2 comments/ 9309 views/ 2 favorites Space Station Wayfar Ch. 01 By: Otto26 Copyright Otto26, 2007 * Spaceships, Francesca knew, should hum. The fusion reactor at the heart of the ship should transfer its warmth to the reaction mass and spew it out. The process should make even the best ship tremble like a living thing when it was under way. This ship, however, seemed to... moan. It was perhaps the least obvious of the differences, but it seemed to be the most significant. Perhaps that was because it was the only difference she could really appreciate. The darkness of her cell denied her sight of the strange, almost plastic, material that made up the ship and there was nothing else for her to do except sit, eat, defecate, sleep, and listen to the weird sound of the strange ship. She was certain she'd fallen into the hands of creatures that most people considered nothing more than the semi-lucid tales of deep-space explorers. Her father's decision to risk a dangerous transit in order to pick up the early delivery bonus on their cargo had proven... disastrous. The little black ship had been waiting for them, with weapons none of the crew had ever seen before. They'd tried to fight, of course, since they knew what awaited the victims of piracy. And then the black men in their weirdly misshapen assault suits had swept through the crew spaces, brushing aside their resistance, and she'd seen nothing until she awoke, naked, strapped to a chair and answering questions. She'd gone hysterical, irrationally and completely hysterical, and they'd... done something which calmed her and dragged her through the strange, almost organic corridors of the ship and deposited her in the cell. Food from her ship, still in the wrappers, appeared at various times, lit by a faint glow from the walls. When she was done eating, the glow went away and returned her to the darkness. She'd tried to count meals, but she'd lost count somewhere after forty and wasn't sure that was completely accurate anyway. She suspected there had been a period of longer unconsciousness, but she had no way of being certain. When the glow illuminated the cell she looked for the package of food, but found nothing. Instead, the door to the cell opened. The creature in the blinding light of the corridor took her by the arm and pulled her out. "Walk," he commanded in the strange, sing-song accent that marked their speech. He guided her through the weirdly organic corridors of the ship until they passed through what was obviously an airlock and into architecture that she recognized. The script on the wall was strangely formed, but it was Stanspeak, and it welcomed her aboard the Research Station Wayfar. Less inviting was the reminder that the station was a biological research facility and the caution that extreme safety protocols should be observed. The decontamination stations next to the airlock were obviously not in use and Francesca suddenly felt her nudity very keenly. The man dragged her down the corridor and into an elevator that took them deeper into the station. At their destination they made the careful transition from zero-gravity into the artificial gravity generated by the station's rotation. Francesca, looking for a chance to escape, was disappointed to see her captor made the transition with as much ease as she did. With her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she was able to make a closer study of the man. He was short, perhaps a few centimeters shorter than her, and not particularly large. Rope like muscles covered his body, however, and he walked soundlessly and with perfect balance. His clothing was a form-fitting vacuum skin in mottled shades of black and gray. His face, interestingly enough, was covered in the same mottled shades and she could see that this looked like body modification rather than natural skin tone. His hair was shaved on the sides and the thick strands of hair on top ran down his back in a tight braid. A patch of the dark material that made up the strange ship was visible on the left side of his head. His hands, she noted, appeared to be clawed. So absorbed was she in her examination that she failed to notice they had arrived at their destination. The script on the wall labeled the room inside as a dining facility. They walked in and the man pointed to a chair at a table. Other men, and women, of his type were in the room and they were all examining her. Blushing, she sat in the chair and turned her back to the room in a quest for the greatest amount of privacy. The man returned with a tray that he set down on the table. Two unappetizing gray cakes sat on it, next to two small bulbs of a green liquid. Some vegetables she didn't recognize were on a plate that he placed in front of her. She reached for one, but he tapped her hand with a claw and pointed at the cake and liquid. Sitting across from her he demonstrated, sipping at his bulb and taking a small bite of the cake. Francesca gave the cake a taste and grimaced. The sip from the bulb was, against all reason, even worse. Grimly determined, she quickly wolfed the offensive foods with the minimum of chewing. Gagging slightly, she reached for a vegetable and then doubled over in pain. "Slowly would have been better," the man commented. "Your symbiote has been living on its reserves and has not yet had a reason to expand into your digestive tract. This is likely to be painful." Francesca's scream agreed with his assessment and she fell to the floor in agony as her insides burned and tore. He observed her patiently, nibbling and sipping at his food, and waited for her to finish. It seemed to take a segment, but the pain finally ended and Francesca was able to uncurl from the fetal position. A faint warmth of euphoria seemed to fill her and she felt drowsy. The man, finished with his meal, took the tray away and returned, scooping her up off the floor. Holding her in his arms he carried her out of the room. *** Francesca awoke in a bed and thought, just for a moment, that she was home in her quarters aboard the Pretty Penny. The unfamiliar surroundings killed that notion, however, and she began to wonder where she actually was. 'Not on that strange ship,' she thought. Her eye caught a gleam on the far wall and she saw a strange assortment of weapons hanging next to a mottled black and gray vacuum skin. Her ear caught the sound of a sonic refresher and she realized the man must be in it. Painfully, stealthily, she rose from the bed and reached across for a knife. "I doubt you would be able to injure me," the man said. Shocked, Francesca whirled about and dropped into a defensive stance. "I'm going to try," she snarled and lunged for the man. She had the impression of an impact on the side of her head and then she was crashing into the bed. When her vision cleared the man was placing his blade back on the wall. Francesca could see a line across his flesh where her attack had grazed him. As she watched, the flow of blood stopped and a black foam appeared in the cut and rapidly solidified. "That was well done," the man said. "I had not expected you to have any combat training." He walked over to the bed and climbed on top of her. Still groggy, she tried to gouge his eyes out, but his hands caught her wrists as his knees pried her legs apart. Growling she went for him with her teeth, but his head jerked forward and caught her a blow just above the bridge of her nose. She saw stars, again. "Fucking bastard," she spat. "Technically correct," he acknowledged. Francesca felt his stiff member probing and shifted her hips to avoid him. She tried to bring her legs back to kick him, but he collapsed his body on her and she couldn't quite get into position. She tried to think of something else she could do, her blurry vision searching for a weapon, her nose noting the smell of him. The sudden jolt of warmth in her body was enough to stun her into a moment of inactivity and the man took advantage of that to drive deep into her body. Francesca was shocked to discover that she was wet, and was stunned by the second jolt of warmth that flooded her limbs. Her ears reported that she was moaning and even as she tried to make sense of that she was leaning her head up to kiss the man and wrapping her legs around him. She ground her hips against him as he moved against her with mechanical regularity and lifted her breasts up, pressing them against his smooth chest. His tongue was in her mouth and she was sucking on it, consumed by a desire to be filled by this man. When she felt a sudden warmth inside her she exploded, screaming the pleasure out of her body lest it stop her pounding heart in mid-beat. He was dressed when she regained consciousness. "I am Stepen," he said. "You were good, but you could be better. Study the material on the reader and we will try again later." "No," she whispered. "Yes," he said. "No," she repeated, strongly this time. "Yes," he replied. "You misunderstand the nature of your position. We command, you obey." "When you get back," she said slowly and clearly, "I will have whatever weapon I can manufacture ready to kill you." "I no longer doubt that you would try. To avoid further injuring you, I'll demonstrate why that is a poor idea." The pain that lashed through Francesca's body was enough to drive the breath from her lungs and force her into a rictus of agony. Uncountable moments of suffocating pain passed before she was finally able to breathe again. Gasping for breath she barely caught Stepen's parting comment. "It can be worse than that, and it will be if you have not studied the material on the reader." When she was finally able to breath again, Francesca crawled resignedly out of the bed and pushed the section of wall that would activate the reader. When nothing happened she slapped it angrily. She was about to hit it with her fist when she was finally able to rein in her anger and start thinking. Slowly, she examined the room. On the table against the wall a small construct of the same strange material sat. She approached it carefully and then stopped as it unfolded and began to display a video. The words and the text were completely unfamiliar to her, but the imagery was understandable and the tone of the sound was too; it was instruction, sexual instruction. Grimacing, Francesca ignored it and began to look around for something to turn into a weapon. The machine beeped at her and Francesca turned back to see the material had paused from the moment she turned away from it. As her eyes met the video, it started playing again. Disgusted, she realized the reader could tell when she was watching it. She pulled out the seat and began to watch, determined to finish the tape as quickly as possible and get on with her search for a weapon. As the material continued to play, Francesca learned. The material showed men and women like Stepen engaged in a wide variety of sexual activity. The setting was consistent with the ship she had been held captive on. When a woman and a man who were obviously not of the same race walked into the scene she frowned and tried to understand what was happening. A schematic caught her eye and she studied it carefully with a growing sense of horror. When she was sure, she dashed into the bathroom, heedless of the strident machine beeping, and tried desperately to examine her back in the mirror. 'Those bastards! They put a fucking monster in me!' she thought. She ran back into the room and examined the schematic. It showed a black substance with the consistency of putty being injected into the back of a man. The putty slowly flowed around the spine, molding itself to it and extending fine tendrils along the major arteries and nerve bundles including, she saw with horror and anger, into the testicles and penis. The schematic was joined by footage which showed the man reacting to the presence of a female by becoming visibly aroused. The schematic made it clear that pheromones were the trigger, that the... thing inside her stimulated her body to respond. "Fucking bastards!" she exploded. "Miserable void-be-taken monsters! It's not even my body any more, you've taken it away from me!" She picked up the reader and hurled it across the room where it bounced off the wall and fell to the ground, softly keening and oozing. Francesca sat down on the floor, pulled her knees up against her chest and softly cried. *** "Why did you damage the reader?" Stepen asked as he entered the room. "Because I felt like it," Francesca said flatly. Stepen frowned. "That is not a good reason. We do not have many readers and it will take time for the technicians to convert this station to a proper biological base." "Fuck you," Francesca replied. "Rebellion will not benefit you," Stepen pointed out reasonably. "Eventually you will respond to the conditioning and perform as expected. The sensible course of action is cooperation." "Fuck you," Francesca repeated. "If the fear of personal pain does not motivate you, then perhaps impersonal pain will? The Sunflower has departed the station, but I am in contact with them. I can have one of your cremates subjected to pain. It seems like a waste, but I am tasked with training you to a minimum acceptable performance level." Francesca hissed in pure hatred. "You'd torture someone?" Stepen considered the question for a moment and then shrugged. "I would use their pain to motivate you in the accomplishment of my assigned task," he replied. "I don't believe you," she challenged. Stepen shrugged again and his eyes unfocused. After a minute, they refocused and he was obviously puzzled. "Get up," he snapped. "Fuck you," Francesca responded. Stepen reached down and placed his hand on her shoulder, the tips of two clawed fingers dug painfully into her. It was not the pain, but his deceptive strength which hauled her to her feet. "We need to go to the central brain, now," he stated. "Why?" she asked as she stumbled painfully alongside him. "The net is... confused. I have never seen anything like this. Something is very wrong." 'Good,' she thought with savage satisfaction. *** The 'central brain' had apparently been co-located with station control. Francesca supposed that only made sense; 'good design is good design no matter what technology you're using,' she realized. She also realized that something was indeed very wrong. The machines in the room, much larger cousins to the reader she'd destroyed, were obviously in some distress and warning lights and sounds were emanating from them. "What's wrong?" she asked as she rubbed her shoulder. "I do not know," Stepen replied absently. He walked over to one of the machines and touched it. A console appeared and he began to type. "Use the verbal interface," Francesca suggested. Stepen grimaced. "We do not use a verbal interface. With the symbiotes it is unnecessary. I am attempting to access the logs with this manual interface, but the systems are... They respond, but only with gibberish." Francesca looked at the original station controls and walked over to them. "According to this there was a containment breach in the master lab." Stepen crossed the room and stood behind her. "Can you make it show us?" he asked. "Not unless you take a step away from me," Francesca responded. She was flushed with excitement and she could feel the moisture between her legs. It was hard to think of anything except sex and only by focusing on her anger was she able to keep control of herself. Stepen back away and, after several deep breaths, Francesca called up the video records of the master lab. "There," she said, pointing at the screen. "One of your people went into the lab and opened a sample storage container. It looks like it killed him." Stepen muttered something in a language Francesca didn't know, but she'd heard others like Stepen communicating using it. His tone was angry. "What?" she asked. "Ignatz... One of our soldiers. I did not know he was a follower of strength through suffering. Our commander cannot have known or he would have removed him. What did he expose himself too?" It took Francesca a minute to pry the answer out of computers that considered the containment breach far more important than routine information. When she found the answer she gasped. "What?" Stepen demanded. "Lorenz's Disease," Francesca whispered. "He exposed himself to Lorenz's Disease." "What is that?" "It's..." Francesca found herself at a loss for words. "It's a horrific disease with absolutely no cure. It's wiped out entire systems. Containment is the only way of dealing with it. This must have been a..." Her fingers tapped out commands and she scanned the information returned. "Yes. This was a biological research facility and they were working on a treatment for the disease." She turned to look at Stepen. "Isn't that why you came here?" "No," the man replied distantly. "This station was isolated and the gas giant it orbits is an excellent source of raw chemicals. We thought to establish a homestead here. Where did the body go?" Francesca looked where his finger pointed and saw that the video footage of the master lab had continued playing and the body was indeed gone. She ordered the footage to play backwards at high speed and gasped before ordering it to resume normal speed playback. On the screen, the body of Ignatz flailed wildly and then, shakily, struggled to its feet. Slowly, uncertainly, he walked out of the lab. "Oh void," Francesca breathed. "This should not be possible," Stepen declared. "The symbiote should have protected Ignatz. Where did he go afterwards?" Francesca was already typing commands into the system. Video from the compartment outside the lab showed Ignatz struggling down the companionway. More commands made the computer track him through the video archives as he moved from coverage area to coverage area. In one area he stopped and picked up one of the maintenance drones. With a growing sense of horror, Francesca realized that the drone wasn't a mechanical construct, but a living creature like the symbiote in her and the ones that Ignatz and Stepen must have. They both hissed in shock as Ignatz spat on the drone and dropped it to the ground. The little creature trembled and then went still. Ignatz moved on. "Why?" Francesca demanded. Stepen pointed at the screen. "Strength through suffering is a school of thought which postulates that we can accelerate cultural and physical evolution through a winnowing process of testing ourselves against the universe. The weak will perish while the strong will survive and move on to greater challenges. Ignatz will try to expose everyone and everything because he believes it is his duty." On the screen, Francesca saw the little drone moving slowly towards a cluster of the strange material. A probe extended from it and connected to the device. "The drones are hive creatures and they coordinate their actions by sharing information. They make physical contact and exchange information in RNA sequences," Stepen explained with half of his mind while the rest of him was racing to follow the conclusions to their logical end. "This is why the net is confused. Too many components are reporting gibberish. This will be spreading geometrically. We must evacuate. Can you contact the Sunflower with this equipment?" Francesca shrugged. "If your people haven't done anything to the systems. Will they come back for us?" "Not if we tell them the truth," he said and then paused in thought. "This station must be destroyed. A disease that can affect both human and symbiote life-forms is too dangerous to exist." "If you want to die here then feel free, but I'm not going to give up. I'll transmit to your ship after I've made it to an escape pod. They can pick us up after they burn the station." Space Station Wayfar Ch. 01 Stepen shook his head. "We are contaminated. They cannot risk infection." "We're not contaminated, Lorenz's Disease is transmitted by contact, it's not airborne," Francesca protested. "Research station," Stepen reminded her. "They could have altered the disease. The captain will not risk his crew for us." "Then we wait for some of my people to pick us up," Francesca countered. "The station is expecting a supply run." "The Sunflower is returning to the system where we took your ship to intercept that vessel," Stepen replied. Francesca realized that her world had crumbled entirely through chance. 'They were waiting for that supply ship when we stumbled along and they mistook us for her. Oh void...' She ran through the possible courses of action, looking for one that allowed her to live. "Wait! What if we transmit the station logs to them? Won't they want to tell someone in authority, someone important about this? They might decide to ignore the supply ship and run straight home." Stepen nodded slowly, almost unwillingly. "That might succeed," he admitted. "I'll set the research logs to transmit to the Sunflower and then you can record a message advising them to destroy the station. With the delay, we'll have time to reach an escape pod and get clear of the station. In fact, we'll launch all the escape pods in case they decide to try and hunt us down; that'll make it harder for them to find us," Francesca proposed. "A good plan. But I cannot trust a slave and I must be able to trust you. I offer you... you do not have a proper word for it... clan-oath?" Stepen said. "What's that?" Francesca asked idly, the bulk of her attention claimed by the commands she was giving to the station system. "All members of a... clan are bound by an oath of mutual assistance. If we are bound to each other by this, then I will trust you. I must trust you or we cannot do this and I must ensure that we die here. The clan must be protected." Francesca's fingers froze and her mind raced through possibilities. "You need my skills to transmit the message," she pointed out. "But not to destroy the station," he countered. "You need to trust me as much as I need to trust you," he tried persuasion. 'Void take him!' Francesca silently cursed. 'He's right. I do need to trust him. I have no choice but to trust him. He could kill me and make a break for it by himself, maybe. If he's serious about destroying the station... Damn him!' "Okay," she forced herself to say. "I accept your clan oath and offer mine in return. Acceptable?" "Yes," he said softly. "Ready to record your message," Francesca announced. She listened to him speaking in tones that were equal parts lyrical and guttural. When he was finished, she closed the file and instructed the system to begin executing it. Quietly thanking the stars for the emergency access feature of the system, she set the escape pods to launch on a timer. "Done," she declared. "Here's the fastest route to the nearest escape pod. Let's go." "We must make a stop at this room first," Stepen informed her. "No! Too far. We need to go straight to the pod." "We need a field protein converter," he insisted. "Our symbiotes will starve without a source of food." "Good," Francesca snarled. "I want the filthy thing dead and out of me! Let it starve!" Stepen shook his head. "No, if the symbiote is not fed it will try to feed on you. That will not save it, but it will still kill you. Very painfully." "Then we'll have the med-tech on the supply ship remove them. I don't want it anyway!" "The symbiote will resist this. It will not be successful, but I doubt either of us would survive the process. We need a protein converter in order to survive, Francesca." It was the first time he'd ever used her name, she realized. The thought was enough to break through her resistance and fury, to convince her that he was really thinking of their survival and not just his. "Okay. The nearest pod to that area is... here," she said. "Let's go." *** The corridors were a mess from the takeover of the station, but they got steadily worse as they made their way towards the room Stepen had identified. Half-installed organisms and wandering drones littered their way and the station power was fluctuating and starting to act strangely. The environmental controls, in particular, seemed to be having problems and strange smells filled the air. Francesca knew that someone was trying to do something to the station, but exactly what that might be she couldn't tell. Stepen used his sidearm, another weird, organic creature like all of their technology appeared to be, to shoot several drones. She followed behind him, careful not to approach to closely, and fretted about the time it was taking them to reach the room. A sound from further down the corridor caught her attention as Stepen whirled around and leapt at her. He dragged her out of the corridor and into the nearest open doorway. Francesca flailed at him, digging her fingernails and teeth into his flesh. The warmth flooded her body, hard on the heels of her anger, and she felt herself grinding her ass back against his pelvis. Biting became sucking and the flesh of his hand felt good in her mouth. She struggled to turn in his arms and face him, but he wouldn't let her. A firm finger suddenly pressed next to her clit and began to slowly circle, his lips pressed against her ear, softly kissing her. The sensation was delightful and she reached down and took hold of his hand with hers, slowly moving her hips with his rhythm Her entire body was hot with desire and his stroking calmed her by sending waves of pleasure washing through her. After several minutes he abruptly stopped and she whimpered in protest, thrusting her hips against his hand. The sensation of his lips at her ears suddenly formed itself into whispered words. "You can control it, Francesca. You can. I promise you fulfillment beyond your dreams when we reach the escape pod. Control it for a few minutes." "Yes," she whispered. "I... I can do that." "Good" he replied and released her, stepping quickly past her and into the corridor. She followed him in a hungry haze, but he moved too quickly for her to catch him up and, slowly, the desire raging in her loins began to quiet. The silent cursing in her head filled the void. When Stepen motioned for her to stop she grabbed onto the wall to ensure that she didn't get too close to him. She watched as he settled himself and then stepped into the middle of the hallway and fired. He ran after his shots, following them in, and she ran after him. Two corpses lay in front of the doorway and they had to carefully work their way around them without touching any of their blood. Inside the room, Stepen rifled the shelves until he found what he was looking for. "Quickly," he said. "They must know we are here now. Run for the pod!" It took them two minutes to dash to the nearest pod and Stepen had to shoot one more infected person who got in their way. The pod blasted out of the station scant seconds after they had strapped themselves in and it pinned them to their seats with crushing force. Then, abruptly, it was gone and Francesca felt the warmth in her belly that demanded attention. Stepen's hands reached across and grasped her restraint release. "Yes," she breathed contentedly, and then the hands were gone and she protested, her own hands trying to make the release work. She looked down and saw he'd used a piece of hull tape to cover the release; the tough material was used to repair micrometeorite breaches and her fingers would never be able to release it. "You promised!" she shouted. "Yes, but the symbiote is driving your behavior, Francesca. I regret that I am unable to reverse the effects of your implant, so I have restrained you to prevent you from taking actions you would regret later. The pod is simply too small. If we are rescued then there will be adequate room to separate us," he explained. "Void! None of that bothered you before!" she spat at him. "You were a slave that I was training," he replied. "Now you are a... comrade. Family. I must act in your best interests and at this time you are incapable of making a rational decision. If I acquiesced in your wishes, you would be angry when the effects of the symbiote faded." "My interests?! It's not enough that you did this to me, now you're going to force me to ask for it? Void take your soul, Stepen! Get over here and fuck me!" The man shook his head slowly. "I am sorry, Francesca." Francesca snarled wordlessly in animal frustration and rage. The desire that sang in her body was painfully insistent and made it difficult for her to focus, to think. "Please, Stepen. Please. I need this. I need you," she said in the calmest voice she could manage. He shook his head again. "Just the symbiote." "Yes," she agreed desperately. "Just the symbiote. But the symbiote is part of me, Stepen. I have to live with it. I need you to help me live with it! You swore an oath," she reminded him. "I do this because of our oath," he tried to explain to her. "Just a little, Stepen," she begged him. "Just a touch. A kiss. Please, Stepen." Stepen sat quietly for a moment and Francesca whimpered quietly, involuntarily. Then he shifted until he was in front of her and bent his head between her legs. "Oh, thank you, Stepen," she whispered as she felt his lips against hers, his tongue darting across her wetness and circling the hard nub of her clitoris. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." His caresses brought her back into balance and restored her ability to think, though they did little to eliminate the burning desire within her. As his tongue grazed the side of her clit her body jumped and she reached her hands down to stroke his head. "More of that," she growled. His compliance was instant and she hissed in pleasure. "More. More. More," she demanded, and he delivered. The orgasm caused her body to shake violently against the restraints and Stepen was still driving her deeper and deeper into it. She lost the ability to breathe and saw a red mist creeping in at the sides of her vision. And then it stopped and she was sliding breathlessly towards warm sleep. "What does this say?" Stepen demanded. Drowsily, happily, Francesca picked up the package in her lap. "Oh. That's a med kit," she said muzzily. "Yes, but how does it work?" he asked. "Automated," she replied. "S'all automated." "Which is the sedative?" "Why?" she giggled. "Which?" he pressed. Her fingers seemed heavy and the blissful lethargy of sleep called to her. "This one," she said. "Thank you, Francesca," he said from far away and kissed her softly. "Mmmm" she thanked him, and drifted away on the wings of bliss, never feeling the injector he placed against her neck. *** "...any time now," a strange voice declared. Francesca opened her eyes and blinked against the light. "Like I said," the voice said smugly. "Where am I?" she asked. "Med bay of the IMS Blue Horizon," the voice said. "We were making a contract supply run to the Wayfar. Can you tell us what happened?" 'Imperial merchant ship?' Francesca thought. 'What are Stellas doing this far from their home?' she wondered. Something about the man's voice made her distrust him. "Pirates," she said in a thin voice, dry with thirst. "I'm the cargo officer on the FTAS Pretty Penny. They were waiting in Chandaguptra's Star system and picked us off. I don't know how they took the station, but they did. One of them was some kind of cultist and exposed himself to some samples in the biology lab." She ventured a glance at the men and gauged their reaction. 'They knew,' she decided. 'This is some kind of test.' "I managed to make it off the station to an escape pod. I think the pirates blew the station, but I don't know. Did they?" "Yeah, they blew it," one man muttered. "What about the guy with you? Your partner?" Francesca laughed and then coughed as the dryness in her throat took over. Someone put a straw in her mouth and she took a long sip of the liquid. "No," she said. "He's one of the pirates. He was supposed to be training me as some kind of sex slave. They put something in me, some kind of symbiote, it let them inflict pain on me." She could see two of the men react, relax, and she knew then what the test had been. "You need to lock him up and keep him alive. These symbiotes, they're alive but they aren't the same as humans." "An artificial life form built using synthetic DNA," the first voice said. "Something like that, I guess," she agreed. 'Time for a test of my own.' "Any chance you can take it out of me?" she asked. "Too dangerous," the man quickly replied. "It's wrapped around your spine and it's got tendrils that go everywhere important in your body. Better we let some academics at a big medical center take a look at this." 'Ah,' she thought, glumly. "Would you be willing to talk to the pirate?" another man asked. 'Bigger, older, hard eyes, probably the captain,' she decided. "Yes, so long as there's lots of space between us," she said. *** Stepen wasn't restrained, which surprised her, until the thought that Stellas, even merchants, would have really good confinement facilities crossed her mind. He looked at the vid screen and didn't appear to react when he saw her face. "I can't bring myself to thank you," she said. "I want to tell them to kill you, slowly, for what you did to me. For what your people did to my father and the rest of my family aboard the Penny. But I can't convince them to do that either. So let's call it a wash. They need to know how to feed you, Stepen. I need to know how the protein converter functions." Stepen growled something low and in his own language. "What?" she asked. "Starve in agony," he translated for her. "Nice. I think I know how to make it work, but if I'm wrong I might hurt it. You can always choose to die later, Stepen. I know what your oath demands and you are allowed to survive." His stare bored into her and she began to sweat, afraid that he would actually choose to die, afraid that she would die with him. "I must touch it," he said. "It slumbers in hibernation, but I can awaken it. Once I have done that it will function so long as it is fed. Feed it anything edible and the waste products it produces will contain the proteins necessary to sustain the symbiotes. It is a symbiote itself and must consume some of the proteins produced. Keep it well fed." Francesca grimaced when she realized her life depended upon eating the waste products of an artificial life form. "Your pistol," she pursued. "Does it need to eat this as well?" "Yes." "Okay," she sighed. She decided against thanking him. *** The Stellas mocked her dietary supplement, of course. The sting was taken out of it by her knowledge that any crew would do the same with an outsider. A ship was a tiny bubble of life floating through a hostile universe and the people that made up the crew became closer than family. When she reacted to the mocking by laughing with them, and occasionally biting back, they accepted her as 'okay' if still not family. Besides, bread was made with the waste products of another life form. Still, Francesca suspected it was mostly an act. She'd met enough ships' crews, even Stellas, to know that this crew was not typical. They were too uniform, too young, too fit, and they didn't bicker in the way that families did. Though she couldn't prove it, she was sure they were actually military. It explained too many things: the isolated research station, the behavior of the crew, their desire to get her to a medical facility as fast as possible. Cargo officer she'd been, but on a small ship everyone knew a little bit about everything. And she knew that the ship was transiting systems faster than was safe, faster than should have been possible even in a state of the art Imperial merchant ship. It made her nervous. She spent most of her time answering questions. She recorded her impressions of her experiences. She was scanned daily in the medical bay. She worked on the available fitness machines. And she plotted. It took her two months to discover the means of her escape and another month to establish a routine that would allow her a reasonable chance of putting her plan into action without alerting the Stellas. It was another two months before the right conditions were in place. *** The Stellas had dipped into an inhabited star system to refuel. Francesca had known that they would. While they could refuel by diving through the outer atmosphere of a gas giant, that entailed extra risk and labor and produced a substandard fuel that decreased the lifespan of the power plant. Better to take the time to refuel someplace inhabited, someplace with quality fuel and mapped space lanes. The ability of the ship to go as fast and far as it had was both impressive and frustrating to her; every jump took her closer to what she was sure was captivity. But even if it was a heavily modified cargo ship, it was still a cargo ship and Francesca knew cargo ships. Her plan wouldn't have worked on military ship; they were built from scratch to specifications that were custom generated. But cargo ships used commercial technology that had been built on specifications hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years old. Configurations differed, but the modules that composed the core of the system remained unchanged in any important way. And the men staffing the ship were not merchanters, had not grown up working cargo ships, had never seen what kind of tricks clever teenagers with no fear of death and no comprehension of consequences could come up with. The code was broken, but it looked good to the parser so it was passed without question. The module that received the code choked on it three times and then kicked the code back to the parser, which checked it and decided it was good. The code was passed back and forth three times before the parser decided it needed to restart itself as part of a function check. It was just a minor part of the lighting system, after all, and not an important system. Francesca's program sent the next chunk of code through while the parser was down. It contained a value that was too large for the recipient program to process. The parser would have caught it and kicked it back, but the parser was restarting when that code came through. The recipient program choked and sent an error message. One by one, the carefully crafted program knocked over the dominoes in an increasingly complicated dance that culminated in the soft whisper of silent darkness as the reactors went offline. It shouldn't have been possible to cycle all the reactors through their self-diagnostic shutdown process at the same time, but her program had spoofed the system to create the proper circumstances. The memory of sharing that program with her cousin Mira, of demonstrating her teenage superiority over the stifling adults, sent a brief pang of sorrow through Francesca. She wondered where Mira was now, if she was being trained to service the monsters that had captured them. Like the one she needed to rescue. The containment seal had safety measures, of course, but Francesca bypassed these with an ax and reached her hand inside to grasp the handle of Stepen's weapon. It seemed to mold itself eagerly to her hand and she felt it... itching against her palm. Pushing the thoughts aside, she walked out into the hallway and began making her way towards the cells. The power coming back on was what saved her. She expected it, but the crewman waiting outside the cell didn't. While he was half-blinded and surprised she floated out and leveled her weapon at him. "Don't," she warned him when he perceived her presence. Space Station Wayfar Ch. 01 "This is a mistake," he tried to reason with her. "Perhaps," she agreed, "but it's better than being a lab sample for the rest of my life." "You'd rather be a slave to him?" he asked. Francesca couldn't think of an answer to that and was spared the effort of trying when her program cycled the cell doors open and Stepen shot out and grasped the guard by the neck. The guard struggled for a moment and then collapsed. "Should I kill him?" Stepen asked. "What? No. Just put him in the cell," Francesca directed. Stepen dragged the man inside and came back out, closing the cell behind him. He handed the guard's weapon to Francesca and peeled his from her hand. "Now we are armed. Good. What next?" Francesca hefted the larger firearm in her hands and started moving down the hallway. "Escape pod time," she explained as the power again went out again. "But they might be able to listen to us, so I'm not going to explain." "I trust you," he said. The words, and his sincerity, shocked Francesca. She wanted to puzzle that out, but the situation simply didn't allow for that time. So she pushed the thoughts and feelings aside and concentrated on the next step. She was careful to put her survival suit on before she allowed Stepen anywhere near her. The suit sealed itself and, when she hesitantly reached out a hand to touch him, cut off the signals that would trigger her lust. She released a deep breath when she realized that the idea worked. Stepen, seemingly oblivious, figured out the unfamiliar suit shortly after she did. She motioned for him to follow her into the escape pod and then closed the door behind them. Crawling past him, she typed a code into the computer and waited. After a minute she became aware of the reduced atmosphere and then, with the pod vented to space, the escape hatch opened. She crawled out and motioned for Stepen to follow her. He moved slowly, apparently unfamiliar with the gecko pads, and Francesca's motions grew agitated. He nodded and visibly tried to hurry. They were barely at a safe distance when the pods, all of them, launched. Francesca took a moment to make sure the second survival suit, the one with the protein converter inside it, was safely tied around her waist before she pointed to the fueling station looming above them. She mimed jumping and then went, not waiting to see if Stepen followed. *** "This is highly irregular and there will have to be a hearing," the station manager declared. Francesca nodded her acceptance, again. She'd been doing a lot of that for the past several hours and it seemed to be accomplishing her goal of putting the station authorities at ease. "Of course, Stationmaster. We only ask for a fair hearing. What tasks will we perform to pay for our upkeep?" "That will be determined," he told her. "You will be escorted to a transient accommodation by my personnel. You will not venture into any other portions of the station. Keep your tracking bracelets on at all times; removal, in your case, will merit the death penalty. Do you understand?" "Yes, Stationmaster." *** Francesca pressed herself against the far wall. Stepen, understanding her intent, stopped himself just inside the door and did not approach any closer. "How close do you have to be?" she demanded. "The closer I am, the stronger the effect," he explained. "At this distance it will take some time for you to fully feel the effects. Would you prefer that I step outside?" "Not yet," she said. "Look, my story has so many holes in it that it's only a matter of time before the Stationmaster decides to just lock us up and sell our debt." It was a best case scenario, but she didn't want to even mention the words 'biological hazard' in a monitored space. The station might not care about them if they didn't cause trouble and left as soon as possible, but if they thought they were a biological threat they would react ruthlessly. "If we behave ourselves and leave as soon as possible then the station won't care. Not their problem any more. The Stellas don't want to cause any problems here, so they're mostly keeping quiet. I need to check the boards and find work on a cargo vessel. We need to get away from the station and not cause any problems." "And after that?" he asked. "And after that we can come up with another idea. Can we go back to your people?" He shook his head. "Mine won't be too wild about us either," she said. "We'll have to think of something." "If I do not then I am confident you will," he said. "You have proven yourself very resourceful and courageous. I do not think I would have tried to deceive the crewman with an ineffective weapon." "Ineffective?" she asked. "My weapon. Surely you felt it trying to make contact with you? But you are not equipped to handle a weapon." Francesca vaguely recalled the creepy feeling of the weapon in her hand, the persistent itch on her palm. "It wouldn't have worked?" she asked quietly. "You did not know this?" Stepen asked. She shook her head and was surprised to hear Stepen laughing. "I didn't think you had a sense of humor," she blurted. "You were wrong." To Be Continued...