery ground. Red on red beneath the dark sky. The stars beyond. Did they really hold something else? They shone sienna through the swirls of smoke.

Here was the plant mixture. Here were the words.

Here was the brazier, burning red hot.

Now came the smoke. Now rose the chant.

She swayed. Round and round.

The world dimmed and she felt the pressure of the air ease on her body.

Round and round.

Nothing comes to dreamers but dreams.

Round and round.

It was so easy. She closed her eyes and it felt like opening them. She saw the path rising through the circle and she stepped onto the smoke. The smell of the plants and the taste of the mixture dimmed as well. She was walking upward on the unsubstantial. She reached the Plain of White. Now that she was here, would she remember where to go?

There, the first bearing point. The red arch. Behind it would be the place she had met...

She opened her eyes wide and took the whole experience in again.

... she had met the Dancer.

She couldn't remember the face, nor the clothes. And it had seemed so natural, to give him her hand and to let herself swirl. Such ecstatic giddy joy. The joy of turning and flying in the sure arms of the Dance itself.

She reached the arch. It was the same rough sandstone it had been last time, its surface grooved by unknown winds, its grain crumbling under the brush of her hand. The powder looked like blood on her fingertips.

As she looked up, the Plain had changed. Like last time, right? It had changed color. Had it changed to that exact tone of orange? It seemed off.

She looked around, expecting a familiar face or step.

None came.

She saw a dim path beyond the arch and started walking down it. It was somewhat of a dirt path. Orange red, dimming iridescent and then white as she looked to the sides. Eventually, she reached a dip in the path and it seemed the road was leading to some kind of cave. Maybe it was the home of the Dancer. Hmm... meeting him in his inner sanctum... what would it be like... The elders had told her she was lucky to have seen the Dancer on her first trip. Hmm... She would show them... she could be more...

She stepped into the mouth of the cave. She couldn't see anything. 'Act what you want', they had said. She held out her hand as if bearing a torch. And there it was, in her right hand.

The sudden light startled her a bit. Had she really conjured up a torch? Cool!

The walls were sandstone as well. It left a blood red trail on her bare shoulder as she brushed it against a corner. Her shoulders were bare. She was naked, indeed, except for her belt, loincloth and pouch. Interesting. She didn't think she had been completely naked last time. Oh well, why not. She could conjure up more clothes if she needed them... She was proud of her body. The men of the tribe, she new, were vying to be able to call her first when she turned of age. Her breasts were not large, but they were firm and pert. Her nipples stood straight out of a small dark areola. They were tight from the cold right now. Her hips were not large either, but she knew the curve of her butt and the way her slender legs met under it made other women jealous. Even the more beautiful, experimented ones. They knew in a few years she would be the most beautiful by far. Few could withstand her fierce stare. Yet most men wanted to meet it and plunge deep inside and see if some of the sensuous life she exuded was also meant for them.

As she progressed, she felt the air getting warmer and smelled a definite scent rising around her. She didn't know what it was, but it smelled strangely unfamiliar. She thought she should know it -- there were few scents she didn't know on the plainlands -- yet she could not place it.

The grotto continued downward into the earth -? - ever changing shape but never getting any wider or narrower.

She trailed her left hand on the walls. They were warm.

The hallway -- of sorts -- seemed to straighten out and she could see further ahead. As she took several steps forward, she thought she distinguished a human shape.

Yes, it was a woman.

She hastened forward, glad to see a familiar shape. « Hello? »

As she was moving forward, she didn't seem to get any closer to the woman. She felt the texture of the walls change under her fingers as she moved along. They were no longer rough, but smoothed out, slowly. Almost yielded to the pressure of her hand.

« Hello? » She peered into the distance to try and recognize the woman.

« Yes. » said a voice next to her. Startled, she jumped two feet sideways and backed to the wall. It was the woman. How had she gotten here so fast?

« Nice to meet you. » she said and smiled. She placed a hand on Calixte's shoulder. « Fear not. »

The smell was definitely stronger up close to the wall. Like a strong incense, warmer, headier. It felt so soft. She let the torch drop to the floor, casting crimson shadows about, and let her arms fall to her side, palms against the wall. So soft. She let her whole body rest against it, head back.

« It's nice here, isn't it? » asked the woman.

Calixte nodded, rapt.

The woman placed both hands on the wall, on either side of Calixte's shoulders. And smiled. Almost with regret.

Calixte felt herself gently sink into the wall, the woman sinking with her.

Under her hands and her back, she could feel now firmer shapes resolve. Now her legs were touching it. The shapes felt soft. Some were firm, some more tender.

The smell was getting intoxicating as she was sinking deeper into the fabric of the wall. It was starting to make her very aroused, burning like molten gold in her veins, making her pussy very wet and her skin very sensitive.

The woman was naked as well, with a fabric belt. Kind of a sash in front of her pubis. She had beautiful large breasts and long wavy auburn hair, like a fiery mane cascading down her shoulders. Calixte was now almost laying on her back, the woman above her.

The woman smiled and reached a hand above Calixte's head. She pulled at a piece of the wall. No. It was not the wall. It was a penis. An erect and somewhat hairy cock. She slid it into her mouth and started sucking on it, languidly. With her other hand, she was suddenly stroking some smooth legs. Someone -- or something with human legs and arms and hands -- shaped up behind the woman and grabbed her hips, grinding its pubis against her. The woman moaned.

Calixte looked around and realized the shapes she was feeling were human appendages... legs, hands, asses, breasts, heads... intricately woven bodies. They all seemed waiting for something. She reached for a shoulder and caressed it. So soft.

Everything started moving at the same time. All the shapes seemed to come to life and slowly move.

She couldn't think clearly. The smell was too strong. She couldn't control her movements. She saw herself reach for a cock and stroke it. Her other hand pinching a nipple. Something slid against her thigh and butt and she hoped against reason that it was a hard cock, seeking her burning pussy. She felt two hands reach from behind her and cup her breasts. She let out a moan as a hand slipped inside her legs and fingered her pussy very slowly and deliberately. She ground her pussy against the cock she was stroking and let herself fall back on the pile of moaning bodies, caressed by more hands than she could count.

« Welcome to Aphrodisia, the antechamber of Eusethia. » she dimly heard the woman say.

The word echoed a little while in her crazed brain as she moaned under the insistent thrust of the cock near her, trying to get in.

Holy shit... Eusethia... the name finally found its mark. They had warned her of her. The elders. They had told her to beware of the sensual trap.

Her senses came back in sharp focus. She brushed the penis away from between her legs and scrambled back. At the edge of her vision, she thought she saw some of the bodies crumble into broken greenish stone.

« Come back, Calixte. You are here to serve. And be served. »

The smell was back, trying to insinuate itself back into her. Tearing herself away with difficulty from the yearning of her body, she held her breath.

« Calixte... Stay... You can only stay... »

She swallowed hard. It felt as if she had swallowed ice and it was melting down her throat into a deep pit inside her stomach. She grabbed the torch and ran. Panicked, she smashed it into the far wall and it burst into incarnadine shards of stone, twinkling around her.

She was falling. Breathing hard. She coughed on dirt. Red dirt. Bracing for impact. She passed out.

She woke in the middle of the circle. Dawn was lighting. Not exactly, but she knew the hour was near. That sort of in-between hour that's not really night but where the dawn really hasn't started yet. The lost hours.

She trembled. She knew she couldn't go back to the tribe. They would know what she had done. Just by looking in her eyes. She was cold. She would have to go far. To the stars and back. Far from the tribe. Far from the « little smoke ». Far from the fear.

She would not fear again.

Yet she knew that wherever she would go, she would take carry the yearning for the Dancer with her.



A Scanner Deeply Ch. 03



Outer Ring Region – 7-692B System – Orbital path – Hel Supercarrier-class ship

Calixte always wondered at why CAG briefings, where a new officer was introduced, had to last so long and be so falsely casual. She managed a couple of smart jokes involving panties and ionic propulsion when she was asked to the pulpit that made the pilot audience grin and chuckle and she exited stage left, leaving everyone guessing at her openness to breaching officer protocol about romantic involvement with troops.

Female pilots where rare, even in Gallentean culture, where freedom and equality was more a duty than a right. She couldn't remember why. Being born Vherokior, she always had followed the female elders in their mystic journeys on the "little smoke", bringing back visions to lead the clans. It was kind of expected of her to lead people when she grew up. If it was the only thing she retained from her former life, she would be happy. She never questioned that external impulse. It suited her fine right now, maybe gave her the energy and impetus to get things done that other people mistook for an ambitious will for castration. Actually, most men were slackers, objectively compared to her, and that rubbed the worst of them the wrong way, shed unfavorable light on them.

She had noticed one of the new squad leaders, in the back, who got there almost late, was the cock she had fucked earlier in the elevator. A quite nice one, all things considered. She hadn't felt one filling her in quite a while and had hoped for a no-strings-attached anonymous encounter. So much for that... She would have to deal with it another way, but would wing it right now... maybe even take advantage of it. Perhaps she even welcomed it. She loved the feeling of holding his sperm inside her, contracting her muscles tighter in spasms, prolonging the orgasm that earlier had her moan and sweat against the glass wall of the elevator. Her nipples perked at the memory of the cold surface. Exiting the briefing would be an exercise in demureness not to attract the attention of the other officers with the two little bumps in the cloth of her overall, right underneath her name badge.

For once it had been a benefit for fleet roles not to be evident on the pod-clothing. That young SC might not have taken her otherwise. It changed so often, anyway. She had the opportunity to study him at leisure, while the FC droned on about housekeeping, discipline and the objectives of the Outer Ring patrols. He was not a pure Intaki, although she could not trace what races lent him the particular features. His skin was more olive than the Intaki and his dark hair and dark eyes were probably what made her give in to the impulse of provoking him in the first place. She noticed a couple scars and more than a little grimness in the set in his jaw, as he listened to the list of last casualties in the recent skirmishes of the area. The dark eyes let the low burn of once fiery coals show briefly. He glanced at her a few times, an amused and maybe puzzled look in his face, as if daring her to strip naked, right there, in front of every other pilot of the fleet.

Once in her office, she grabbed the files of the squad commanders in her wing and sifted through the pictures. Emerson... an androgynous name that just rolled off the tongue... She would find him in the smaller squad brief rooms.

"SC Emerson, report for duty at 1015. New assignments. BR 114."

The squad members that huddled over star system charts in the plan room around Emerson were just as dumbstruck as he was to see their new wing commander behind the sliding door that interrupted their discussion.

Fifteen minutes later, the door of the briefing room slid open.

"SC Emerson, reporting for duty, sir." She really disliked being called sir. Old habits die hard, she guessed.

"Come in, SC, come in." She got up from her high chair behind the plated glass of the star system chart, slid the commands back to the bottom corner and took a few measured leisurely steps towards him.

The room was only dimly lit by the different work panels she had been using. Blues, whites, greens. Lighting directions random and flickering. Shapes were somewhat blurred in the afterthought of irregularly cast shades. Light and shadow played over their bodies, making random ridges eerily obvious and concealing other troughs. Their faces, she knew, were the most phantasmal in this lighting.

Light and magic.

Motes played around, swirling in the heavy air with the grace of her movements.

Magic and light.

"Seems like we got a good start to that 'inter-officer camaraderie' the FC was talking about." He blushed slightly and the corner of his mouth lifted in a casually suppressed smile.

"Yes, sir. Although, it feels kind of weird to use that word in the presence of a body that so recently was entangled with mine." Such politeness... He was a foot away from her and she could feel the heat radiate from his body, as if remembering the earlier embrace.

"Drop it then. Call me Calixte. Or Cal, at your preference." She smiled languidly and chuckled inwardly at how her line seemed taken directly out of a sappy dialog from an X-rated Holoreel. "Enough talk. step in, Emerson." She grabbed the back of his neck as the door slid shut and pulled his lips onto hers, roughly, without preamble and slid her tongue between his lips, probing and playing with his. He did not respond immediately, but eventually bent himself cautiously around her, taken her into his embrace.

"What is this, some kind of welcome ceremony? Do you greet all your SCs like this?" He seemed a bit wary as she pulled him by the hand to the console, a large underlit table, waist high, in the center of the room, used to spread translucent star system charts, recon photos, play out attack scenarios, etc. She unzipped her pod-clothing and it fell at the foot of the console in a grey-green heap.

In one spry jump, she was standing on top of the console, blue-grey light illuminating her from underneath. That seemed to ignite Emerson's interest and he stepped closer, his head at the height of her thighs. It was warm enough in the room to be naked and not shiver – at least not from cold – maybe even hot. He dropped his pod clothing as well.

"Come here, delicious officer." She put her hand behind his head and drew his head to the skin of her thighs, pressed it and relished the sight of him closing his eyes and taking in her smell. Still eyes closed, he brushed her inner thighs with his hand, going upward and kissed her skin, pressing his head firmly to her slender leg. His hands reached her ass and each hand grabbed a cheek, pulling her to stand at the edge of the console and her pussy closer to his mouth. His mouth was drawn to it, eagerly, earnestly, like that of a worshiper to a cult cup.

She slipped out of his grip. "You like that ass of mine, hmm?" She turned her back to him and slid her hands down from beneath her armpits down to her waist, gently swaying, then slapped one hand on her ass and dug some nails in, showing him how deliciously firm it was. She saw his cock respond immediately, as it twitched a little more to life, growing thicker and rising continuously. "Hmm... looks like you'd enjoy a little show?" He seemed unable to talk and just smiled in response. She thought the head of his cock parting his foreskin was as yes.

She knew he could see her sweat forming on her naked skin and moved herself to the center of the console, where two other backlit vertical panels gave off a greenish off-white light, making a tangled play of shadows and blue green light on her now sparkling skin.

She started swaying side to side and slid up and down in a very slow and deliberately open way. She kept offering glimpses of her smooth pussy to him and of the tight pucker of her ass. Both hands on her ass cheeks, she turned her back to him and spread it wide. She thought the light didn't allow him to see quite good in that undulating recess, but she knew that he imagined... She must look like quiet an apparition, shimmying her body such.

She remembered the movement of her body during the dances seeking the "little smoke" and, pushing the trance-like feeling away, she took control of her sensuous movements, weaving her hands in complex patterns. Her arms and legs flowed around the shafts of light. Her breath came rhythmic and undulating with the rest of her body. Her breasts heaving and following the dance. Her nipples dark pointers in the shadows.

Occasionally, she glanced at Emersons shaft and saw how hard he must be straining not to jump her immediately. She smiled inwardly. She was getting very wet with his intense attention.

She slowed her movements and got closer to the edge of the platform. Again, when she got to the edge, she turned her back to him. Again, she brought her hand hard on her ass, making a sharp slapping noise. Her firm flesh rippled briefly. She breathed "You want it. Please it." Emerson grabbed her waist and buried his face between her ass cheeks and let his kisses loose onto her warm skin. He licked and nibbled, his lips almost quivering with impatience. His tongue was searching every place and eventually reached her asshole. His tongue felt voluptuously cool as it brushed circles around her hole.

The pace of the licks quickened and became more insistent. His tongue reached inside, circling, making her gasp. His hands were everywhere around her hips, her upper legs, her ass, her pussy lips, sliding politely inside her.

Her left hand was pressing his head onto her and her right hand was pinching her nipples alternatively, caressing her breasts, squeezing them from time to time. Her nipples were now hardest.

She turned abruptly to face him, her eyes burning her lust into Emerson's. "You want to fuck that ass, don't you." More a statement than a question. She ran a finger down his torso, down to his now raging hard cock, its head smooth and red, his balls high and tight against his shaft. She stroked the underside of it with her nails, between his asshole and his balls and felt him quiver markedly. He seemed mute with lust, his breath coming in ragged half-sighs, half-groans. She continued teasing him until he managed a gasp. "Please let me fuck you."

She slapped a hand on his sculpted ass and brought him closer, between her legs. Her other hand, still stroking his cock, took hold of it and placed its length against her pussy lips. They were completely slick with her juices and his sperm – finally allowed to flow out and along her thighs – and very sensitive. She endured the strong temptation to slide it in to tease him longer. Sliding its length against her lips, making it wet, but never letting him feel the soft heat of her pussy walls.

She slid off the platform, pushed him back a couple steps into a chair and quickly straddled him. With both hands on his shoulders, she weighed her chest against his, lifting and lowering her crotch against his cock. Again. Teasing him. She could feel him straining, wanting to slide his very hot cock inside her. She wanted it too. The smooth warm shaft made her pussy tingle and spasm with pleasure.

She lifted her breasts of him and squatted above him, swiftly sliding a hand to his cock and guiding it to her ass. She sat on it, screaming loud as it plowed deep into her. Oh how full she was. And her pussy empty. It was almost unbearable. She almost came right there.

She hadn't heard him groan as she took his cock in, but as soon as she started moving up and down, she heard his pleasure. His cock was throbbing and she knew he was straining not to come. She increased her speed and her moans grew ragged and loud, with his.

She shoved three fingers into her pussy, bringing her palm onto her clit – and came immediately, screaming loudly and contracting. Hot sperm washed up inside her. Wave after wave of pleasure blotted out all other sensation.

When the orgasm started to subside, she slid off of him, warm cum splattering out of both her holes.

Emerson chuckled. He had thrown his coverall on this very chair. They were now very conspicuously stained...

***

She marched ahead of him in the hallways, both in their coveralls. She placed herself so that she was just in front of the monster stain on his coverall.

They made for the collection of pods in the launching bay, pretexting a ship fitting drill to Scottie, the Docking Manager.

Nobody would notice the stains when they would next come out of their pod, drenched in pod goo.



A Scanner Deeply Ch. 04



Tenal Region -- 9-TYH Constellation -- CUY-8YB System

" ... offered them cargo, we offered them gold, our bodies and servitude... They wanted nothing. They left nothing intact. Now we drift, dwindling in numbers as our metallic coffin grows colder. My only relief is that Eusethia is at peace, keeping an eye on what remains of Yoggoth... click.."

The metallic husk of the diminutive emergency launch ship drifted within sight from the deck and idly bumped off the shields near the forward assault pad of the Rapier class Minmatar force recon ship, spinning randomly upward like a disarticulated puppet. 

"Commander. It looks like a Vherhokior emergency shuttle, sir!" Her fingers clicked on the sleek underlit keyboard. "But the message is stamped by what seems like a derivation of the Sarum family stamp, sir. How can it be?"

"click... (Unintelligible garble)... Aura... (more garble)... Iteration 48670983... They called themselves the Oarsmen of Cthulhu. They came many and well armed. They turned our escort to dust. We offered them cargo, we..."

The half dead sun of this system glinted dully off the surface of the cockpit, sending capricious incarnadine glares towards them. The transmission clicked again, the synthetic female voice repeating impassably her message in an almost bewildered tone.

"Sir, with an iteration time length of 321 seconds," said a male voice "this means that this recording has been playing for 495 years, 4 months, 29 days, 13 hours and change... That's unreal... The Vherhokior Liberation Struggle dates back only 110 years and the first human settlers that came through New Eden gate only 367... What is this thing? "

"I don't know, but I hope it's alone. We're only supposed to be on reconnaissance. Confirm tracing the signal to the shuttle. Then confirm the navigation records of the shuttle and get its point of launch. I want to know exactly where it came from."

The launch point was not hard to find. It turned out the shuttle was launched from a relay for a larger convoy. What were harder were the interminable warps under cloaking condition. 495 years can let a shuttle drift quite far from its base ship... When they got to it, they were not able to identify the ship, having been so abused by interstellar radiation, debris and whatever harm those Oarsmen visited on its hull.

"Sir, it seems like there are several intact compartments in the structure. I read a significant amount of unknown radiation signatures from within, sir. It will take me a little time to analyze it."

"No time. We should already be back and docked in the Hel's guts. Nate, Emerson, Calixte, you're going in. Salvage drones will escort you and hack away at the metal scrap. Make it quick. Maybe this trip won't be wasted after all."

They had no idea how vast the wreckage of this ship was. By the time they reached the inner compartments, their ears were tired and their nerves on edge from the screeching and clanking of the dead husk of the ship under the implacable salvaging beams of the drones.

The intact isolation sasses were of no known design. No wonder their implants had a hard time decoding this thing. Central command could be there months trying to crack the algorithms, even in a reverse engineering lab on one of the outlying control towers. Calixte pointed out how lucky they were that this thing had not been colonized by any rogue drones. Emerson nodded and opened the last sass. "Breathable air, mate... Kinda stale, though."

Calixte gagged, but checked herself. Nate gasped. Those were battle-hardened teammates Emerson had. Dozens of frozen corpses were littered on the floor of the dark and dank compound. This center room that their headlight beams were illuminating was vast, by any ships standard, and very ornately decorated on every visible facet. No style or writing they could link to anything known. Something had to be maintaining an artificial gravitational field, since they could walk on the floor and feel the weight of the inert bodies, some grotesquely contortioned in a parody of a dance, brutally interrupted. The light made the shadows prance incongruously as they advanced towards the center of the room.

"Hey sister, check out the miniature city!" 

Nathaniel pointed the ornately carved center of the room to Calixte. The shapes evoked buildings, temples, markets, official compounds of some sort. And in the center stood some sort of ziggurat. Curious hieroglyphics ran along its surface. Bizarrely, the hieroglyphics at the top seemed to writhe under the eye, not wanting to be caught and read. Emerson took out his scanner and pointed it to the small shrine. "This must be what we were picking up earlier on the analyzer console. Let's check this coffer out and get the hell out of here. This place is making my skin crawl. Nothing else of interest on scan, aside from hallways full of dead people and age old technology."

Nate started fiddling with the locks of the temple-shaped box. He seemed to be satisfied with the progress he was making. "Man, this is oldschool..." Emerson looked at the top of the ziggurat again. The letters froze. Eusethia. Not a coffer... this was a tomb.

The cap shifted sideways with a sigh, like a breath held for centuries in the dried out lung of a dust-coloured corpse and finally released. Dust motes puffed up out of the coffin.

The motes seemed to suddenly glow blue. Blue radiance coming from within the tomb. Or just above. Another sigh, this time like a woman stretching in bed after a sex coma, coming from nowhere, or everywhere. A slight groan, more distinctly yet evanescently human and the cerulean radiance seemed to coalesce immediately above the coffin.

The shape of a woman formed in the dust motes. Not so much the shape of a woman, but the idea of the most beautiful girl in the world.

Emerson was the closest to the coffin, since Nate had taken a few steps back, his face pale and his eyes aimed downwards towards the opening of the coffin. He seemed oblivious to the apparition, but Emerson could not. How could he... Her eyes bore directly into his, a face so flamingly beautiful he almost didn't notice the firm naked breasts just beneath it. She held his gaze.

Everybody seemed frozen in place for what may have been a long time. The voice of the woman brought their thoughts back into focus.

"Such a long time waiting, sleeping, wondering... dreaming..."

"Who are you? WHAT are you?" Asked Calixte, a little flustered, reading the lusty look on Emerson's face exactly right.

"I am Eusethia, guardian of Belial." She breathed dreamily. "Why have you woken me." She trembled slightly. "Are we arrived? Is our duty relieved? It's so cold here..." She drifted slightly towards Emerson.

"Arrived where?" inquired Calixte, speaking the thoughts he could not get past his uncooperative lips. "We are in Tenal region, very close to the Drone Regions, in the 9-TYH constellation. I believe this sun and system is the furthest away from the center of the galaxy in this constellation. A long way from any known station and a hell of a lot too close to rogue drone outposts." They were, indeed, almost teetering on the edge of the galaxy, wondering what lay beyond. Nathaniel was still transfixed by something on the ground or near the coffin.

"Tenal? I have never heard of this place." She replied with a shudder "Why am I so cold?" she whispered, getting even closer. She raised a translucent blue hand and placed it on Emerson's shoulder. Her radiance was almost blinding and her touch - ... he knew she was touching him but he could feel no weight on his shoulder. When she reached his skin through the void-walking bodysuit, it was like an electric flash... She gasped... a glimmer of understanding crossed her eyes... She smiled..." ... so long ago... I am now spirit..." Her face was now fractions of an inch from his. He could feel the stirring of the air that her breath was and he could see the smoothness of her face, the creases around her mouth as her beautiful lips parted. "... yet I long so strongly..." Her other hand curled around his head. " ... Emerson..."

"Don't touch him!" screamed Calixte in a catlike screech, launching herself through the room with her taser mace. Her scream ended abruptly as she hit something hard and invisible in her path and crumpled to the floor. Eusethia smiled as her lips touched his.

Somehow he could feel the curves of her silken body as he wrapped his arms around her.

Her blue light ignited his skin as he held her tight in his arms, his mouth now pressed eagerly against hers. Her tongue was urgent between his lips, around his, playing with it, seeking every inch of it, as if what her mouth really wanted was to feel a hard cock and explore its length. He thrust his tongue deep between her lips and made it hard. She sighed, responding to the simulation of a male member.

Emerson's hands fumbled for her clothes and he realized with certain pleasure that her form had none... Only the soft curve of her breasts and hips. He squeezed her ass and it made her giggle. Her laugh sounded like wind chimes in a desert breeze. He reached his hand further down and inward, slipping fingers between her ass cheeks and onto the delicate smoothness of her pussy lips. As she pushed her face off of his, she was smiling largely and her eyes danced with intense joy. She knelt -- or whatever floating beings do to lower themselves -- to the level of his navel and stroked his skin beneath his bodysuit. His cock was now straining inside and his hands were tingling from not feeling her anymore.

As she reached his pubic region, Emerson quickly unzipped the bodysuit down to his crotch and sighed with relief as his cock popped out of it, giving it ample place to expand and harden under the immaterial touch of his radiating blue lover. She slid her hands along it, as if cherishing a rediscovered treasure then abruptly wrapped her mouth around it. She sucked with intense passion and her fingers moved urgently along his shaft, making it harden more than it ever had before. The sudden rush of pleasure made him clamp his hands onto her head, losing his fingers in her glowing lush hair, pressing her head onto him, holding his cock at the deepest point inside her throat. Her tongue still moved and he gasped, releasing her."Don't be too fast if you want to enjoy more of this" Emerson breathed softly.

She got back up and pushed him backward and downward. He stepped down and sat, laying his back on the flat floor, legs bent and parted. She walked above him. Her shimmering feet stopped at the level of his torso and she knelt. Her pussy was now inches from his face and Emerson began softly licking it, then more and more eagerly, sensing her body tremble and heave at each lick on her clitoris. He could glimpse her arching her back and grabbed her breasts. He could hear her moan louder and louder. He grabbed her ass cheeks and tried probing the rim of her ass with the tip of his tongue and that seemed to drive her wild. His tongue explored the inside of her pussy and sometimes flicked the area between her ass hole and her pussy. Suddenly her hands left her breasts and brought his face hard onto her pubis, his tongue slipping deep inside her pussy. He felt the pounding of her orgasm on his face.

As her orgasm subsided, she swam her body along his, her head coming down to his, her breasts brushing his torso with electrifying softness, her ass cradling his cock between its cheeks. Her smile was not only seen but felt in the air, like a pleasant thrumming background sound. "I want all of you" she said. Emerson grinned and nodded. She slipped his cock into her pussy.

As she straightened up and started grinding his cock, he took in more of her shape, letting his eyes appreciate the pert lines of her breasts and her flat stomach, her small navel and the bounciness of the way her hair settled on her delicate shoulders. He was completely drawn in by the pleasure she gave him, going up and down along his cock, pressing it inside her, almost pulling it in. She was biting her lower lip as she accelerated her rhythm, making him groan and clasp his hands on her hips, half following her motion, half helping her move. Faster and faster their grind became. Soon he could swear he heard her skin slapping against his with the frenzy of her ups and downs. She opened her mouth for louder moans.

She grabbed her own ass, stretching her pussy wider so he could go deeper. She must have slipped a finger (or more) up her ass, because he felt the pressure of her pussy change and her breath come much faster. He could feel her pleasure igniting his own.

As his cock throbbed harder and harder in her, she bent forward a little and braced herself with a hand on his chest, her face and lips now slack with the pleasure building in her.

He couldn't hold it anymore and came hard, his groans echoing wildly across the chamber. Pumping hard into her. She gasped as she came as well.

As Emerson regained his breath, the blue glow of a woman had lowered her chest against his. A contented smile lifted the end of her lips a little. He noticed her radiance was less brilliant and her form somewhat more full.

Somewhere in the room, Nathaniel stirred and babbled "Emerson, man... it's a shriveled corpse in there... way older than 500 years".

Eusethia traced silly lines on Emersons torso with a pale blue finger. "Thank you Emerson, for your energetic contribution." She breathed between perfect teeth.

"How do you know my name?" It seemed that until now, all his throat knew how to produce were groans of pleasure. He was surprised at his boldness and as if his voice would dissipate the vision of her.

"Oh, I have your name...." She stood herself up, pulling him upward.

"Emerson!..." screamed Nathaniel hoarsely.

"... now all I need is your body." she sighed and swam fast through the air through him.

" She'll take your -- ".

Emerson had not heard the end of Nate's outcry. But the clink of his head against the glass of the cloning chamber told him that he was in the cloning vat module of the Hel class supercarrier, safely in his backup clone. And that Eusethia had stolen his body, far, far away from here.



A Scanner Deeply Ch. 05



Everyshore Region – Gicodel System

The stars looked different. They always looked different. Nate had long ago given up on trying remembering the star charts of each system. There were too many.

What he did know, is that he had stumbled on some very nice source of income.

Between deployments to the Outer Ring, he had taken an assignment with the Servant Sisters of Eve. Kind of charity work, according to him. His ancestry in the Brutor Tribe definitely gave him an in with the Sisters. Hey, he wasn't going to turn down an offer to go after some Serpentis and have it counted positively in his cosmic karma points... Who believed that crap. Not him. He liked to count the brownie points with them and the likeliness of getting access to some of those prized blueprints.

He also welcomed some action, finally, after the more than dull sessions of patrolling, encountering nothing but large enemy fleets that were impossible to engage without larger ship support. And even when engagement came, the battles were stalemates. No clear winner... just large fields of unrecoverable wrecks... His fighter blood was restless. He compensated by overdoing it in the training rooms. His body was much more buff than any of his comrades and, when out of ship, towered above more than one of his wingmates. His dark tan, chiseled face, bare muscles and dreadlocks earned him a wide berth in the mess hall, whenever newbies came on board.

Nevertheless. This one mission had brought his battleship class Fleet Issue Tempest against some tough opponents. With heavy frigate support. That guy had almost plowed through his ships defense before he could eliminate the totality of the ships holding his navigation down. But eventually, his years of training had paid off and he eked out a victory, very much liking the sight of his opponents ship crumbling inward to a hunk of twisted metal. He imagined the look on his face as the planes of metal dislocated and severed every portion of his body.

His sensors had picked up an odd thing. Not all the tissue of his opponents clone was rendered useless by the deep freeze of space. Oddly, there was some sample to be obtained.

And a tag.

Back in the station, docked and un-podded and showered, he examined the tag closer.

Holy shit! It was one a member of the Sarpanti family, according to the crest on the tag. He twirled the tag in the poor light of his nightstand lamp in the crummy bunk room he had in the station. The holograms danced in the clear crystal of the tag, sending shards of pinks, yellows and oranges across the walls. The body sample was safely stored in a bio-case in his cargo hold.

He now had some DNA sample of one pilot of the Sarpanti family... Wow...

While definitely a black market item in most Empire systems, since unregistered cloning was passable of the death sentence, this was a very unexpected twist of fate. He did know a few people that would be very interested in recovering this sample. He didn't know exactly how it was done, but rumors had it that some of the Jovian ships needed certain types of DNA to be fabricated. Heh, yet another piece of black market booty, those ships. Nate, brother, stay cool and negotiate your reward... He had never done anything illegal worse than transporting exotic dancers through highly religious space. Nothing to it, though, right? Stay cool, act tough, carry a gun, update your clone coverage policy... No-thing to it.

The dealer he had in mind, only known as Guidomarko, owned a small base off of one of the moons in a system quite a few jumps away, in one of the more lawless areas of space. He knew the dangers of the trek. He also knew his ship was more than capable of dealing with what might come up.

Interestingly, the flight there was uneventful. No ambush, no pursuit... Oh well, it happens. Although the less action happened, the more he felt on the brink of some thin thin edge of reality. He could tip one side or the other... of what, he didn't know. His wing mates kept telling him that it's the lot of all fighter pilots, to be so on edge... But the more it went on, the less he was sure he would like what he found if he did go one either of the sides... He came to think that, given enough boredom, he might even jump himself to whatever fate was his... Ennui... humans worst enemy... Did animals ever get bored?

With those very metaphysically enthralling considerations in mind, he docked at the small pad and alighted. He noticed a few other ships were there, other than the owners gaudily tricked-up frigate. He thought it looked pink or light fuchsia, with the reflection of the nearby moon. With all its decorative appendages and already looking like a piece of unfinished cubist nightmare, it made him think of a square-chested half-molting beetle. He doubted anyone short of Guidomarko understood the tastes of Guidomarko...

He reached the habitation module, now transformed into some kind of small bar, where imported liquors and other hallucinogenic substances were lined up on a transparent shelf under the burgundy and camo green lighting. Had this guy installed stringy melon-colored fuzzy carpet on the lining of the viewports? Projectors ran a continuous string of X-rates Holoreels on the spare spaces between the faux brick sections of the walls. Guidomarko definitely put the tack in tacky... Several individuals were lounging in the low-resting chairs spread out throughout the room. None of them looked very much at ease in the surroundings, all trying not to pay attention to anything else than the drinks in their hand. The place was more a meeting point than a fun hang-out. If there was one redeeming feature within Guidomarko, it was his ability to ply his network of acquaintances. He was a master match-maker... for every kind of illegal deal in the region.

A tap on the shoulder made him turn around and come face to face with what could only be the owner of every piece of fuzz in the place, judging by the fur lining of his... what? Glasses?... Who wore glasses?

"Nate?" the walking duster asked.

"Er, yes... sir?"

"Guidomarko, the one and only. Nice to finally meet you in person."

"Indeed. The pleasure is mine also. None of the ransom pictures on the police billboard do your fuzz any justice."

"Well," he chortled, "I try to keep the police network informed of the latest trends, but they seem unable to understand the chronology of it all... Fastidious automatons, the lot of them! I believe you have something to show me?" All business, now, fuzzbucket. "A potential buyer was in the area. I invited him to see for himself. He could hardly believe it."

"You best believe, my little Minelli reduction... I re-ran the tag RFID and at least the family crest checks out. I don't know enough about your local mafia to know all the members of the family."

"No need to worry, our buyer has all the equipment we need to do identifying. He's serious. He will give you the best price you could ask for. Let's meet in 15 minutes at the docking airlock. We will board his ship."

15 minutes later, having retrieved the bio-case, Nate was waiting in front of the gray door of the airlock, waiting for the beep on the other side. He took a few minutes to inspect his surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary on this kind of small personal base. Good, things were going smoothly so far. The notion that something should go wrong in this kind of illegal transaction was firmly planted in his action-movie addled brain. He was trying to stay ready.

The airlocked beeped and brayed as it opened. He stepped into the tiny ship. From the outside it had looked small, but he figured it might be bigger inside than it looked outside. Wrong... It really was cramped inside. All kinds of cases and boxes were stacked ceiling high in the minuscule cargo area. Seats were covered in papers, themselves covered in moss-colored dust. He breathed deeply and stepped in.

"Don't touch anything" blurted crackly speakers somewhere head-level in the mess.

A woman's voice. He looked around. He saw movement at the far end of the badly illuminated room. A door opened as the flush of a sanitary airlock sounded and Guidomarko stepped into the room, adjusting his heavily buckled belt.

"Meet Ezra, Mr. Nate."

A chair rolled into view from behind some cases, holding a shape under an ill-fitting plain gray tunic, a dozen bulky wires running from under it to some consoles in the walls and ceiling, forming a spiderweb of sorts around the creature. Nate was sure that at some time, she had been human. The connection ports of the wires into her body had swollen and her body shrunk, giving the impression that the wires had completely fused with her bones and were holding her somewhat upright in the seat. Her wrinkly skin, where it was visible at the connection port, made her seem pachydermally shriveled. A steel mask covered her mouth and nose, fashioned and painted like a Japanese mempo mask. More tubes, those thinner, jutted out from it.

Her eyes were the only indication that she was alive. Dark emerald piercing eyes.

She glared at him from behind the tangled and grimy wires. "Let's see the tag." Nate took a step sideways, hooked the bio-case to the back of his belt and unlocked the holster of his small arm, then handed the tag to the slothy figure. "No funny tricks, stick" he replied.

She glared at him again and slid out a console from under a desk. She inserted the tag into one of its slit and watched as a flurry of figures and sketches erupted on the flat screen above. She ogled and was abruptly caught in a fit of cough that rattled her frame and made the wires undulate randomly. The image reminded Nate of a documentary on earthly octopuses...

Something scurried behind Nate and he drew his gun and pointed it unerringly at the source of the noise. A rodent. A rodent? How could the damn thing survive in here... As the furry thing scuttled away, he took a closer look at the walls. They were lined with all kinds of jars and bio-cases. Some open and rotten, but most in much better maintenance condition than anything else in the ship. Clearly the jars contained valuable stuff, but he just couldn't understand how the viscous-looking things floating in them could mean money... Definitely an underground geneticist geeky lab...

"Anyone need a drink?" asked Guidomarko tentatively, sidling towards the door. His voice rang hollowly off of the cargo walls. No one answered.

"The tag checks out, G." crackled Ezra through the speakers.

"Good" replied Guidomarko, looking sweaty and a bit relieved. "The DNA should be the shit you wanted, then. Name your price to this gentleman."

The length of the number of credits baffled Nate. Never had he had a bank account that large in his life. "Let's check your credit, lady." She tossed him her compact reader awkwardly off aim.

The moment he stepped out of stance to catch the reader, Guidomarko swiftly slid in and pressed the end of a blaster to Nate's temple. "Perfect, little drummer boy. Thanks for the business you brought here. Now drop the gun and hand over the case. I wouldn't like to have to explain to the Federation authorities that one of their ace pilots ODed on lead in my joint, now would I?".

So that's what they were up to. How stupid did they really think he was? He knew the defenses of these ships inside out and this little furry weasel pointing a very illegal gun at him might actually be fun to deal with. There were some pressurized tubes ready to shoot stuff – usually incapacitating needles – into anyone standing near the airlock. It would be up to how fast the wrinkled woman could call on the mechanism...

Slowly, he started lowering his arm holding the gun in surrender. When it got about shoulder level, he swung it sideways into Guidomarkos shoulder, knocking the gun's aim away from his head. Circling on one foot, he caught Guidomarkos forearm and swung himself behind him, poking the guys gun between his shoulder blades.

Just then, with a quasi simultaneous duff, four fist sized needles rammed into Nates human shield. The force of the impact threw them both backward, crashing into some shelves. Ezra shrieked as they all came down in a crash.

With Guidomarkos dead weight on him, in a mess of glass, papers and awash in viscous acrid liquid, Nate felt something slither on his cheek. The slimy thing was making its way towards his mouth. Holy shit, it definitely was... A cold wave of wild entomophobia washed through his guts and he scrambled to his feet. The thing on his cheek was getting larger and he could feel sinewy things snaking to cover his face. He tried to bat it off with flailing arms, dropping his gun in the process. The alarm sirens were blaring now.

Ezra shrieked again in the speakers. "No! Not the symbiote..." drowned in feedback, as the woman launched herself and her seat towards Nate, claw-like hands extended towards him.

He reached for the EMP Burst on his belt and it flashed.

He passed out.

When he woke again, he was sprawled on the floor. A few lights were blinking wearily back on in his blurred vision. EMP bursts were an efficient method of self-preservation when out of a capsule. It's always a risk for capsuleers with all the junk in their head – cognitive and cortical implants – since it essentially shut down any type of machinery with electrical connections in a small radius. He was lucky that none of the life support consoles of the ship were anywhere near him.

He stood up shakily and gathered his senses, his head ringing a bit. His cheek was still wet but he couldn't feel anything wriggling on it. He wiped the slime off with the back of his sleeve. Damn that, it was all over his face...

Then he saw the banshee of a woman. The seat must have stopped short when the EMP went off: she was propped in the air in the middle of her wiring, a few feet ahead of the chair and off the ground, head forward, her limbs a tangle and puss oozing from wire connections that had torn out of her body. Her skin twitched were sparks flew. She looked like a broken puppet. He doubted she was still alive...Hot damn, two bodies in one place... maybe he could make-up the scene. He reached for Guidomarkos gun he saw lying on the floor, to fake the scene.

And he saw his own hands.

Green wiry sinews had spread all over. He turned it over. It was even brown in certain places. It looked like veins on top of his.

– Greetings, host –

The simple intellect washed around his. Holy shit... He backpedaled and rammed hard into the wall... Had he just gone that fast?

– Leg, power, host. Help? – 

He tore off a leg of his pants... Was he strong enough to tear pod overall fabric one-handed 

–Power, hands – 

The green veins were there too but were melding back into his flesh.

He screamed. What is this! He felt the images and smells of earth, leaves and organic life surrounding his thoughts

– little fuel –

Fuel?

– Touch people –

Touch?

– Collaboration, good –

Collabo..? A symbiot... of course... His mind eased one notch, but his muscles stayed taut, strung like a bow... 

So all he needed was to touch people to "feed" it. Hmm... What else could it help him do...

***

A few days later, a patrol found the orbiting pad devoid of life. They found two more bodies... their head smashed in by a blunt object... some kind of wooden shillelagh from the residue on their skin. Organic origin unknown.



A Scanner Deeply Ch. 06



Tenal Region -- 9-TYH Constellation -- CUY-8YB System

How long had she been out cold? Her head felt like it had been pressed over an orange peeler with dull blades. She tried to move. Her body didn't feel any better than her head. Slowly, she moved a few extremities. Fingers, toes, feet, arms. She pushed herself onto her hands and lifted her head up slowly, her dark curls brushing past her eyes and draping about her head.

She had seen that being come out of the sarcophagus. That blue, electric blue being had wrapped her hands around Emerson and pulled him in. The voice she heard had been very seductive. She knew Emerson would have not resisted. He was such a sucker for women's voices. Hearing a woman moan in ecstasy was enough to push him over the brink during sex... even comm sex. One thing she had to admit about her lover is, well... he did know what true pleasure was. How to give it... how to receive it... how to enjoy it... how to see it be enjoyed. It was her lover. She had wanted to show that blue transparent bitch who was boss of who's cock. She had hit a wall. Or something. What the fuck was that anyway. A force field? In here? This thing was older than technology itself, it seemed. All things "hardware".

She looked around. It was hard to see in the dimly lit hall. Lighting came from up ahead and somewhere near the floor. Straight ahead, she could see the sass door through which they had come through. It came into focus, finally, the cobwebs clearing from her brain. She tilted her head left and her hair dropping away revealed Nate, still standing, apparently, a camera drone hovering and clicking away near his head and... of all things, his fly open and his large hard cock in his right hand. He was staring intently at something to her left.

She titled her head that way, but all she could see was Emerson on his back, apparently unconscious. That was where the other lighting was coming from. He seemed to have some kind of blue aura. Apparently, the blue translucent bitch was gone, vanished as strangely as she had appeared. The humming sound wasn't there anymore that had been present earlier, an odd calm fallen on the room.

She got up groggily and straightened her clothing, as Nate seemed to sober up and get dressed... What had happened while she was passed out? She was almost afraid to ask Nate. The man kind of made her uneasy. She didn't know him well but his aura of strength was unsettling. He was one of the veterans of Emerson's squad. The guy never had the brains to get any further up the ranks than that, but he could sure pilot a battleship. One of the best. It was rumored he might be piloting a fleet issue battleship or marauder-class ship on the next rotation through the Outer Ring. He had a huge build that he kept up as often as he could, seen spent hours in the gym. His physical power was immense, his aura of strength very present. His face was the tan and rugged face of many Brutor men, a fiercely tribal people that had struggled immensely in its history of slavery. His heavily bejeweled dreadlocks and square jutting face features made him look menacing in the half light of the hall they were in. More than once she had wondered about the man's capacity between the sheets. He seemed never to have any short supply of partners... What would running her hands on his heavily muscled chest provoke in her, she mused. Maybe one day she might find out... One thing was clear from her early sight... he had an impressive cock.

She walked over to Emerson and bent over him. He seemed to be coming to. But the blue light was definitely coming from him. How bizarre.

He opened his eyes. And smiled. A smile to disarm an army of women. In the space of a heartbeat, she melted, crystallized, smiled back and helped him up.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You didn't miss much" he winked at Nate.

"What!" she looked from one to the other. "What happened?"

"Well... that Eusethia chick..." Nathaniel started.

"She disappeared in a flash!" finished Emerson. "Took me out like a light. Bam!"

Nate seemed unsure... an uncommon emotion, apparently, for the giant.

Emerson stepped in closer to Calixte. Whispered. "Fear not. All in pleasure." The last words sounded like a whisper... or a sigh... or like the sleepy breath of lovers at ease. Like a blue pulse around his bestubbled face.

He cupped her chin with his hands, gently, and brought his face close to hers. "Where is your heart, soft one." He breathed softly at her. She could only look into his eyes. They were no longer the blue she knew. They danced with a light only glimpsed. The creases at the corners of his eyelids were a smile in themselves.

She threw her arms under his own, around his back and pulled herself to him. "I thought..." Sigh. "You're safe now." She hugged him hard, slamming her head into his shoulders, closing her eyes. Breathed in deeply and sighed. He was so cold. His body. Usually, he exuded warmth.

He put a hand under her chin and pulled it towards his lips. They kissed. Again, she noticed how cold his skin was. Had they been in this frigid hall so long that they were losing their body warmth? How long had she really been out?

"Is my skin cold too?" She asked, her eyes in his again.

"Oh no! You're warm! So warm." He beamed. Both his hands slid around her neck and buried themselves in her thick wavy hair, tracing cold patterns at the top of her neck. It made her shiver.

"Yo, Emerson, we better scram. As much as I enjoyed the light show earlier, I think we're expected back at the recon ship." Nathaniel sounded a tad irritated. Public displays of affection not his cup of tea, eh?

"Why rush, Nate? Comms are down in this hall. It must be shielded electromagnetically for some reason. Why not enjoy the... sights." The last word, again, a sigh. A brief brush of cold air. Emerson traced his fingers down her back, riding the wave of a chill down her spine. Emerson had glanced briefly at Nathaniel, a weird glint in his eye.

"Hmm... why not." Nathaniel got closer to them, behind her back. "You never did tell me how good a fuck your Wing Commander was."

Calixte opened her eyes wide, glared intently at Emerson. What the fuck did they think they were doing...

She was tight against Emerson and his arms were firmly around her. She felt another pair of hands, above her waist, tracing their way down to her hips, cupping her ass. "Hmm... a nice piece indeed, man. Nice and firm." Nate's hands squeezed her ass.

"You should try the tits, bro." Emerson spun her around, holding her shoulders and Nate was right there, towering over her, a slight smirk on his dark face. Frozen in shock, she felt his huge hands move from her hips to her stomach then up to her breasts, cupping them easily and squeezing appreciatively. "Why yes indeed." They seemed to say. Now his hands were warm... hmmm...

"What the fuck do you think you're..." she started, cut short by Nate's warm mouth against hers. He smelled slightly of sweat, mostly of musky leather, pepper and wood. She couldn't remember the essence, but she knew it... maybe something from the plains in her childhood. As his tongue parted her lips, he tasted of salt, stinging her tongue a bit. His mouth muffled her cries of protest and both pairs of arms kept her securely fastened between them, like a solitary stone between the four clasps of a betrothal band.

Now Emerson's hands were undoing her belt and zero void suit, fasteners unlocking faster and faster. And Nate had shrugged his gloves off, sliding his bare warrior's calloused hands under the tank top she wore under her suit, now fully in contact with her firm breasts. He looked down at her appreciatively. Clearly, he liked what he saw, judging by the bulge she felt forming in his pants. One hand slid behind her back to hold her fast against him, while he unfastened his own suit, parting its front with his other hand. So she would, indeed, see that chest up close. She would have hoped in slightly different circumstances.

"What a smoking body!" He exclaimed as he yanked the rest of her suit off.

"I told you." Said Emerson, as he undid his own suit. "Well worth of every attention."

She was now in her underwear and tank top -- who needed bras in zero-G -- between two male bodies, one warm, one getting warmer by the minute.

Nate slid his hand down her flat stomach to her underwear and slipped frankly under it, cupping her pussy. She felt a flare of warmth and heard something like the rustle of leaves.

"Hmmm... so it also works like that." wondered Nate aloud. What the hell was he talking about... 

Then she noticed that some of the veins in his bullish neck had turned a dark shade of green, almost grey on his dark skin. "Feed, my friend, feed" he whispered -- did he say 'feel' or 'feed'? -- , as he slid a finger between her pussy. She hadn't realized how wet she was. She never had been so vulnerable... never since... 

Emerson was cupping her breasts now, pressing an erect hard cock between her ass cheeks and starting kissing her neck. "Such warmth, little sister." He breathed in her ear, getting more passionate by the second.

"I think I'm going to enjoy this very much" said Nate as he lowered her panties to her knees. "Hold her shoulders, bro." and in a swift movement he hiked her legs around his waist, pressing his hot dick against her pussy. "I think you might even like it." 

His cock pushed inside her pussy and she felt how big it was, stretching her slightly. "Your turn, bro."

As if on cue, Emerson pushed his cock against her asshole and started sliding in. Slower and slower, until his full length was deep into her.

She was so full. Both men were inside her and staying there, enjoying her and getting larger as well. Oh, the feeling. She let out a scream as both got to their deepest. A ragged scream both of pain and pleasure.

They started moving. As they eased out, she felt such a strong and unexpected sense of loss and emptiness... Her eyes grew wide... Then welcomed them back as they made her explode. Oh, god. Her eyes bulged out.

She let her head fall back and her gaze met the ceiling. It was a perfect polish. What she saw in there made her heart lurch. Her own face, flushed with pleasure, her mouth agape with abandon. Was she enjoying herself that much?

Yes... She was... She welcomed their moves now, opening up totally. She started moaning as they started grunting with pleasure. She opened up more and let herself go totally with the flow of their thrusts, watching herself be fucked by these two hunks.

She dug her nails into someone's flesh and screamed into Nate's shoulder, coming violently. She was ready for more though and screamed it, thrusting her head back, eyes closed, leaning into Emerson.

She snaked one arm around the back of his neck and let herself bob with each one of their thrusts, faster and faster.

A steady burn was building in her holes, making her eager for her inside walls to be touched. Nate's cock had grown thicker, if at all possible and felt somewhat prickly, like small thorns on the stem of a rose.

She grabbed her nipple with her free hand and pulled on it, pinching it hard, eliciting a rough moan from her.

Her ass as well was beginning to burn a bit from Emerson's thrusts, the only relief came when his cock was fully deep in her.

"Fuck me harder! Come on!" The men gasped at her outcry and grunted as they redoubled their effort, bouncing her faster and faster.

Her moans were meshing more and more into one continuous cry of utter abandon.

Her hair was flung every which way, sweaty at the tips where it whisked against the sweaty bodies of her lovers.

"Yes, you are enjoying this very much, little sister." The voice behind her.

"Oh... yes... come... cooome in meeee!" she gasped.

Nate's cock throbbed heavily. Flooded her in extreme heat. Tore her pussy apart. Tiny spikes drove into the walls of her pussy as if his cock was latching in, never to leave again. The pain suffused her nerves and melded with the pleasure.

A few seconds later, she felt Emerson's warm sperm shoot up her ass, soothing the burn entirely.

The combination was too intense... She came again, digging nails into her breast. Her gasp was silent, all breath driven away from her lungs.

Her vision swam and seemed to fade to white.

The feeling in her was of something blooming fast... spreading inside... icing her limbs...

Was she passing out?

She couldn't see. She couldn't feel anything anymore.

As if her orgasm had totally obliterated any feeling. Numbed her through and through.

With a dark flash, she seemed to come out of it.

Opening her eyes, she knew she was somewhere else.

On her back.

Her body was a cold block of stone.

She stirred.

OK, maybe not stone.

A curved glass pane hissed open on top of her, freeing her.

Damn... She was in the Hel's clone vat bay.

Emerson was standing next to her vat, fully dressed, a look of bewilderment and then silent horror bloomed on his face.

"No... you didn't just.... Oh god... what is going on..." He buried his face in his hand.



A Scanner Deeply Ch. 07



Wow. That was some pretty powerful shit, right there. First, his orgasm seemed to come from deep within and spread to the surface of his skin like quicksilver, ending abruptly like a raging candle flame promptly snuffed. Then, there had been this huge blue flash that had blinded him for a few seconds. Then Emerson was nowhere to be seen and a vague scent of burnt flesh lingered in the air. Like the smell of the perfumed remains of his departed father, Brutor head tribesman, as the fire of the funeral pyre took to the decaying flesh. The tribesleaders had wanted him to leave his career as a capsuleer to take up the office left vacant by his father. Pheh. Trade immortality for a handful of golden chains and a roomful of smelly old men barely capable of holding their own drool in? No thanks. Nathaniel shooed the unwanted memory away...

*

"Mmmm... Pleasure and pain. Just my kind of mixture. My essence is shaping up rather nicely."

Calixte had disengaged from his cock and turned around to address him. A cerulean aura was wrapped close around her skin. Bloody trails on her legs, running from her between her ass cheeks looked almost black in that light. He looked at his cock. Small rivulets of blood were disappearing into the olive fabric of the symbiot that had made it so huge and spiky inside Calixte's ass. So it drank pleasure as well as pain...

"It's great that all of you had the presence of mind of coming in threes. It makes my coming back that much easier. I guess the power of three is still strong in your tribes."

"Where is Emerson?" inquired Nathaniel, taking a step back "and what do you mean by reviving? Are you talking about your earlier fall?"

The 'power of three' she had just mentioned ringed a distant unpleasant bell in his memory. Since he had recalibrated the learning ability portion of his cortex, he did notice a distinct difficulty at remembering stuff. He had privileged his sensory acquisition nervous paths as well as his reflex center. Remembering things, such as tidbits of local lore he had gathered in his childhood -- another lifetime ago, it seemed -- were like searching for a blueprint copy at night in a station hangar full of blueprint containers armed only with a forehead lamp with Blue Pill running through your veins.

What he did remember was that Calixte was a hot piece of ass... and usually he didn't like tribal girls, especially not Vherokiors, for some odd reason. He remembered a piece of her past that she had mentioned one day, a long time ago, when they were both newbies and running bookmarking sessions in hostile systems. A name. Eusethia. Possible. That entity liked ritual blood sacrifice. Usually three different canine beasts. 

He looked at his nametag necklace. The three headed-bloodhound was on his family crest. Eusethia. A portal. A guardian. He focused his gaze on her face. An ice cold certainty dipped slowly from the top of his spine down to his gut: this was not Calixte in front of him any longer.

She seemed to smile at the gleam of recognition in his eyes. "Yes, I am the gate. Even easier to open than you imagine. Come here and open it up." She glanced at his crotch. "I know you are ready for it."

He was, indeed, still rock hard, as if the orgasm that had torn through his nervous system had been but preliminaries... And he felt it, too. He wanted her again.

The power of three... three keys... three locks.

She knelt down in front of him and reached her hands for his raging member.

Three orifices... one for each key... One for each power... until She rises... until She comes.

Somehow that didn't sound like good news to Nathaniel's ears. He backed off one step and the flash of Eusethia's eyes froze him in his track, during the longest heartbeat in the history of human cardiology.

The reflection of the surrounding drone lights on her lips made them look soaked in blood. His heavy boot went straight for her face and the sound of bone crunching under his sole reminded him of the last time he saw Guidomarko.

Eusethia's torso and head reeled back from the impact. Yet her gaze returned fixedly to his. The flesh of her face, seeming much more malleable then regular flesh, had absorbed the print of Nathaniel's boot. "Of course I should have known this was not going to be that easy." She thrust her hands forward, fingers splayed outward as if catching a basketball of immense size. Nathaniel's backward steps were stopped by a hard surface behind him, where there was no wall. He pressed his back to it, spreading his arms to feel for an opening. In a flash, his awareness spread outward through his back and he had a feel for the whole wall, his knowledge of the force field wall creeping like a vine.

"Heh... I see your little friend helps out in more ways than one." chuckled Eusethia as she got to her feet and resumed her approach. The symbiot... of course... it had to be crawling out on the force field like an extra-fast vine, searching for an opening.

Atop.

The symbiot grabbed hold and hauled Nathaniel over the force field. 

Let's not let her touch us. Us. Rustle of leaves.

The boot imprint on Eusethia's face was slowly disappearing, flesh crawling up under the skin to erase the voids and bumps. She set her eyes towards him as if they were a battering ram and started sprinting to him. He was already in full backpedaling motion, trying to get to an exit. He managed it with a few fractions of a second to spare, grabbed hold of the heavily decorated door with one overpowered hand, and swung it into Eusethia's head. It rang with the depth of a planet-size gong.

He ran down a corridor lined with sleeping cots. Each with a cold cobalt light above it. Not sleeping cots.

Sarcophagi.

Mummified remains.

Fragile as dust castles.

Assembled motes.

The wind of his passage was disturbing them. He switched on his headside lamp, ruining his night sight. He ran faster. Better not to trip. She was still behind, judging by the flickering blue light behind him in the dark corridor.

The next room was a stark contrast with the archaic decoration of the rest of the rooms. Very square and functional, one of its walls held 4 transparent panes. Inside, Nathaniel could distinguish very large humanoid shapes with exceedingly broad shoulders, arms, fists and legs. As he got closer, he realized they were not living. He silenced his steps, unhooked his headlamp and threw it down another corridor and silently approached the panes. If only he was right about what they were, he might just see his way out of this madness.

Indeed he was. Mechanical suits. Awesome. Old. But awesome.

The panels silently swished aside as he touched the control. He turned towards the corridor where Eusethia would be coming from, his back to the meca-suit.

No, whispered a deep husky voice in the back of his mind. Let me take over.

Backing up as slowly as he thought he ought not to make noise, he inched his way towards the open suit and stepped into it, careful not to initiate the warm-up sequence. One leg over the edge of the meca-leg. Another sliding into the other. Now the arms, gently settled against the steel limbs...

Eusethia ran by just as he put his last limb into place. Seeing the light of the decoy lamp, she headed with uncanny speed around the corner and disappeared from his view. Not waiting for her to reach the lamp and realize the trick, he relaxed and let his limbs be driven by the machine, his pod connections sending his movement intentions into the antiquated cortex connection systems of the suit. The footsteps halted in the corridor. Eusethia had stopped running.

'Warm-up sequence engaged' blared the neuro-speaker into his brain. Good thing it wasn't enunciating the steps out loud like some pre-Eden space shuttle launch sequence.

He reached into the display that would get through the nearest wall. He saw Eusethia crouched behind a chunk of metal in the corridor, facing the lamp. He realized it was shining back towards his entrance of the corridor. Eusethia must be thinking he was waiting ahead in ambush with a gun or something. Hah. Lucky shot.

He walked the suit to the entrance of the corridor. Then silently extended the limbs to brace against opposing walls of the corridor. He lifted off the floor and progressed using the walls as walkway for each of his arms, like a giant spider inching its way along the wall to devour its prone prey. Eusethia was still crouching, attentive to what was going on ahead.

Once he got at close enough range, he pulsed the hydraulics of his limbs against the walls and lifted high in the air, in an arch ending where Eusethia was crouching. The noise of the pulse made her turn her head, dark curls whipping about her shoulders, but Nathaniel had already cocked the arm of the suit back and drove the barrel-size fist onto Eusethia. The corridor erupted in metal debris with the whine of an injured docking crane. When the dust settled, the fist was still poised on the woman's broken form.

Slowly, Nathaniel lifted the mechanical fist off the corridor floor, dropping bits of metal and dripping with bodily fluids, probably mainly blood. If she was going to get up, she would have to scrape herself off the floor. Literally.

Nathaniel breathed a sigh of relief and sat his meca-suit back on its haunches. After a few seconds, he switched on coms and tried to find the frequency back to the Hel-class carrier.

That's when the scream started. 

It started off as a high pitch whine, nothing more than a screech barely audible under the drone whirs and the beeping of the suit, but growing steadily in volume. Covering progressively every surrounding sound, drowning out thought, and even eyesight, as Nathaniel tried to cover his head with his gigantic mechanical fists. It grew to a point where ears registered only a gritty saturation scratch, eventually replaced by silence as nothing else existed in this absoluteness of that sound.

And suddenly it stopped.

The silence was deafening and Nathaniel reeled with the shock.

Two discombobulated arms raised themselves from the mass of flesh where Eusethia had been. They pushed the torso off the cratered floor. Slowly but surely, the beaten form of Eusethia -- what had once been the body of Calixte -- lifted itself off the floor, stood on unsteady legs, rearranged elongated limbs and collected itself.

Then turned to Nathaniel and gave off a pulse of the same ear-piercing shriek.

"You set me back! You dare set me back?! I will rip you to shreds!" Nathaniel was feeling rather than hearing the words from Eusethia.

As Nathaniel's mind cleared from the sonic onslaught, he switched on full light beams on the suit. He instantly wished he hadn't and retched into the waste receptacle. Biomass processing. The body in front of him was barely recognizable as human. All the thoracic bones had broken and protruded at different points from the flesh of the chest. Its forehead had been smashed back and the jaw pushed forward out of the skin so as to create somewhat of a canine head shape with the sarcastic grin of a human skull. Most teeth were missing, but those left were broken into pointy fangs. The eyes were now just shadowy cavities in which glowed a cerulean gleam. As it turned its shoulders, the body twitched in steps, as if portions of the spine were rearranging themselves under the torsion. Its legs were bent in an almost lupine angle. Yet it slowly approached Nathaniel's dazed shape.

It bared its 'fangs' and placed its hands palm forward onto the suit.

It pushed its hands into the steel, its hands slowly disappearing into the metal. Shit, just as it had done with Emerson's suit. The metal seemed to resist the intrusion, though, and Nathaniel assumed it was because she -- it -- had become more corporeal.

How many inches did he have until it touched him. The thought spurred adrenaline into his veins and woke him entirely from his daze. He started pushing back, but Eusethia had latched on quite solidly. He grabbed its midriff and jerked it off like a tick off a stray dog and threw it along the corridor. Blue light flashed from within the things body, where more skin had been rended and torn on impact.

Nathaniel did not lose more seconds and turned to flee.

And ran headlong into a new force field.

Damn... she still had enough energy to put those up? With the corridor ceiling being much lower than the sarcophagus room, Nathaniel knew he did not stand a chance to get around the field this time. It was either through the thing... or... well... through it... He braced in racing position and ran, the mechanical legs pumping hard against the metal floor. Reaching about halfway to Eusethia, he tore a pipe off of the walls and cocked his arm, swinging it just as he got within reach of the grinning bloody mess. It threw up its arm and was swept with the blow. With the swinging momentum of its arm, the suit lost its purchase on the ground and rolled forward in an awkward tumble.

Nathaniel got on one knee and looked up. Eusethia was at the end of the pipe, casually making its way along its length and grabbing hold of the sides of the head of his suit. "I have you now, fleshling." Its face flashed blue and hugged the suit bodily, pushing its whole flesh into the armor in the most deathly hug Nathaniel was ever given to witness. The fists of his suit had no purchase on Eusethia anymore as it sank into the suit and Nathaniel pawed frantically at himself. The face, in particular, was making good progress. It came nose to nose with him, through the thinner headpiece pane. A wink. "You're mine." And she kissed him.

A flash of blue and then the pain of being stretched to breaking point and shattered.

Oblivion.

***

"What the hell was that sound, soldier?" asked the wing commander.

"I don't know, sir, but I don't register any vital signs from Nathaniel anymore, Commander." Calixte was not pleased to hear that. For one thing, their clones were starting to get expensive. It was also going to be a hassle to get the Combat Recon back. "We also lost his embarked video feed. Kind of like if he had deliberately turned it off."

"Quick, to the Clone Vats, let's be there when Nathaniel wakes up." Calixte and Emerson ran along the lengthy corridor to the bays where line upon line of rust-tinged neon lights lit the inside of cryogenic tanks for all the Minmatar fighter pilots of the current fleet.

No sign of any of the bays receiving a downed pilot's infomorph data.

"Shit, what is happening to him." Asked Emerson.

"If his body had been stolen by the blue thing, then, like us, he should be emerging in his medical clone." Reasoned Calixte.

"Except if..."

"... his info has been blocked..."

"... on that shuttle."

"Launch a Probe-class recon as escort to a Pod. We need to get our warrior back... and the Combat recon we left out there as well."

***

A voice out of the dark.

Accompanied by the smell of wet turf, decaying leaves and dark rich soil.

"I hate to say I told you so." A voice like gravel rubbing against itself, or like branches creaking against a strong wind.

"What? What happened?" Nathaniel could not see or feel a thing.

"I told you, you should have let me take the lead. You wouldn't have ended up like this..."

"Like what?.. Hey wait... I'm not in my clone..."

"Your... clone? No... you are dead."

"Can't be. I am immortal!"

"Oh are you? No one is immortal. Your body just got absorbed by this... thing you were fighting. I took the liberty of hosting what was left inside me..."

"I... we... are still on this godforsaken piece of scrap metal drifting through space? You should have let me go." Nathaniel did not like the self-righteous tone of whatever was chastising him.

A dim light made itself known in his vision, almost inexistent. Green and amber, still not allowing him to make any sense of where he was or what he was doing.

"Mind telling me what the fuck is going on and where we are?"

"We are in me, I guess, having a conversation with ourselves."

The shape from which the voice was coming was slowly coming into focus, with the growing of the light source. The man stood less than 4' tall, gnarled and hunched like an old olive tree. His hand rested on a cane that seamed made from the same twisted and grooved piece of wood as his hands, face and feet.

"I recognize your voice." wondered Nathaniel. "You've been with me since that symbiot attached."

"Yes... I am that 'symbiot', as you say. I am a god, in fact... at least, I once was... Once."

"Pheh... a god... OK, old man... whatever. You still haven't told me what the hell we are doing here."

"Ah, yes, good question... Well... since you don't have any body anymore... you're kinda stuck here... unless you find someone -- or something -- to host you."

***

"Sir, I have some kind of contact.

"Since we were able to locate the recon, we now have somewhat of a reading of what is going on inside that shuttle." The remote sensor operator was relieved to finally be able to give good news to her commander.

"It looks like some kind of mechanical fight has been going on. Now two organic signatures are hyperactive, probably fighting. They are moving around too much for it to be anything... friendly."

"Thanks. Anything else?" 

"Well.. one of the body signatures is similar to that of Nathaniel and one of them is exactly like Nathaniel. But none of them give off any vital signs."

"Weird. Keep me posted." Calixte turned to Emerson."How is that Probe-class ship doing?"

"He should be coming out of warp as we speak. Good thing there are no hostiles around for this fiasco of an exploration."

"Let's keep our eyes peeled."

***

The symbiot formed a ball-shaped fist the size of two heads and swung it towards Eusethia, who now had Nathaniel's body shape. It parried and, using the momentum of the fist, swung under Nathaniel's guard and placed a kick to his head. The symbiot threw up a mask of bark and sharp twigs, deflected the blow and swung a spike the length of a human arm towards Eusethia's side, effectively impaling its midsection against a wall.

Great choice of a host structure, Nathaniel. That way we both are immune to Eusethia's life-absorbing schemes.

"I can't say it's pleasant though. Including the falling apart thing..."

Eusethia wriggled frantically and eventually managed to rip itself free from the spike, spilling out gore from its side. It launched itself to Nathaniel's head, but the symbiot had been ready and had wrapped green tendrils around Eusethias feet, yanking her back just as she would have connected with her target. A scream of deep-throated rage bellowed from its throat as the tendrils finished wrapping themselves around its body, binding it close and rousing its fury until it seemed it would spew like lava from its eyes.

"What kills this thing?"

Let's try beheading... Not many things or beings survive that kind of treatment.

The two faces were now inches apart. Eusethia's bearing the traits of Nathaniel, with, again, the cerulean glow in its eyes.

Nathaniel's face, recreated by the symbiot to cover his current state...

It was weird to face oneself, concluded Nathaniel. Especially as both faces had the same way to express the hatred of their enemy. He would have to remodel himself as soon as he got back to his quarters.

Suddenly, the symbiot-face sprouted two pairs of mandibles. One clasped to the face of Eusethia, the other started munching at the neck, lascerating the flesh and widening a raged gash on each side of the neck. Eusethia's rage occluded its pain until the surprise of its head disconnecting from its body shaped its lips in a silent O.

The remains of the shuttle fell into deathly silence as the lifeless head fell to the ground.

A flash of blue.

***




A Scanner Deeply Ch. 07



"Whoa! Big EMP wave! The shields of the Recon melted! The probe almost didn't make it out on time! What an insane light show just went on in there! I'll replay the loop, but I think something just combusted in there. One of the organic signatures is gone. Let's hope Nathaniel is the one left."

"Come in, Commander. Come in." crackled a voice from the recon coms.

"Yes, this is Calixte. Who is this."

"This is Nathaniel. I am boarding the Recon to bring it back. My signature changed slightly. Please do not shoot on sight."

"Roger, Nathaniel. We will need positive identification though, after what we saw ourselves."

"No problem, Commander. If my clone accepts me and I don't shine like a Quafe bottle in a microwave, I think that should be proof enough."

***

Docking request accepted. Your ship will be towed into station.

He slipped into an emergency suit, with an integral helmet, inside the recon, after slipping out of the pod. No sense in frightening anyone on board more than they already had.

The ship door slid open and he marched to the docking console.

"Not an entirely unsuccessful operation." His voice crackled over the coms, and he dumped a handful of data plates onto the metal surface. "Something I found in the main generator room." He shuffled with an uneasy heavy gait towards the clone vat bays. "I would bookmark that shuttle if I were you, Commander. And add a sign for extreme biohazard on it..."

A medical attendant rushed to Nathaniel with a full reanimation kit in tow. "Sir, I don't know how you are doing it but your vitals are unread-." He was violently shoved to the side by Nathaniel.

"Let me be." His voice crackled on coms, as he hadn't taken off his helmet inside station.

He reached the clone vats and got to his, deactivated the cryo, opened the glass cover.

The medical attendant ran back to Calixte. "Commander, a clone should not be opened until the infomorph data has been sent in. All reports say this person is dead, dead, dead!"

Nathaniel removed a glove to reveal a brownish-green hand.

A small flash of green passed between the suit and the clone. 

The suit fell in on itself with the sound of some giant animal vomiting.

"What IS this stuff." Asked the medical attendant, as he prodded the suit's clasp with his shoe.

Nathaniel, stark naked, rose from the open vat.

"Oh. No. Don't do that. I had to 'host' myself in one of the dead guys that were in the sarcophagi in that shuttle."

As the helmet unclicked from the suit, a river of gore and bones slithered out and pooled at the feet of the fainting medical assistant.