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Black Rain Ch. 01

By: bluefox07



EDITED BY:

Miriam Belle

CREATIVE CONSULTANT:

Simply_Cyn

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

-"For those who have been following this story, you'll notice some subtle changes to the plot, especially in this chapter. I realized halfway through the story that certain elements were not going to work that I had established here in the first chapter. I've pulled an executive decision and made the necessary changes to make a better story.

The long stretches of time between chapters are because I am taking longer to write and then edit the installments with Miriam. Also, as many of you know, I've been going through a divorce, learning how to be a single dad of two children (one 2 ½ years old and the other 9 months old) and attending school to get my teaching credentials. SO, with that in mind, it may take a little longer to get each chapter out there but I swear I haven't forgotten the stories or the people who read them. You guys are awesome, and I can't thank you enough for your generous support and comments.

With that in mind, enjoy!" –bluefox07

*

ARRIVAL

TERRAN EARTH DATE

01. 15. 2179

***

Sixty-nine people slept peacefully in their cryo-tubes as the sleeper ship Haven dropped out of hyperspace and sped through the infinite expanse of the stars. Its mottled gray hull was shadowed and dark, scored from meteorites that had collided with its heavy armor plating. Long, black streaks indicating heat burns from past re-entries feathered the forward prongs of the large starship. The Haven was shaped like a large horseshoe, tapered at the forward hull to ease her travel through atmosphere. The Haven was the only interstellar craft of her kind to return from 15 consecutive missions in one piece and without a man or woman lost. Her crew felt the design of their ship was symbolic of their luck.

The hull was smooth for the most part, only a few protrusions here and there to house sensor equipment and auto-navigation receivers. Several spires, each two meters tall spiked near the engineering hull at the base of the "U." Three broad engines lined two thirds of her stern, deeply embedded in the design of the vessel to keep the integrity of her curve. They glowed a bright blue, both powerful and intimidating as they propelled Haven to her destination.

While it was mute in the cold void of space, it was even quieter within the ship. A powerful central computer powered by an A.I. brain ran the ship silently and efficiently as the crew and passengers slept. The bridge was quiet, the passageways empty and the lights powered down to conserve energy. Only the life-support machines in the cryo-tube holds were active in their daily routines, governed by the A.I.. The Haven was a masterpiece of technology, a perfect machine for the dangerous business of colonizing new worlds.

The bridge of the vessel was centrally forward to the engineering section, nestled in the bottom curve of the "U", allowing its crew an amazing view of her unique design and the open space beyond. In the twin cargo sections, one in each pylon that helped form the "U" shape of the ship was the passenger tubes. Thirty identical cryogenic tubes were equipped in each hold, all lined perfectly with one another. 

The holds were cold and sterile, devoid of any human décor or sense of home and hearth. It was strictly business, the only hints of individual personality pulsing from the many collections of computer terminals and readouts adorning each tube. They blinked and monitored each human, maintaining the delicate balances needed for sustained cryo-hibernation. With out this technology, man would never have been able to reach deep space.

According to the A.I. computer network that helped design the ship, the only potential flaw in its perfect equation of symmetry and function was the human element. Even in stasis, with the functions of the body reduced to a state of suspended animation the mind was allowed to dream. The computer monitored and adjusted the bio-readouts accordingly to keep its precious cargo safe and undamaged, but it could not control the occasional nightmare or dream. All it could do was compensate by administering a pre-determined amount of sedative to lull the sleeping passenger back to a blank sleep.

The ship viewed their dreams with all the understanding of a child to calculus. While the formal definitions of a dream were known to it and the psychological implications understood to the furthest extent, it could not identify a reason for the dreams. They were an odd byproduct of the inefficient human psyche, sometimes pleasurable but mostly uncomfortable. More often than not, sleepers on long journeys like this would be plagued by nightmares.

But there was always the exception.

The A.I. translated imagery it received from the neural link into one of the men. He was the captain of the ship, and his sleep was filled with imagery both erotic and emotional. The A.I. was not allowed to record the data, but it could observe. Its curiosity was innocent and unbiased as the visual feeds revealed the dream inside Captain John Ashton's mind. On video display above his tube, static sounded off and a glowing picture lit the shadowy bay.

The A.I. observed.

The sun was setting, the entire sky hot as though on fire with brilliant reds, oranges and yellows. 

"This all seems so surreal," a dark haired, beautiful woman told him as she sipped her ice tea. In the hot light of the setting star, her body glowed with an avaricious luminescence. The computer, watching through Ashton's' eyes still could not take its gaze off her. The woman was recognized as Tishara Lee, the First Officer of the ship. The machine contemplated the consequences of the two commanding officers in a romantic relationship and the adverse effects that might have on their mission as it followed Ashton's eyes in the dream. 

Tishara was beautiful by human and even alien standards. Each of her breasts were evenly tanned and revealed no hint that she had ever worn a bikini in her life. A shade darker than her soft skin, her areolas spread out in perfect dollar-sized circles. Tishara's nipples were long and beautifully erect, her sensitive nubs casting thin shadows across the smooth terrain of her bosom. 

"Yes it does," Ashton propped himself up on one arm and momentarily took his eyes off her. He looked out at the ocean and smiled. In a way he felt somewhat like the ocean itself. His potential vast and hidden, only a small fraction of who he was could be seen from afar. The waves on the beach were perfect representations of his understanding. He could only go so far up the beach and then loose his momentum, slipping back. But that didn't stop him from trying again.

The computer processed this concept. How odd that the human could find comfort in something so abstract?

"There's something I need to tell you," Tishara said softly.

Ashton looked to her as a cool breeze whispered over his naked body. He asked, "What is it?"

"Don't freak out on me, okay?" she looked at him, her eyes filled with bold courage and subtle uncertainty at the same time. The breeze caused some of her thick hair to blow in front of her face as she said, "I think I'm-"

Ashton waited for her to finish as she struggled with her words.

"It's okay," he said and touched her face gently.

She smiled and kissed his fingers, "I'm in love with you."

A sudden exhilarating sensation swarmed through his body as he replayed the words over and over in his mind. The waves were beginning to touch their feet as the tide gradually came in. Ashton didn't shiver as another wave snaked up to their feet, this time cresting at his calves. His nipples hardened and he smiled at Tishara. He said, "I love you too."

The computer analyzed this interaction. As sophisticated as it was, the A.I. could not comprehend the feeling it monitored in Ashton. His heart was pounding in the dream and so it was now in his tube. His body was reacting to the words he had heard. The power this woman held over him was immeasurable. The A.I. began to consider the possibility of sedating Ashton further, to keep him in the green.

Yet it waited.

It watched.

They came together and kissed as the dream became thick with the memories of flesh and seawater. Glistening foam gathered around them as they kissed for what seemed like forever, their bodies pressed closely together. Tishara grasped Ashton's buttocks and rolled him on top of her, wrapping her elegant legs around his waist. Their tongues slid together in a deliciously smooth caress that did more to express their erotic intentions than anything else. Gentle licks and rubbing from their open mouths set them afire in the surf, Ashton's cock hardening and now ready for her again.

The A.I. noted the effect on the captain as he became aroused in his tube.

"You know what I'd like?" she whispered in his ear as she stroked his smooth scalp.

"What?"

"I'd like you to fuck my tits," she licked his ear lobe and then traced around the complicated ridges of his ear. The computer analyzed the meaning and implied actions of her words, everything from the vulgar sexual advance to the slang to the physical response in Ashton's bio-readings as he relived the moment.

Ashton kissed her and then straddled her, his balls heavy and hot against her soft skin. His eight-inch cock speared out like a thick branch to a strong tree. Water lapped at Tishara's ass as she held his cock at the base and ran the thick, bulbous head around her left nipple. Ashton stretched his back and moaned as she teased his cock against her soft boobs. She then placed his throbbing member between her mounds and pushed them together. 

"Fuck them," she breathed huskily, rubbing her fingers around her hardened nipples. The feel of her firm, glistening boobs was almost too much for Ashton as his hips began to thrust back and forth. The base of his cock tingled as his balls churned their fluid, warning him of an impending orgasm.

"Cum for me Ashton," She slipped her tongue out and lapped at his cock head as it plunged in and out of her massive cleavage. Water sprayed behind them and showered Ashton's broad, muscular back as he linked his arms behind his head and fucked her tits for all he was worth. The sinewy muscles of his abdominals and pectorals flexed and released with each powerful hump, his dark skin damp with sweat and ocean spray. 

"Oh, Tishara," he moaned as a sudden swell of heat shook him, a breath hitching in his chest. Semen was rocketing through his cock as he grunted and shut his eyes tight. Tishara purred and squeezed her tits together hard, completely enveloping his hard member. The intense heat of her tits around his cock was too much. 

Hot white cum spurted out from between the crevasse of her cleavage in a powerful ribbon. It splattered Tishara's face in a long, ropy line of semen that stretched from her forehead to her full lips. Another gob of semen exploded out and splashed her chin and neck. Tishara rubbed her tits up and down his spasming dick as his sticky, sweet jizz erupted from his swollen head. 

Ashton's knees gave way as the last of his load dripped out of the small eye of his penis. Tishara sat up as the tide washed over them again. She cupped her large breasts and brought them to her lips. Her eyes never left Ashton's as she licked and lapped his semen up off her globes. Ashton watched like a little boy seeing his first set of titties, completely engrossed and hypnotized. 

Ashton leaned in and fondled her tits as she tilted back a little. He could taste the salty remains of his own orgasm still fresh on her skin. Ashton passionately licked and suckled on her nipples. Tishara moaned her approval as his expert tongue flicked and rubbed her ultra-sensitive nubs. He sucked harder and harder, using his tongue to run circles around her heaving tits. He then squeezed them together and began licking both simultaneously. He nibbled on the left tit, still pinching the right one between his thumb and forefinger.

Tishara looked up into the sky as she relished his mouth on her. The hot fire of the sunset was fading into a warm array of purples and blues as the eastern sky grew dark. Impossibly bright stars twinkled in the sky as water washed over them. It was all so perfect, so picturesque and everything she had ever wanted. Tishara smiled, forgetting about the whole world and only knowing Ashton. 

She spread her tanned thighs wide open. Ashton looked down at her bare pussy. Her lips were swollen and shiny from the ocean water, though they both knew it probably wasn't just water. She ran one hand under between her thighs and used her fingers to spread apart her labia. She looked at his face as she ran her other hand around the mound around her pussy. Ashton appreciated her sex with a reverence he had saved only for church in his childhood.

"Everything about you is beautiful," he whispered.

"Touch me again," she looked at him and ran her index finger over her delicate slit. She moistened the finger and held out its glistening tip to Ashton. He leaned in and sucked her nectar-coated finger. Ashton already knew her flavor, but each time he tasted her he couldn't help but relive his initial excitement.

Ashton lay on his stomach between her legs and ran his tongue up her thighs to her slit in a long, purposeful tease. He let his tongue lazily wash her pussy and roll over her swollen mound. The scent of her arousal was a powerful aphrodisiac that only made his erection harden again. He felt it growing in the wet sand beneath him as he began to eat her out.

He brought his tongue to her clit before diving into the pussy she was still holding open for him. He could feel the heat of her cunt against his chin, her sex dripping with anticipation. He gently made love to her pussy with his tongue, sliding the muscle in and out of her sopping interior. Intermittently, he would nibble her clit and tease it out from under its hood. 

"Ooooh fuck," Tishara breathed rapidly as Ashton tongued her swollen button. Her moans were becoming cries of pleasure as he picked up his pace and ravaged her clit, attacking it with all the skill and tenderness he knew how.

"Fuck yeah!" she whimpered and began pulling at her nipples hard. Ashton looked up and saw her fleshy mounds being pulled up by the nipples in her firm grip.

Ashton took her clit between his lips and began nibbling hard.

"FUCK!" she screamed as her abdomen contracted and her pussy walls suddenly spasmed and squeezed. Tishara's hips bucked twice and then a gush of hot nectar squirted from her swollen vagina in a sudden burst. Ashton felt the warm fluid run down his chin as he lapped at her.

The A.I. considered the word "fuck" and analyzed its usage here. Sexuality was one of the cornerstones of the human experience. Sexuality was the defining trait of the human species, their society and positions sometimes influenced by gender. The need to procreate was as ingrained in them as were the routines and sub-routines of the A.I.s main programming. The humans could not deny this instinct any more than the machine could rebel against its program.

"Fuck me right now," she growled through gritted teeth. Tishara flipped over in the surf, the water now curling lazily around them as the waves began to float their sheet. Ashton noticed the condoms were drifting away and he grabbed the last three rubbers. He opened one and then tossed the remaining two up the beach a few feet away. The water has submerged his knees and calves as Tishara lay down on her stomach and lifted her buttocks in the air. He could see her pussy lips, swollen and glistening below her perfect ass.

Between her luscious butt cheeks he saw her small, tight asshole. Ashton ran his tongue down the cleft to her puckered opening. She moaned and pressed her body against him. Ashton then straightened up and positioned his swollen head against her pussy lips. She dropped her face into the sand and lifted her ass high in the air. Ashton was going to go in slowly, as a courtesy for her if she had become chapped or sore during their lovemaking. Tishara pushed back suddenly and Ashton slipped inside her.

Her pussy tightened around him like a hot clamp, squeezing his thick shaft and pulling him in deep. He adjusted his position on his knees and grasped her hips with his large hands. Ashton knew she was telling him to fuck her hard, and he had no problem with that. He started thrusting hard, humping her with a wild look in his eyes. He growled against the heat of her inner sex as his cock plowed deep.

"Fuck me hard," she moaned. With each thrust he drove deeper and deeper into her body. His balls slapped against her as the tip of his cock began pressing against her cervix. 

"Oh fuck baby yes!" Tishara cried out. Her massive breasts were hanging down so that the erect nipples were dragging in the sand with each powerful thrust. Her eyes clamped shut as her lips drew back in a primal expression of lust. Tishara had dug her fingers into the wet sand as water splashed between their legs. She threw her head back and Ashton grabbed a tangled mass of her thick black hair. Her hands emerged from the sand as water washed them off. With her left hand, she reached around and grabbed his full ass. Her right hand alternated between rubbing her clit and massaging his balls.

Without a word, they disengaged. Ashton had wanted her to ride on top of him, and she had received his message. His cock slid out of her cunt and they switched positions. Ashton laid on his back flat as Tishara squatted over him. She lowered herself to his aching cock and let the head submerge in her depths.

"You tease," Ashton moaned as Tishara winked at him. 

"I gotta have some control here," she smiled lustily and began lowering herself down, impaling herself on his long, thick dick. She screamed as he thrusted his engorged cock up and into her pulsating pussy. There was wet, squelching sound as her cunt took his cock in all the way. Her silky buttocks rested against his skin for a moment before they resumed.

Ashton memorized this moment between them, burning it into his memory. According the A.I.s analysis, it was the most clear and potent imagery of the dream. As she rode him, her obsidian dark eyes flashed at him in the waning sunlight. A beautiful half-smile had crooked across her lips revealing her perfect white teeth. Her breasts were bouncing back and forth at the mercy of her rhythm. Her attention was focused on him completely. 

Tishara braced herself against his pecs and leaned down, bringing her lips to his. She kissed him deeply, her intention not so much to convey need and desire for him, but to also express her love for him. Ashton's release of his soul to her passed like silky lightning between them, a current of pure emotion that rode the curves of their tongues and was powered by the energy of their bodies.

Again, the A.I. could only observe this exchange. It could not understand it.

He cupped her breasts and supported them as they kissed. Ashton watched her break the kiss and slowly sit up, never once interrupting her pace. She closed her eyes and ran her hands through her dark hair, lifting the body of it up in the air above her head. She changed her rhythm and began fucking him with special, embellished movements. Her hips swayed and undulated in simple fluid motions that almost seemed like a dance. The muscles in her stomach rippled as she concentrated on making love to him. 

Water splashed up in the air behind her, the spray catching the last of the sun as it sank into the ocean. The water sparkled around her in a slow motion shower and Ashton knew if he were to die tomorrow he could die a complete man. As she picked up the pace of her rich, erotic fuck Ashton held her hips firmly, allowing for her special moves and enjoyed her.


Black Rain Ch. 01



"No matter what happens," she moaned, bringing her mouth next to his ear as Ashton's cock began to swell with another orgasm, "no one will ever take tonight from us."

She licked his neck and nibbled on his ears as her pussy started to spasm and twitch around his shaft. Ashton brought himself halfway up to face her massive breasts. He took one sensitive nipple into his eager mouth and started licking and sucking her. They were very close to reaching their plateau together. Ashton began biting on her nipples.

"Oh John," she groaned, "Don't slow down baby... don't slow down..."

They fucked each other harder and faster as Ashton wildly tongued her delectable tits. Tishara threw her head back, her wet hair whipping to her backside in unabashed pleasure. Her soaking pussy was slurping at his cock, demanding his orgasm now.

"Oh fuck baby," Ashton closed his eyes tight as his balls tightened. 

"Yes!" she screamed out, her face turned up to the sky as her pussy shuddered and grasped his cock tightly, "YES!"

They could not stop their momentum, even as their respective orgasms rocked their bodies. The sexual energy of their climax joined into one hot bolt of lightning and seared through them, fusing them into one person. Ashton cried out as he seized, every muscle in his body tight and frozen as his cum filled the reservoir of the condom deep inside Tishara's body. He groaned into her fleshy breasts, clamping down on her erect nipple with his teeth.

Tishara screamed as she rode the arc of her climax, still humping him and still face up into the night sky as the waves washed over their coupled genitalia. She continued to cry out into the darkening sky until at last the power behind their mutual orgasm began to recede. Her chest heaved up and down as she worked her open mouth back and forth, trying to catch her breath.

They remained this way for a while as the tide submerged their legs and lapped at Ashton's chest. She waited until his cock had deflated inside her and then let him slip out of her. She remained on top of him as the night claimed dominance over the day once more. Ashton ran his hands up her curvy hips and to her full breasts. He massaged them gently and said to her, "I love you

"I love you," she smiled down at him.

The computer began to lose the image as the captain stirred in his sleep. His vitals were high and his blood pressure increasing with each passing second. The A.I. prepared to administer a sedative when it detected aberrance in its functions. The command to sedate Ashton back into sleep was immediately recalled and the revival sequence initiated. The ship rocked back and forth violently, the sleepers unaware of what was happening.

The screen that had displayed the dream went dark as the cryo bay began to light up, the systems turning on one by one. As the A.I. set about identifying this new problem, it realized that Ashton had reacted before being woken up. It was almost as though he had sensed there was something wrong on a subconscious level.

***

In the starboard cryo-hold, the first tube in the long row of thirty opened slowly, the oiled servos whining silently as the heavy plexi-glass pod door rose into the air. The man inside stirred slowly, his naked body trim and muscular. He slowly sat up in the bed of the pod, rubbing his dark brown eyes as the machine next to him fed his body the necessary drugs to counteract the effects of cryo-sleep. His black hair was cropped short, his features strong and harsh, the lines of his eyes and mouth deeply creased. He seemed so much older than the age of thirty-five. He opened his eyes, and looked at his medical monitor.

He had been asleep now for two years, three months, six days, eight hours and fifty-three minutes. His health was still perfect, and despite the long period of time between when he had went entered stasis to now, there was no sign of any atrophy to his limbs or body. The drugs manufactured by his employer made sure of that. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched out.

"Computer, what is the current location of Haven?" he asked groggily as the drugs slowly began to wake him up all the way. He was happy to find that he was sporting a healthy erection as he moved to stand up. Many things had changed in the last hundred years for mankind, but a good eight-inch morning hardwood was a pleasant universal constant.

"Identification, please." The computer answered with it's simulated, soft female persona.

"Ashton, Captain John J.," he said as he walked to the computer terminal built into the primary bulkhead of the bay. He placed his hand on the scanner as the terminal lit up and scanned his fingerprints. He felt cold, and wished he had put on his underwear before getting out of the tube.

"Confirmed," the computer said, "Haven is seventy-seven days out from final destination."

Ashton frowned, scratching the coarse dark stubble on his face. "Why have I been brought out of cryo-sleep so early?"

"Haven was forced out of hyperspace thirty minutes ago."

"Cause?" he asked as he went to his locker at the foot of his tube. He pulled out his uniform, a dark blue flight suit and his black duty boots.

"Haven passed too close to another vessel in hyperspace. Evasive maneuvers created a system failure and caused an engine shut down as a safety measure to avoid overload. Engines restarted fifteen minutes ago at quarter power. Hyperspace generator is offline," the computer replied.

"So we're just cruising right now," he said to himself quietly, and then to the computer he asked, "Damage report?"

"Minor damage to port engine couplings, stress fractures in the sixth and seventh portside support columns."

Ashton pulled his boots on and zipped up his flight suit. "Identity of the other vessel?"

"Unknown design, unknown registry beacon."

"Alien in origin?"

"The vessel doesn't match any configuration used by the Terran Exploration Wing or any known military craft."

Ashton closed his tube and returned to the terminal. "We're too far out of regulated space to be meeting anyone we know. Wake the crew."

"Engineer Harmon and Communications Officer Paisley are already awake."

Ashton stopped. "What the fuck?"

"Please restate question."

"Why are they up before me?"

"Unknown."

Ashton felt himself becoming angry. "When did they wake up?"

"Six and half hours ago."

"So they were awake when the ship dropped out of hyperspace..."

"Affirmative."

"Computer, disengage cryo-sleep on the standing crew and give them instructions to assemble in the mess hall. Tell First Officer Lee to join me on the bridge as soon as possible."

"Understood."

Ashton stormed out of the cryo-tube bay and began walking to the bridge. No one was supposed to be awake yet, at least no one before him anyway. His boots clanked against the crosshatched metal deck plates as he furiously wondered why the hell those two would be up so early. And if the Haven had been side swiped by an alien craft, why didn't they alert him sooner? He reached the hatch that led to the bridge and found it was locked. He tried his personal override commands, and he could have spit nails when the computer reported they had been cancelled.

Ashton slammed his fist against the hatch. "Open up!"

The door did not move.

"Computer, is anyone in there?" he growled as he took a step back.

"Engineer Harmon and Communications Office Paisley are currently on the bridge. Would you..." the computer voice was cut off, followed by a steady hiss of static. Ashton shivered as a chill crept down his spine. The deck plates shuddered slightly under his boots, and he knew something was wrong. He turned and ran to the weapons locker.

***

Burning on the monitor above the main bridge windows, a warning light was flashing, the simple phrase, "COLLISION ALERT" illuminated brightly.

Robert Harmon sat down at the pilot's console, frantically trying to realign the navigational array. Sweat had beaded on his low, thick brow as his fingers danced over the control panel. The ship was shuddering now, and based on the trajectory of their course they had entered a gravity field. With the engines pushing at a quarter of their normal output, there was no way he could maneuver the ship away. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

His sabotage of the navigational array was only supposed to send the ship off course long enough to end the mission. The plan had been so simple, and he had planned for every contingency imaginable. Almost every contingency. How he could have known another ship would be so close to them at that moment and this deep into space was irrelevant now. If he didn't figure something out, he would die along with the rest of the crew and passengers.

"Shit," he hissed, "Shit!"

He could hear someone pounding on the door now. His heart stopped in his chest. If the crew found him here, they would crucify him. He looked over at the near naked body of Miranda Paisley. The blonde communications officer was still unconscious from her abrupt exit from cryosleep. She was still naked, and Harmon felt a momentary pang of guilt. It bothered him, but it was momentary nonetheless. Even in the midst of this disaster, he could appreciate her beauty and found himself wishing that he had ten more minutes of free time with her like this. The things he would have liked to do to her.

"I hate getting interrupted," he mussed. He hoped the drugs he had given Paisley would keep her under for a little longer. He didn't want to explain what he was up to, and he sure as hell didn't want to explain to her why she was naked on the bridge.

If all had gone to plan, the crew would have woken up to find Paisley on the bridge unconscious, the patsy for his brilliant plan. Harmon would have already gotten back into his cryotube and executed the program that would erase the security recordings and evidence of his treachery. But that was all by the boards now. One unidentified spaceship passing too close had set them off course by more than 75% in the absolute wrong direction. 

The ship shimmied and moaned as the gravity pull became more pronounced. At the entry hatch, sparks lit and sizzled in the air as a blaster pistol set to high began cutting the door. He looked over his shoulder, fleshy lips pulled back over his uneven teeth. It had to be Ashton coming through, and if Ashton were there then Tishara Lee wouldn't be far behind. He placed his hand on the pistol he had had jammed into his uniform an hour ago, feeling the cool metal against his palm.

He didn't want to use it, but he would if he had to. He looked at Paisley and cursed, "Godammit..."

***

"What the fuck is going on?" Tishara Lee yelled as she appeared in the passageway behind Ashton. Her long dark brown hair was a mess, her uniform barely zipped up and her boots unlaced. The deck plates rumbled and vibrated beneath their feet as Ashton steadied himself against the bulkhead and concentrated on cutting through the bridge entry hatch.

"Harmon and Paisley locked us out of the bridge!" he yelled over the noise of the phased plasma energy cutting the metal. Sparks birthed and streaked to the deck in a hail of light. The potent, acrid smell of hot metal and ozone filled the narrow passage as he cut the thick metal. He didn't dare go too fast, for fear of cutting though one of his crew beyond, or even worse, the hull of the bridge.

"What?" she yelled, standing behind him, "How could they do that?"

"I don't know," he muttered as sparks burned his hands, "But we're two and half months out from Delta Site."

"Jesus," Tishara groaned, her eyes wide with disbelief, "How did that happen?"

"We were knocked out of hyperspace by some-" he was cut off suddenly by the collision alarms sounding. The sterile lighting of the passage suddenly went blood red as the Haven abruptly began to shudder, a low pitch whine building up from outside the ship.

"We're in a gravity field!" she warned him, her mouth hanging open.

"Warning," the computer announced, "Haven is entering a gravitational field at unsafe velocity and angle of decent. Please correct."

"No fucking joke," he growled as molten steel pooled on the floor and hardened. His heart broke as he cut into his ship, cut into her and mutilated her like this. Ashton would have cut himself before he cut his ship, and the pain of his actions now enraged him. He would have Harmon's balls mounted on a wall when this was done, and Paisley would be in traction for good measure. He saw he had only a few more inches to go before the heavy security locks in the door were cut, and he had to promise himself he wouldn't shoot them when he got in there. Time was against them as he wielded the weapon like some battlefield surgeon, cutting as fast as he could as safely as he could.

Haven began to tremble from her duranium infrastructure to the outer metal plating as the last lock gave way. With all their strength, he and Tishara slid the hatch open and were shocked to find Paisley sprawled on the deck, naked and unconscious. Ashton looked to the bridge windows and saw beyond the twin bows of his ship a huge, green planet growing larger by the second. Fiery heat distortions were already flaring on the hull as they entered the upper atmosphere. 

The ship was vibrating badly now Ashton made his way inside, followed closely by Tishara. He had only knelt down beside Paisley when a hot streak of red phased energy zinged by his ear and burned a hole in the back of co-pilots' seat. He ducked and rolled away, taking cover behind one of the workstation alcoves. He squinted in the hazy light of the bridge, struggling to see who had shot at him.

"Harmon?" he shouted, "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Alert," the computer reported, "Unauthorized weapons fire, main bridge, A-deck." 

Another bolt of energy slammed into the console next to him, showering his backside with sparks. He looked to Tishara, who was in the doorway, her body pressed to the open frame and eyes wide. She looked to him and then over towards the starboard side of the bridge. He could see Harmon hunkered down in the corner, hiding in the shadows. The wildly shifting alert lights betrayed his chubby frame, his face a red expression of fear and panic.

"Get away from me!" he screamed and fired again.

"I have to get the ship back online, you asshole!" Ashton shouted at him, "Stop shooting at me!"

Another sizzling burst hissed by and exploded against the wall.

"I don't have time for this shit," he muttered and looked to Tishara. He didn't even have to ask her or think twice about her safety. They were one mind, and no one was more skilled and agile than Tishara Lee. The first officer steeled herself and then ran out into the bridge, drawing Harmon's fire. He was shooting erratically, and all it would take was one misplaced shot through the bridge windows to decompress the compartment and suck them out into the atmosphere of the alien world.

Tishara leapt across the center divide of the bridge and tucked into a roll, shielding herself as best she could. Ashton wasted no time, rising up as Harmon tried to shoot her. He leveled his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The blast took Harmon square in the chest, rocketing him backwards against the bulkhead. His gun clattered to the deck and spun away as he slumped to the floor. Ashton holstered his gun and flipped the safety on.

"Tishara, check him!" Ashton barked as he climbed into his pilot seat. Haven bucked wildly and nearly threw him from his seat, lurching and tilting violently as she careened into the atmosphere of the planet. The high pitch whine of the ship's hull tearing apart reached a gut-wrenching crescendo that reminded Ashton of a scream. Their trajectory was too steep to salvage now as the ship flamed from the heat and friction of the entry. The structure of the large vessel wailed and moaned as it began to buckle under the pressure.

"I need you, Tishara!" he yelled and he strapped himself. He flipped on the internal comlink to the rest of the ship and shouted "Listen up. To everyone awake, find a place to strap in and brace for impact!"

"You can't pull up?" his co-pilot asked as she buckled herself into the seat next to him on his right.

"No, we're committed to entry," he worked the controls of the ship as the burning upper stratosphere gave way to the lower atmosphere. Bright bluish pink sky and fluffy white clouds sped past in a blur, and beneath, a thick lush alien jungle rushed up to meet them.

"I'm launching a buoy," Tishara yelled over the death screams of the ship. From the aft quarter of the Haven, a hatch popped open. A small projectile launched from the failing vessel and sped back into space, carrying the last of the computer telemetry, the crew manifest and a sub-space radio beacon. It streaked away from the Haven as she plunged into the alien world, out of control and smoking.

"Buoy has cleared the ship," she reported.

"I have no fucking helm control," Ashton slammed his fist against the console, "Come on baby, work with me here!"

Tishara looked up from her console, "We're no where near any of the shipping lanes or the projected flight path."

"Shit!" Ashton growled against his teeth.

"We're losing oxygen, John," she shouted out, "A rupture on C-deck."

Haven emerged from the cloud cover as quickly as they had entered it, the clouds swirling and funneling as the ship sliced through. Ashton felt phantom pains of sympathy for his ship as her superstructure began to break and twist under the pressure of their uncontrolled descent. The Haven was howling her death knell as the computer readout showed him they were two thousand feet and closing from the surface. In a last ditch effort, he shut the engines down and fired the forward docking thrusters, which actually leveled the ship off some before the beveled edges of her forward hull began slicing through the tops of the thick, ancient alien forest.

The ship lurched as massive trees, some with trunks at least one hundred feet in circumference at the base smashed into the duranium alloy hull and were snapped away. Loud, baritone clangs and clashes sounded through out the ship, each impact slowing them down more as the ship lost its momentum. Ashton looked and saw Tishara covering her ears from the deafening noise. Their seats rocked and jerked, throwing them forward as the ship finally cleared the forest and sailed into a broad valley.

Tishara felt a wave of vertigo wash over her in the odd silence that followed the exit from the forest. She felt her stomach flip, reminding her of the roller coasters she had ridden in her childhood, that strange tingle just before the big fall. The bright green vegetation of valley sped below them and became a distorted mess as the Haven struck ground and began sliding across the valley floor. Dirt and boulders the size of houses were kicked up as the ship tore its way into the loose soil. The bridge erupted in a hail of sparks as monitors blew out and supports were snapped in two. The vibrations of the impact were making Ashton's teeth chatter as they skidded along, the impact riding like icy-hot lightning to the base of his skull and back down again. He could hear the massive boulders they had knocked into the air coming down on the hull and smashing in to it.

The port pylon bow, one half of the "U" shape to the Haven's design, caught on a lone tree. It was a massive, ancient thing that must have been over three hundred feet wide at the base. The weakened hull simply gave way and tore off, spinning out towards the forest, taking with it all thirty passengers in their cryo-tubes for that side of the ship. 

Ashton felt his chair come loose from it's mooring in the deck. He tried to grab his console for support but instead lost his grip and flew across the bridge. Tishara was braced in her chair as she watched the dirt and boulders speed towards them and smash against the bridge windows. She prayed the reinforced plated plexi-glass would hold.




Black Rain Ch. 01



In the finale of the crash, as the Haven lost her port bow and half her passengers to a tree that had probably been around when man first contemplated the stars, the battered starship spun on her side, raising up onto the starboard pylon for a moment before spinning to a rest. The ship collapsed, a plume of dust, debris and smoke rising from the wreck. The sounds of the crash echoed though the valley, reverberating though the alien air with a deafening anger.

***

From orbit, he watched the humans fall away. It was interesting to see, the final moments of their finite lives, burning out in a blaze of confusion and fear. He could feel them, every last one of them who had died, writhing and screaming as they passed away from their mortal coils and into the depths of this world. It didn't matter what their beliefs were, any more than it would matter if he had been the one to crash. He almost had when they nearly collided in hyperspace, and only the fact of his superior piloting skills had saved him. 

And, he had been alone. There was no one to have failed him, no weak link in the chain. He was one crew in and of himself. More than one would have been a liability, and he couldn't risk that. Not here.

That's how people died.

But then, he knew no one really died here. This place harbored a legendary evil, something that even his father had only whispered about. It was the black ichor of the universe, a trap for souls, an endless hunger and rage that sought only to hurt. During his time in school, he had discovered the humans had a concept similar to one his own culture held dear. They believed in a Heaven, or T'Oghrih as his people called it, and they believed in a Hell, or T'Oghrah. It seemed they all had different ideas about the fine details, but the fact remained that most of them believed. He looked sadly down at the planet, and he said a silent prayer for them as they descended into the dark place.

He did want to, but he knew he must follow.

The others would be here soon.

He took a deep breath as he prepared an entry course for the planet, and followed them in. From behind his copper stained mask and breathing apparatus, his yellow eyes closed in a silent prayer for himself as well.

***

Tishara opened her eyes to discover she that she was still in her seat, and that the windows of the bridge had held in place, despite the cracks that splintered though their surface like a crystalline spider web. To her left, she could hear the slow hissing sound of ruptured oxygen feeds. She unbuckled her harness and leaned forward, a sharp pain stabbing in her neck. As she checked herself for injury, she counted herself lucky that mild whiplash was the only physical problem she had incurred. She tied her hair back and then realized Aston was no longer beside her, nor was his seat.

"Captain?" she called out as she stood up, her balance off. The ship was tilted at a forty-five degree angle to the portside, and she grabbed onto her chair for support. She looked around the wreckage of the bridge, her heart sinking fast. An examination of the vessel was not necessary to confirm what she already knew. They would never leave the ground again in the Haven. The ship was a total loss.

"Tishara," a voice said from somewhere behind a fallen overhead support to her right. She quickly climbed over the broken equipment and consoles as sparks flashed periodically from severed lines and cables above her. The interior lighting was failing as she worked her way back into the shadows of the bridge. Finally, she reached the support beam and found Ashton behind it, still strapped in his chair. Half his face was covered in blood, but he was moving and talking.

"John," Tishara whispered as she climbed over the support and slid down to him, "Can you feel your arms and legs, John?"

"Yeah," he managed, "My head hurts."

She looked and saw a deep gash running from his left temple all the way back to the middle of his scalp. It was angry looking, the skin and hair split in an ugly wound that had started to coagulate. His face was stained with blood and soot, his eyes looking outward, wide and scared. His left eye was a bloody red, the vessels busted and hemorrhaged.

"You took a blow to the head," she told him as she grasped the release on his harness, "I'm going to unbuckle you."

"Harmon and Paisley?" he croaked.

Tishara stood up and saw Harmon, unconscious against the bulkhead by the entry hatch. Paisley was behind the navigation console, also knocked out. She seemed to be breathing. Tishara knelt by her captain and unbuckled the harness, "They're both alive from what I can see."

"How can you see anything?" Ashton asked as she helped him stand up, "It's so dark in here. I can't see anything."

Tishara looked at him, and realized his injury was more severe than she had thought. Pink alien sunlight was streaming through the forward section of the bridge now, the view ports bright and illuminated. Tishara waved her free hand in front of his face, back and forth. Ashton said nothing and made no movement, waiting for her answer. Tishara felt sick as she realized the truth.

"Tishara?"

"Captain, can you see my hand?" she held her palm right in front of his nose, not more than an inch away.

"No, I can't see anything... I-," he stopped, wincing as he touched the wound deeply wrought into his head, "I can't see..."

"I'm sorry, John."

"I can't fucking see," he repeated, his lips trembling as the gravity of it all began to hit him.

"John, we need to get you out of here," she said softly.

"This is some bad dream," he laughed incredulously as he tried to look around the bridge, "It has to be."

"John, we have to go. I don't know the status of the ship yet," she told him, her voice firm, "The coolant system for the hyper drive may have cracked. We need to be sure. We've got to evacuate the survivors."

Ashton took a deep breath, his eyes glassy and dark. "Of course."

***

From the thick foliage that covered the sides of the valley, a creature without eyes observed the commotion. The drone saw what the whole saw and nothing more. It sat quietly at the border of the jungle, the albino skin smooth and shiny in the sunlight. It could sense the humans that had survived the crash, and there were not but a few of them left. They were scared, confused and lost in the mayhem of the disaster. It smiled, revealing its perfect sharp teeth in a leer of anticipatory satisfaction. It silently sprang from its hiding place and ran on all three legs towards the wreck.

It was hungry.

...to be continued... 



Black Rain Ch. 02



EDITED BY:

Miriam Belle

CREATIVE CONSULTANT:

Simply_Cyn

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

-"I've gotten a lot emails about Soniah, the three breasted alien woman and Hessex, the bare breasted female pirate. She's meant to be a tribute to the not-so-subtle sexuality of many older, B-grade science fiction movies from the seventies and eighties that I grew up with. Some of the readers following the story feel that the women here are objectified and around for the simple purpose of sexual gratification, meat for the men as it were. As the story progresses, I think it will become more apparent that the women in this story, particularly Soniah, Tishara and Hessex are the backbone carrying the action and plot forward.

And, the idea of three breasts is morbidly fascinating to me. So sue me. I'm a horny sci-fi geek..." –bluefox07

*

THE COMING STORM

TERRAN EARTH DATE

01.16. 2179

***

"It's been twenty-four hours and the sun has not set yet," Sonny Jackson squinted, looking up into the vast expanse of the alien sky. His brown hair was disheveled, hanging down to the side of his forehead. His blue eyes never left the sky as he reclined back on the broken section of hull that had been plowed into the ground.

"Great, we've landed on Planet Alaska," Tishara remarked as she tended to their captain's wound. She looked down at Ashton, who sat silently beside her and let her work. Tishara would have rather had the medic handle it, but as they had found him in several pieces an hour ago, she figured she would just step up and handle it.

"Sonny," Ashton said, "Give me the report so far."

The thin man grunted and sat up. "The Haven will never fly again. We lost half our ship to that tree about two hundred yards back along with half the passengers. Near as I can tell the port bow was ripped away and came to a rest in the jungle that surrounds this valley. If you go and stand on the engine housing you can see a really big hole in the tree line where the bow passed through. We'll know more if we go looking of course."

"The engines?"

"Good news is the engine core wasn't ruptured in the crash. The ship automatically shut down the relays to the primary power conduits to avoid an overload, so we're good on that count. As long the protective duranium shell holds around the core material, we should be golden. Bad news is all the engine cowlings were shredded and wrecked, so we got no working thrusters... not that it matters much anymore," Sonny said.

"What can we salvage?" Tishara asked as she sterilized the wound and changed the dressing. Ashton winced a little.

"Shuttles are shot to shit," Sonny reported glumly, "Med lab seems to be okay, the engine room is fucked up beyond all recognition, the starboard side cryo-tubes have all been destroyed save for two, the bridge is smashed, primary computer core is gone..." 

"I asked if we had anything to salvage, Sonny."

"We have four working blasters, two rifles and a handful of seismic charges for weapons. We have one working computer terminal in the Med Lab that's hooked to the A.I.. I haven't been down to C-deck yet, but there may be more working terminals," Sonny muttered as he hopped down from the wreckage and sat on one of the many blue plastic cargo containers they had hauled out of the ship. He slapped the container and said, "We have twenty three containers loaded with supplies, so food and medicine are not issues. Well, not issues for now, anyway. We got H2O enough to last us a few months, that ain't so good. That's it."

"Could be worse," Ashton said, "What about crew?"

Tishara spoke up. "We lost mostly everyone in the crash. All of our engineers save for Sonny and Gordon, the med techs and support personnel are gone. They all died in cryo-sleep, thankfully. We have Paisley, Harmon and four passengers. Sonny was going to go check up on them in a few minutes."

"And the planet itself?" Ashton blinked his useless eyes.

"Not sure. We're somewhere between Earth and Delta Site on a big fucking jungle planet," Sonny held his hands out wide to illustrate the distance. He then motioned to the space between and said, "We could be anywhere."

"Very scientific, Sonny," Ashton smiled, "What did you do with Paisley and Harmon?"

"Well, first we had to clean Harmon up. He shit himself when you stunned him, Cap," Sonny cringed, "That man is one pudgy block of meat. Tishara and I put them in the latrines... separately of course."

"Are they awake yet?"

"No," Tishara shook her head, "Paisley was mumbling a lot, but she's still out of it. And Harmon is out cold."

"Any ideas on what the fuck they were doing on the bridge?" Ashton rubbed his forehead gently, his face betraying his pain.

"No clue," Sonny tossed a stone at the broken hull of the ship. It rebounded with a metallic clank. "But, if I can get to the flight recorder, we might be have some answers."

"Make it a priority," Ashton nodded.

"Yes sir," Sonny got up and walked back towards the wreckage.

Ashton sat for a long time quietly, trying to see anything through the dark that hid his eyes. From time to time, he thought he saw bursts of light, and that gave him some fleeting hope that his condition might be temporary. He sighed and held his hand out. Tishara smiled and grasped him firmly.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"The sky is violet and pink," Tishara said, craning her neck up towards the alien atmosphere. Thick, bruised clouds were coalescing above them slowly, joining together and somehow metastasizing like living organisms. Their movements were erratic, following no air stream or wind pattern Tishara had ever seen. There was a slight breeze sweeping through the valley, but it couldn't have been anymore than five miles an hour. She inhaled deeply, and noticed a strange odor she couldn't quite identify.

"Violet sky?" Ashton raised his brows, "Let's hope there's not a whole lot of U.V. filtering through."

"The ecosystem appears somewhat similar to Earth with all this vegetation," Tishara said, "I'm guessing that the U.V. levels are comparable to Earth's. Otherwise, it'd be more barren. It's muggy as hell here."

"No shit," Ashton agreed, wiping his brow. After a moment, he then said, "You're going to have to be my eyes, Tishara."

"I know," she looked at the ground, knowing in her heart she did not want to be in charge of this mess.

"Whatever happened here, it wasn't an accident."

"Harmon and Paisley had better have some damn good answers," Tishara said.

Ashton squeezed her hand, "Keep your eyes open."

"Of course."

Tishara looked back at the still smoking hulk of what remained of the Haven. She said, "We have a bigger problem than that, though. We're in the middle of nowhere, we won't be declared over due for three months, and then it'll be another three months before a search party can get here... and even then they'll have no idea where to start looking."

"We have the beacon up there."

Tishara didn't feel much comfort from that fact. "True."

"Well," he said, "We may as well set up camp. We're going to be here for awhile."

***

Sonny made his was through the mangled corridor that used to lead from the bridge to the head. The deck plates were popped out at awkward angles from the warped support beams beneath them. The strong beams of duranium alloy had bent and twisted in the crash along with everything else on his ship it seemed. Ruptured power lines and atmosphere control nodules were sparking and hissing throughout the vessel. Thin jets of steam spewed from the broken oxygen lines as sparks fell to the broken floor.

"Rest as easy as you can, baby," Sonny consoled the Haven and grasped onto the bulkhead for support. The Haven was the first star cruiser he had ever served on as chief engineer. He had been so proud of his ship. The attachment he felt was genuine and unwavering. For twenty years he traveled with the vessel to the outer reaches of known space and back again. Sonny had come to think of the ship as an old girlfriend, a trusted companion that understood when the others didn't. Though Haven was silent to his words, she had always brought him home. She always listened every time he had prayed for one more miracle to avoid a disaster, one more miracle to bring his crew safely home.

He finally reached the head compartment. Sonny positioned himself, bracing his legs against the bulkhead to compensate for the 45 degree angle the ship had taken to rest after the crash. The lights flickered on and off as he disengaged the magnetic lock he had placed on the door after imprisoning Harmon inside.

"Harmon, you rat fuck," Sonny muttered as the door opened, "What did you do?"

The smell of refuse water attacked his nose through the sound of flooding water. The doors slid open smoothly and revealed the latrine, water still spilling out of the row of ten toilets on the far wall and pooling in the corner. Sonny didn't worry about it flooding. The water tanks only had so much in their reserves at a time. Even then, the refuse water system didn't have anything anyone cared to drink, whether it was purified or not.

Sonny flashed his light down into the latrine and called, "Harmon?"

There was no answer.

"Harmon, listen up," he said simply, "If you're awake, you need to hear this."

"What?" came a thoroughly disinterested voice.

Sonny smiled ruefully, "Nice to see you're awake. Where are you?"

"Sitting in shit water, you fuck," Harmon called back. Sonny swung his light around, trying to see his shipmate. "Did Ashton order this?"

"No, this was my little improv," Sonny smiled. His dislike of Harmon was dripping from every word with sarcastic delight. "Before you go for a log ride in there, I just wanted to ask if you remembered what happened?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?"

"No."

"Because I'm gonna go get the flight recorder," Sonny said, "And if there's anything important you can add to your defense, better you say it now before the captain looks it over."

"Fuck off," Harmon snorted.

"Is that your official statement?"

"Blow me."

Sonny nodded. "Yeah, not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin."

"When do I get out of here?"

Sonny sat quietly for a moment, and then thoughtfully said, "You'd think I'd have answer for that."

Harmon heard an electronic beep as the heavy doors to the head slid shut. He listened for the sound of the magnetic lock Sonny had placed there to keep him in. He was hopeful for a moment, thinking maybe the Kentucky-fried piece of shit engineer would forget all about the lock. Harmon looked to the door from his perch. His foot was planted in one of the sinks basins that lined the wall next to the entrance. He had locked his arm around one of the many large pipes that ran the length of the ceiling and was hanging there in the dark, just out of view of the entry.

Another few seconds passed, and Harmon began to believe that Sonny had forgotten.

"That's new," he whispered in the dark, his voice drowned out by the running water.

An electronic chime and heavy metallic *clank* on the other side of the closed doors signaled a lock had been engaged.

The intercom box fizzled and hissed. "You didn't think I had forgotten about you, did you?"

Harmon only stared into the shadows.

"Fuck you," he whispered impotently.

***

Sonny continued aft.

The large doors that had once sealed off the cryo-chamber bay were open and unlikely to ever move again. Damage to the internal structure of the ship had caused the doors to bend and shift in their hydraulic tracks. The metal was still creaking and moaning under the strain as the starship settled into the alien soil ass first. Sonny wasn't very sure at all he wanted to be near the fifteen-foot tall, five hundred pound slabs of metal. He could very easily imagine the metal finally giving way to the incredible weight above it and collapsing, the hundreds of bolts that secured the plating to the doors popping off like bullets.

"Fuck," he shook his head.

Inside the disaster area that had once been a state-of-the-art cryogenic holding bay were five people. Four of them were in cryo-sleep underwear, three women and one man. They all looked upset and disoriented save for the large, muscular bald black man behind them. Sonny smiled and waved to him, "Hey Gordon!"

Gordon turned and cracked as much of a smile as his scarred face would allow. To anyone else, his smile would have been considered a grimace or prelude to a volley of curses and foul language. But to Sonny, it was a welcome sight.

"Sonny," Gordon replied, his deep voice rumbling through the bay.

Sonny worked his way over to him and slapped him on the shoulder, "How the hell are ya?"

"How the fuck do you think I am, man?" Gordon raised a quizzical brow as he bandaged his arm. Sonny could now see a large gash on his engineers mate left forearm.

"Shit, what happened?" Sonny winced as Gordon poured disinfectant over the wound. It bubbled and fizzed loudly as Gordon pulled a length of white bandage out from a nearby first aide kit. 

Gordon shrugged his massive shoulders and began wrapping his arm, "Computer pulled an emergency thaw on us just before the crash. My tube shattered just as I woke up."

He turned his face a little to the side and Sonny could see a series of small gashes on Gordon's neck, all looking bloody and painful. The big man impassively completed his first aide and stretched out. He had always reminded Sonny of a hairless ape, intimidating and impossibly strong. Gordon ran his hands over his bald scalp, tilted his head one side and then poured the alcohol over the wounds on his neck.

"How bad is the ship?" Gordon closed his eyes as the gashes fizzed.

"FUBAR," Sonny sighed, "We are fucked, my friend."

"I don't know what I was expecting," Gordon admitted, "Crew?"

"There's the cap, Tishara, me, you, Harmon and Paisley..."

Gordon stopped his first aide and looked at Sonny with more than a hint of irritation, "You're fucking kidding."

"I'm not, big guy."

"Fuck," Gordon growled, "Of all the men and women on the ship, Harmon had to survive?"

"That's everyone's opinion, I think," Sonny smiled half-heartedly.

"What's the word from the captain?" he asked.

"Ashton and Tishara are working to take stock of what we got," Sonny replied, drumming his fingers on the rim of his flashlight, "When you're done here, take these people out through the main corridor. Be careful, it's really fucked up. You go through the bridge access to get out. Then join me at the head."

Gordon laughed. "Plugged toilet?"

"Nah, we got Harmon locked in the boys room," Sonny looked over at the other four people standing nearby, "Paisley's in the girl's room."

"Why?"

"Not sure. But Harmon is acting funny. He might have caused the crash."

"There's some news."

"We gotta take him somewhere we can keep an eye on him."

As Gordon worked on fixing himself up, Sonny turned to the other four survivors. He smiled broadly and tried to keep a happy, upbeat disposition as he addressed them, "Ladies and gentleman, my name is Sonny Jackson. Mr. Gordon and I are the engineers for the ship. Captain Ashton has requested that everyone gather up outside the ship."

One of the women, a blue skinned Denavian looked to Sonny with her feline yellow eyes and asked, "How bad is the damage, Mr. Jackson?"

"Pretty bad, Miss-" Sonny prompted her.

"Soniah," the alien woman replied.

"Soniah," Sonny repeated, her name like a sweet sugar on his tongue, "Please call me Sonny." 

Sonny had never actually met a Denavian before. They were the silent half of the Terran Exploration Wing, alien backers who had shared their technology a hundred years ago to help humanity branch out. Denavians were well known for their exotic beauty and iridescent cerulean blue skin. They were bipedal like humans, and reproduced in much the same way. The typical Denavian male was about a foot taller than average human man, muscular and quietly reserved. 

But the women... Denavian women were considered to be the most exquisite examples of feminine beauty in the known universe. Of the sixteen known species of bipedal aliens, they were the only ones that all could agree were beyond the normal context of beauty. And Soniah was no exception.

Her face was graceful and yet strong, her eyes a potent yellow with gold speckled black corneas. Her hair was more a feathering of thick emerald greens and deep saturated blues that swept back from her face and hung down to the space between her shoulders. Her lips were warm lavender and her teeth were stunningly white. In the revealing standard issue cryo-sleepwear (which was a simple set of small underwear and a tank top) he could see her elaborate body tattoos. Only slightly darker than her skin tone, they snaked all over her body in specifically beautiful lines and waves.

The lines of the tattoos were fluidic and curved with her voluptuous form. Another difference between humans and Denavians was that the women had three breasts instead of just two. It was a cultural gem of humor between the males of the two species, and many jokes had arisen from this additional breast. As Sonny admired the three heavy, fleshy orbs under her shirt and counted three very much-erected dark nipples poking the fabric out, he found himself losing concentration on the task at hand. 

"Engineer Jackson?"

"Pardon?"

"You were saying?" Soniah reminded him.

"Yes," Sonny cleared his throat, "I was saying that we've landed on an uncharted planet about two and half months short of Delta Site."

"Two and a half months?" the thin man with glasses standing behind Soniah repeated, his face drained of color and copper hair hanging over his eyes.

"Yep," Sonny nodded, "That's all I know."

"Jesus," the thin man cursed.

"Could I get all your names and jobs? The computer manifest is down," Sonny asked and pulled out his pen and wrinkled notepad of paper. The Bic pen and the yellow notepad were relics of another day and era, but Sonny could never quite switch over to the D.A.D.'s (Data Access Device) that most engineers in the fleet used nowadays. He knew that with or without power, the pen would write and the paper would be there.

"Jared Cole, colony construction unit," the wiry man with copper colored hair said as he leaned against his shattered cryo-tube.

"Soniah Anij-Delphi, colony administration," the blue skinned Denavian looked at Sonny.

A redheaded woman sat on the tilted deck, her knees pulled to her chest, just past Soniah's slender, muscular legs. A long gash had marked the side of her face in a bloody trail. Her skin was pale and freckled, her build petite and delicate. Sonny wondered how she had even survived the reentry. She looked up with wide green eyes and said, "Cara Howe, colony biologist."

Sonny wrote the names down and then looked to the woman sitting beside Cara. She was quietly standing with her arms crossed over her chest. Her black hair was short and cropped, her uniquely Hispanic features worn and worldly. She looked at Sonny with hard black eyes and said, "Chastity Barrera, colony construction unit."

"Okay," Sonny finished writing, "Listen up. Mr. Gordon is going to find you all some clothes and escort you outside. The good news is we're on an oxygen friendly planet, and aside from some funky high-humidity and a few smells, it's hospitable."

"For the moment," Cara remarked.

Sonny turned back to Gordon and sighed, "Alright big guy. They're all yours."

"Cool," the engineer smiled.

***

Ashton felt the long, deep wound on his head with his fingers. In his blindness, he imagined the ridges and depth of the gash to be along the lines of something from the Grand Canyon back on Earth. He winced as he gingerly felt along the surface, nerve endings and pain receptors firing and raging. He supposed it might not be as bad he thought, but he had no way of knowing for sure. That was problem with everything here. He couldn't tell anything for certain.




Black Rain Ch. 02



"John," Tishara said from behind, startling him and making his heart jump.

"You scared me," Ashton laughed a little.

"Sorry," she said and put one of the plastic containers of food down at his feet. She sat down beside him on the rising slab of hull that had embedded itself into the soft alien soil. With a hard push to the release button, the container opened and revealed a supply of pre-dried food and non-perishables. She asked, "Hungry?"

"Not really," Ashton shook his head. He listened as the ships engines hissed and cooled down, still hot by thousands of degrees even a day after the crash. Sonny had told him that the engine outlets were high in the air, raised up and off the ground away from the grass and foliage. At least there wouldn't be any fires.

"Are we fucked?" he asked.

Tishara opened a can of peaches and chuckled, "Well, yeah. Kinda."

"You know," he said, "I always thought that crashing my ship and being stranded on an uncharted world was the worst thing that could happen to me. You know what I've discovered?"

"What?" she slipped a slice of peach in her mouth.

"Being blind is worse," he said.

"It may not be permanent," Tishara offered.

"Maybe," he said, "Maybe not. Either way, I'll never fly again."

"That's pessimistic," she told him and took his hand, "It's too early to just give up."

Ashton smiled a little. "You're a good first officer, you know that?"

Tishara shrugged and smiled through a mouthful of peaches, "You're just saying that because we sleep together."

"Yeah," he nodded and smiled, "But it's also true. If you hadn't launched the buoy before the crash, our chances of survival would be nil."

"When we get out of here," Tishara leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, "You can give me a commendation."

"Deal," Ashton said.

Overhead a sonic boom swallowed the sound around them and exploded. The boom echoed through the valley as Ashton fell backwards and landed hard on his ass. Tishara dropped her peaches and covered her ears as the familiar sound of a ship screaming through reentry bellowed overhead. The whine of heated engines and air being sliced by alloy tweaked their senses. Tishara looked up and saw burning trail of smoke and the dark shape of a bird-like ship streaking across the violet-tinted sky.

"What the fuck was that?!" Ashton yelled and stood up on legs that shook badly.

"Another ship!" Tishara screamed over the noise as the vessel passed them and darted to the horizon. The smoke trail billowed and plumed in the sky, slowly dissolving as Tishara tried to pick out any defining traits of the new ship. She shielded her eyes from the sun with a hand to the forehead and watched it get smaller and smaller. She said, "I can't tell who it belongs to."

"It could belong to anybody out here," Ashton said as the world began to quiet down again, "We're in a no-man's land here."

"It's definitely alien," she squinted, "Ship looks like a medium-sized warship. Shaped like a huge, stocky bird, dark coloring on the hull."

"Scavengers? Salvagers?" Ashton suggested, "God, I hope they're not scavengers."

Tishara agreed. One of the few consistent universal social traits shared by all the known species of the galaxy was that of the scavenger. Every species had that group of enterprising, capitalistic entrepreneurs who scoured the various planetary systems for leftovers and unclaimed treasures. The human scavengers were bad news in any given situation. The Terran Government had outlawed them for being murderous and more akin to wild animals that civilized men and women. 

"Wait," Tishara said suddenly as the ship banked and turned, revealing the top of its' impressive wingspan. She saw a familiar circular red logo painted on the wing, offset by thee yellow slash marks. She looked again to be sure and then said, "It's a Jah-Haran vessel."

"Fuck me running," Ashton breathed. The Jah-Haran made human scavengers look like Girl Scouts going door to door for cookie sales. He said, "Are you sure?"

"It's not one of their traditional designs," she said, "But it carries the Jah-Haran sun and slashes."

The ominous dark ship arched around the edge of the valley and the came about, it's beak-like forward hull glistening in the sun. A huge shadow swept across the valley floor as it prepared to make another pass over the ruined hulk of The Haven. The ground began tremble slightly as it neared them, the massive anti-gravity generators in its' wings thundering along. 

Tishara couldn't help but think of the time she had gone to the zoo in New York when she was seven and saw the big Condors there. At that time, there was only two left in the entire world and she remembered thinking how alone they looked. The big male bird-of-prey had opened his wings and soared around the huge cage. It was a relic, a beast that was alone and on the verge of permanent darkness. She had looked into its' yellow eyes as it passed her, the draft from its flight flowing over her. She had felt scared of it.

Now, as she watched the massive alien ship draw near, looking more and more like a black metal version of that extinct bird, she felt the fear again. The trees around the wreck shifted and rustled as the Jah-Haran ship roared overhead. Leaves and dust kicked up and polluted the air as it passed over them. Tishara forced herself to look up, trying to keep the dirt out of her eyes.

It wasn't a Jah-Haran vessel by construction. It was probably one they had either stolen or salvaged from some as yet unclassified species. The hull was a tarnished black, certain portions discolored and rusted over from old age and repairs. She counted a dozen blast marks on the hull and penetrations burns from laser fire. The ship had no running lights that she could see. She realized that the ship was rigged for silent running in deep space. The dark coloring of the hull was typical of the kind of radar and sensor-repellant alloys used by the military.

It was a predatorial ship equipped for the hunt and designed for the kill.

"I count six standard blaster cannons mounted to the wings," she told Ashton as the ship slowed and hovered above them, casting a dark shadow across the wreck, "Looks like it has two torpedo tubes and a multiple shielding matrix."

"Not a pleasure cruiser," Ashton said dryly.

"Pirates," Tishara shook her head, "Jah-Haran pirates."

"Worse than scavengers then."

"Yep."

The massive predator hovered for five minutes longer, no doubt scanning them and taking a brief reconnaissance of the wreck to determine what was worth what. Then it backed up and surged forward into the sky. The blast of heat and wind in its wake knocked both Tishara and Ashton to the ground again as plastic containers toppled over and debris cycloned into the air. From her place in the alien grass, she watched the dark ship arc into the distance and then disappeared into the growing cloud formations above them. It flew away, wings stretched out like one of those condors.

"That was the Jah-Haran way of saying 'hello'," Ashton muttered as Tishara helped him up off the ground.

"They were checking us out," Tishara said, "Taking inventory."

"And they'll be back too," Ashton agreed.

The ramp hatch to the bridge opened and Gordon led four passengers out into the dusty daylight. The big black man swatted at the air and coughed as he walked over to Ashton and Tishara. He looked up in the sky and asked, "What was that? The whole fucking ship was shaking."

"Jah-Harans," Tishara told him dismally.

"That's just fucking great," Gordon growled.

"How many passengers, Gordon?" Ashton asked.

"I got four with me," he said, "All of them are colony staff. Sonny and I are gonna check the aft holding bays in a minute for more survivors."

"Good man," his captain nodded and then asked under his breath, "Are they within earshot?"

"Nope."

"Listen," Ashton grabbed his engineer's powerful, broad shoulder and whispered, "I'm in a bad way here."

Gordon looked at the wicked wound on Ashton's forehead and asked, "You okay?"

"Can't see anything," he replied discreetly, "I don't know if it's permanent or not."

"Shit, boss," Gordon looked at Tishara, his eyes filled with sympathy the big man couldn't find the words to express, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Doctor Jennings was killed in the crash," Tishara shook her head, "And I don't think you or I know anything about this kind of injury."

Gordon motioned to the people standing in front of the broken hull, "There's a biologist over there."

Tishara shrugged hopefully, "Better than nothing, right?"

She went over the group of passengers as Gordon and Ashton walked the other way. Ashton said, "Jah-Haran's already made their initial sweep."

"The armory is good to go," Gordon said and guided his captain by the arm as they walked, "Limited ammo, though."

Ashton knew their chances of survival had just dropped dramatically. The crash landing was the least of their problems now. Jah-Haran pirates looted every single marketable piece of equipment, hardware and software from their prey and then took the crews hostage as slave labor and sometimes even worse. Men, regardless of species, were always used as either slave labor in their sector mines or used as cannon fodder on their ships. Women were regarded as sex toys, sex slaves and pieces of meat with a heartbeat. He cringed to think of Tishara being subjugated under the brutal whips of some Jah-Haran captain.

"When they come, we have to be ready," Ashton said.

"Yes sir."

"Captain!" Tishara called. Gordon helped him turn and face his first officer as she and the four passengers walked over to them. She said, "Dr. Howe here is a planetary biologist and also a certified med tech. Thank God for small favors."

"Dr. Howe," Ashton smiled and offered his hand in the wrong direction. 

"Cara, please," she said and gripped his hand in an awkward shake, "I understand you sustained head trauma?"

"You could say that," Ashton replied and motioned to the gash on his head.

"I'll do what I can," she smiled and pulled him aside, "Please, sit down."

As Howe looked at the wound on Ashton's head, he addressed the survivors of The Haven. He said, "Okay, here's the deal. We've crash-landed on an uncharted planet somewhere between Earth and Delta Prime. We have sufficient food and water for the moment. Mr. Gordon is going to lead you all in a sweep of the ship for survivors."

"I doubt we'll find anyone else alive, captain," Soniah said.

"I'd have to agree," Ashton said, his voice bordering on impatience, "But you're not in charge. Once we finish searching the ship, we'll back track and locate the missing boom assembly. There may have been people who survived back there in the jungle."

"Fools errand," the blue-skinned alien said.

"You're running the errand," Ashton replied, "If you don't feel like following orders, Mr. Gordon can find a comfortable room for you to be locked in."

"I am the site administrator for this expedition," Soniah said coldly, "My authority is cleared defined in the mission charter."

"On Delta Prime it is," the captain reminded her, "Anywhere else, you're under my command. Get it?"

The Denavian was silent.

"Understood?"

Soniah bit her lip and looked away. "Yes, captain."

"Good," Ashton nodded and then said to his engineer, "Gordon, round up some flashlights and get going. Dinner will be ready when you get back."

"Sweet," the big smiled and motioned to the ship, "All right people, let's go."

"Captain," Howe said from behind as she touched the gash on his scalp, "I can't say for certain if your blindness is permanent or not. It's a nasty wound to be sure, but I'd need better equipment and more than just a visual assessment to say anything definitive."

"That's fine doctor," Ashton smiled, "Sonny tells me the med lab is still working. After you and the others return, maybe we can set aside some time?"

"Of course," Howe and nodded and turned to leave.

"Doctor?" Tishara called after her.

"Yes?"

"Take care of yourself," she said, "You're the only medically trained person we have here."

Howe smiled a quirky, nervous half smile. She was both flattered and overwhelmed by her sudden importance, She said, "I will."

Gordon and the others went back into the ship as Tishara sat down by Ashton. She put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him. The captain smiled and said, "Not much use for hiding our relationship now, huh?"

"Not really," she sighed, "I doubt anyone from administration is going to see us way out here."

Ashton laughed and inhaled the scent of her hair. Even after being through a crash and subsequent evacuation, she smelled great. He touched her long dark hair and whispered, "Is there any place we can get some privacy?"

"You're kidding," she looked at him.

Ashton shrugged, "So sue me."

Tishara smiled.

"Are you going to deny a blind man?"

She laughed, "Now there's a new line."

Ashton felt her lips graze his in a deep kiss. Their tongues rolled together in between their open mouths as he pulled her to him. She broke the kiss and said, "You know, I think the cartography lab might be empty."

"Really?"

"Really," she licked his lips.

"Let's go and see."

***

"Yo Paisley!"

Miranda Paisley opened her eyes to the sound of Sonny's voice. She was in the women's head, huddled against one of the stall partition walls. The room was tilted at an angle and water was spilling out of a busted pipe freely. She couldn't remember how she had gotten here or what had caused the ship to be so disorganized as to have water leaking everywhere. She looked at the entrance and said, "Sonny?"

"Hey you," the engineer said, "You all right?"

"What happened?"

"We crashed," Sonny said.

"Oh my God," she whispered and shuddered, the memories of the accident trying to birth in her mind.

"Hey listen," Sonny called to her, "I can't get the over ride to unlock the flight recorder. What's your access code?"

"Get me out of here, Sonny," Miranda called and stood up on the wall, her legs shaking. She noticed she was dressed in cryo-clothes, a pair of short shorts and a tank top. She was also wet and damp, though the room was still heated enough to be warm. "Where's my uniform?"

"In your locker."

"Why am I out of uniform?"

"Believe me, you a lot less on 'til I dressed you."

"What?" she gasped.

"Just sit tight-"

"Sonny, get me the fuck out of this bathroom."

"Can't do it, Paisley. I'm sorry."

"Why am I in here?"

Sonny leaned against the doorway. He hated this. Locking Harmon up was one thing, but Paisley? She was as sweet and honest as they came. He said, "Captain's orders. I'm sorry."

"What?" she cried, "Sonny, what did I do? What happened?"

"I know as much as you do," he said, "Please, Paisley. Just try and relax until we get it sorted out."

"You know me!" she insisted, "Please, Sonny."

"Baby, there might be something wrong with you. And your husband would never forgive me if I let you go running around without knowing all the facts."

"There's nothing wrong with me!"

Sonny was silent.

"What happened?"

"Short version," he said, "Captain and Tishara caught you and Harmon on the bridge just before we hit."

"Harmon?" her eyes widened, "Harmon?"

Sonny looked embarrassed. "You were, uhm... well you were naked with Harmon."

"Naked?" she whispered as her blood ran cold, "Did he... you know?"

"Well," he hesitated, "He was clothed but you weren't."

"Sonny!"

Sonny lowered his voice sympathetically, "Baby, I don't know. Do you think he might have?

"Oh my God," Miranda felt like vomiting. Harmon was the nastiest, most unattractive man she had ever seen in her life. He was a repugnant, egotistical asshole who was always leering over her and watching her every move. The first three years of serving together on The Haven had been a nightmare for her, and the only reason she didn't transfer was because her leaving would make Harmon think he'd gotten to her. And she couldn't abide Harmon thinking he had won. So she endured his bullshit on a daily basis, trying to keep from killing him. 

In short, she despised the man.

"Oh my God..."

"That's what we said," Sonny told her.

Miranda looked down at her wedding ring and rubbed it with her finger. What if Harmon had done something to her? She shook her head. Not even he could be that despicable. Somehow, the logic of that thought brought her no comfort. She looked down at her crotch and realized she felt tender, maybe even a little more moist that usual. She braced her forehead against the wall as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. 

How was she ever going to explain this to her husband? What could she say to soften the blow? She couldn't even recall how it happened, let alone the actual experience. She wondered if she could be judged for actions she wasn't aware of taking. She wondered just what the hell had happened to lead her to be on the bridge with Harmon in the first place.

"So what now," she asked, feeling more alone than she ever had before in her life, "Everyone thinks I'm crazy?"

"Well," Sonny shrugged, "Not necessarily crazy..."

"If I was crazy, wouldn't I have jumped you the minute you opened the door?" she asked.

She had a point, but then Harmon hadn't jumped him either when he checked in on him. And Sonny was quite certain that Harmon was loonier than a shit house rat. Still, he replied, "Maybe you're crazy but not stupid. How the fuck should I know?"

Miranda wiped the tears from her eyes, "Please Sonny. Let me out."

Sonny sighed. He never could say no to her. Not once. He closed his eyes, knowing the ass chewing he was bringing down on himself if she had gone around the galactic bend, "You feeling okay?"

She could feel the dull, phantom throb of a headache behind her eyes as she called back, "A little sore, but okay."

"All right," Sonny said finally and reached into his duffel bag. He pulled out a strong vinyl line and tossed it down to her, "But just remember, the captain ordered you sealed up. If you go ape shit on me, you'd better kill me while you're at it."

Miranda grasped the line and pulled herself up the incline of the floor. Water from the overhead lines rained down and filled the bathroom like a pool. Her clothes soaked up the excess from the smooth deck plates as she reached out for Sonny's hand. He grasped her tight and pulled. Once outside she leaned against the bulkhead and huffed, tired and her arms burning from the long climb up. Her breasts were visible through the wet fabric of her tank top, and Sonny did his best not to look. He noticed that the fleshy mound of her sex was visible through her wet shorts.

Sonny took his duty jacket off and offered it to Miranda. She smiled and took it. As she put it on, she felt a strange pain seize the muscles in her crotch. She felt like she had been fucking with someone in a vigorous frenzy. It was the kind of after effect she felt upon returning home to her husband after a long haul, their passion far outweighing any physical pain. This was similar, but she knew that her husband had been nowhere near her in the last two years.

'Oh Jesus, please no...' she thought. 

And she had been found on the bridge, in the middle of a crash naked with the one prick in the universe she hated most. Her interior was hot and swollen as she followed Sonny down the corridor, her bare feet wet and slick on the cool metal. Miranda put a hand on her friend's shoulder as her voice broke into a choked sob, "You don't think he raped me, do you?"

Sonny touched her cheek, his weathered face kind and filled with empathy. He said, "If he did, I'll personally cut his dick off. I swear."

And then he hugged her tightly. Miranda let herself fall limp in the embrace, her heart and mind shorted out from exhaustion and confusion.




Black Rain Ch. 02



"Sonny!" a deep voice frightened her. She turned and saw Gordon walking down the corridor towards them from the bridge.

"What's the word?" Sonny asked as he released Miranda.

"We got company," he said off handedly.

Sonny's hopes began to rise, "A rescue transport?"

"No," Gordon shook his head, "Pirates."

The engineer's already pale face drained, "Jah-Haran?"

"Yep."

"Shit."

"Yep."

"Cap says to gather lights and make a final sweep for survivors," the big man said and looked at Paisley, "How you doing, baby?"

"Not good," Miranda shook her head and hugged herself tight.

"You feel up to some recon?" Gordon asked.

"Yeah," Miranda nodded, "I just gotta unlock the flight recorder."

"Cool," he said.

As they proceeded to the bridge, Miranda felt a sudden pang of panic in her stomach. If there was the chance that Harmon had raped her, then there was the possibility that he had impregnated her as well. She felt her stomach as Sonny punched in her code for the recorder release. If she had been so out of it as to let a fucker like Harmon anywhere near her, what else would she have done? What else would she have forgotten? 

She wondered and felt afraid.

***

 Tishara was covered in grease smudges by the time she and Ashton wriggled out of the crawlspace that led to the cartography lab. The main doors had been jammed shut and forced them to find another way in. Tishara supposed they could have found another place to go, but the lab was the only place on the ship that had a comfortable lounge in it. And the room was sound proofed, perfect for impromptu privacy. 

Like everywhere else on the ship, the room was tilted towards the portside at a forty-five degree angle. The monitors to the computer terminals were flickering on and off while the red alert panels still flashed red. Everything that hadn't been bolted down was piled up in the far corner of the lab in a haphazard mound of debris.

"Nice," Tishara grunted as she helped Ashton out of the narrow access tube.

"What?" he asked and braced himself on the uneven floor.

"We'll have a hell of a time getting out of here," she told him. It took a few minutes to work their way down the inclined floor to the lounge. Tishara lifted a shattered monitor off the couch and brushed the glass away thoroughly. She smiled as she and Ashton sat down on the reclined couch.

"I suppose we should be working," he said.

"Probably," she started unzipping his dark blue duty coveralls, revealing more and more of his toned, muscular body.

"Checking on stuff like environmental controls," he said as she unzipped his coveralls all the way down to his navel and then opened his uniform up to reveal his sculpted pectorals and sinewy abdominal muscles. She traced her finger over his muscle line, down to his navel and the back up again.

"Captain's prerogative?" she offered and grasped the zipper of his uniform again.

"That sounds about right," he whispered as Tishara pulled the zipper down all the way to the base of his crotch. His boxer shorts were strained containing his erection. She could see his thick, long cock begging to be released from the fabric confines of his clothes. Ashton worked his uniform off his shoulders as Tishara pulled. The blue coveralls slid off and bunched up at his boots. She grasped his boxers and slid them off his hips, letting his powerful eight-inch cock spring free.

Tishara unzipped her own uniform, revealing her large firm breasts as she slipped out of her clothing. She kicked her boots off and stripped out of her coveralls. Ashton felt for her panties and pulled them down, his hands gliding over her ass and feeling her silky contours. She straddled him, her hot pussy against his stony penis, and pressed her milky breasts into his face. Though he couldn't see her, he knew that they looked fabulous as he licked her nipples and massaged her ass.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it?" Tishara breathed as his cock head pressed against her outer lips.

"Yes it has," he smiled as Tishara slid down his pole. His cock drove into her gently, filling her inner sex up and stretching her out. Tishara shivered and buried her face in his neck as she began to ride him, softly and gently at first.

Ashton gripped her sides and thrusted in and out of her, matching her every move. She leaned back, careful to keep her balance in the tilted room and savored the sensations of thick cock plunging in and out of her. She looked down and smiled. It was such a turn on to see his cock moving in and out of her wetness. He ground against her and picked up the pace. He moved faster and harder, groaning each time her muscles tightened around his length like a powerful fist. She bucked and pushed her body against him as he began to move faster, thrusting deeper into her body. Her large creamy breasts jiggled and slid against his hot skin. 

Ashton gritted his teeth and fucked her harder, bringing squeals of joy from her. She increased her speed, slamming down on his balls, repeatedly. He drove his tool upward into the depths her hot sex. The soft tissues and muscles encouraged him to continue going deeper. He grunted at the intensity of the heat being generated by their sex. 

"Baby, I'm going to lose it here," he managed as he squeezed her ass cheeks.

"Do it," she groaned.

Ashton growled and cried out as his cock hardened to a piece of tempered steel and his head swelled. Hot spurts of cum ejaculated into her pussy as he pulled her to him and held her tight. He was still very hard as the orgasm began to subside, the stony length of his cock still filling her up. Tishara bore down on him and rubbed her clit against him. She began fucking him harder and faster as her tits bounced wildly.

She screamed as her own orgasm rocked her hard, arching through her like electricity. Then her juices began to spill out, flooding the gray material of the lounge seat. She fell against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She could hear her nectar dripping off of the seat and down to the deck plating. She shivered as her climax began to recede like ocean water from a beach.

"Damn," Ashton smiled, "You really got going there."

"It's been awhile," Tishara kissed him.

***

From the crest of one of the many grassy knolls behind the wreckage of The Haven stood a ghostly pale creature. It stood on three tri-pod legs and hunched forward, looking more like the freak crossing of a bulldog, a gorilla and a grizzly bear. Its albino skin was covered with sparse white fur, the powerful muscles rippling just under the flesh. It's primitive alien head looked to the smoking wreck with a morbid curiosity. Hidden eyes beneath its smooth, featureless face watched for signs of life.

It had been awhile since the thing in the sky had passed over. It was like the one that had crashed in the valley. It was large and made of skin not from this world. The sight of the wreck made the creature feel nervous. It did not like being out in the open alone like this with the outsiders. It had no way of expressing that. It had no use for language. It communicated with the others silently, sharing their group mentality and dreams... and the hunger.

Two more identical creatures raced from the surrounding jungle and joined the albino alien. They communed with each other, only small grunts of primal expression escaping their thick throats through powerful jaws. It was time to go and gather, to go and feed from the intruders. The alien lowered its head down and bellowed into the sky as the heavy thunderheads turned the violet expanse into a deep, dark purple. The sun was fading now and night would come.

And then they would feed.

***

Tishara planted wet kisses on Ashton's chest making a trail down his torso to his stomach as she lowered herself onto her knees. She wrapped her hand around his cock, stroking it as she licked it lightly with her tongue. She twirled it round and round tickling him until he groaned. Then she sucked his shaft into the hot cavity of her mouth. She continued massaging him with her hand, stroking very slowly and purposefully. She hand and mouth fucked him harder with each stroke. Then, she grasped his hips with both hands and Ashton prepared himself for it.

She opened her mouth wide and sucked his penis all the way in until the head rubbed the back of her throat. She moved back and forth, taking it deeper with each successive bob of her head. She worked him up to the point of almost cumming then she squeezed his cock with her hand. When he started to relax after a few minutes she stood up and smiled. 

"Before you get to come," she sat down beside him, "Give me something to scream about."

"Yes ma'am," Ashton laughed and positioned himself between her legs. Her felt her skin with his hands, using his other senses to explore her and find the special place of her sex. Tishara squealed as he parted her lips and sucked her clit into his mouth. She arched her back and pressed her sex against his hungry mouth. He wiggled his tongue wildly, desperate to please her. He slid a finger into her wet pussy, moving it in and out with slow strokes. She moved her body in perfect symbiotic rhythm with his motions. Her breasts swayed with each wiggle and involuntary shudder from his tongue. She moved her hands up to her breasts, cupping them and tweaking the nipples.

Ashton moved his mouth and fingers faster, working hard to bring her to the sexual plateau where she could loose her self in pleasures of the flesh. He nibbled at her swollen love button, causing her to shake and quiver. She cried out and tossed her head wildly from side to side as her the tidal wave of her orgasm built up speed inside her. He lavished her honey pot with licks and touches until she was on the brink of an earth shattering orgasm, then he pulled his mouth away. She looked up at him, with her face flushed and tried to push his face back down with her hands. 

"You're evil, captain," she huffed.

"Turnabout is fair play," Ashton grinned and took his hard, throbbing cock in his hand. He wiggled the tip of it against her engorged pussy lips. She pressed upward, sucking his dick into her sopping cunt. Tishara bit her lip as he slowly entered her womanhood. Her soft folds opened to him, wrapping him in an overwhelming enclosure of wet heat. They both moaned their approval as his full length slid all the way in. Ashton pulled back until his swollen, bulbous head was the only part of his cock left inside her. Tishara grasped his arms and lifted upward, desperate to take him back in. Apparently, blindness hadn't sullied his sense of sexual teasing. Then he rammed his rod back inside her, with all his might. The tip of his manhood slammed against her cervix as Tishara shouted out and dug her nails into his back. 

He pulled all the way back and then plowed into as roughly as dared without hurting her. He kept repeating the same move over and over again until they were both on the edge of a powerful sexual bliss neither one of them had really experienced before. Ashton found her lips and kissed her hungrily, their tongues dancing wildly together. He could feel his cock expanding and readying for the final thrust as his semen boiled in his sack.

He cried out and exploded like a volcano inside her. Tishara grabbed his ass and pulled him into violently as her own orgasm took off like a rocket. She could hardly breathe as her body swam in a sea of sexual delight. Her eyes rolled back into her head as her mouth gaped open, sweat beaded on her forehead. Her hair was plastered to her skull, damp with sweat. She kissed her captain fully on the lips, enjoying the last fleeting moments of his erection.

"Two times together," she whispered into his ear, "That's a record."

"Call Guinness," he breathed and kissed her again and then paused. Outside, something was howling. They were inside a sound proof room, and yet there was the distinct sound of something howling like a monstrous wolf. Tishara looked around the shadowed room as the computer screen flickered under the intermittent power surges in the dying ship. She held her breath for a moment, listening intently.

"You hear that?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Ashton nodded. "I did."

***

From orbit, Captain Jor-Koor of the Jah-Haran pirate vessel Black Wraith watched his bridge crew work furiously to prepare for their coming raid to the surface. Koor was a huge Jah-Haran bull male, muscled and equipped with a temper to match. His pitch-black skin was adorned with wicked rust colored tattoos to compliment his mane of dark bronzed hair. He wore typical Jah-Haran pirate attire, an ensemble of neutrally colored armor, netting and leathers. Some of it was ornamental, but most of it was purely functional. From the thick belt around his waist holding a variety of ammo magazines for pulse blasters and traditional firearms to his knee high boots with steel-tipped toes, the Jah-Haran pirate captain was dressed to kill. His powerful arms were exposed and rippling with power. His large leather clad hands rested on the handle of his broad ceremonial blade, sheathed against his belt as he paced the bridge of his ship.

The lighting was dim, as Koor had always liked it. Thin wisps of mist from the life support system curled around the three levels of the octagonal bridge catching the illumination from the red running lights spaced along the floor and giving the room a hellish atmosphere. The ship thrummed soothingly under his boots as the mighty vessel orbited the large jungle planet. His walked to his command chair, a big central seat that was raised high above the stations around him. On this ship, he was the master. On this ship, he ruled with absolute impunity.

"Report," he growled to his First Prime, Jor-Kale. Jor-Kale was a thinner version of his captain with lighter skin and no tattoos, but equally as dangerous. His hair had been shaved off, leaving his skull shiny and smooth. He looked at the captain with smoky red eyes and rasped, "Standard orbit around the forbidden planet established, first reconnaissance complete."

"Prospects?" the captain rumbled as his steel boots echoed on the deck plating of his shadowy bridge.

"Excellent," Jor-Kale smiled, revealing a set of yellowed sharp teeth set in black gums, "The vessel is a Terran Colony ship."

"Good," the captain nodded and then looked at his navigator a level below him. In front of the officers piloting the ship was the view port looking down on the planet. The stars were shining brightly as night began to fall on the forbidden planet, the place he and those like him called T'Oghrah. The humans called it Hell, not that any of them had ever been here before. This was a planet only the damned came to, usually at the end of a blaster rifle and the promise of exile before an excruciating death.

"Navigator," Captain Koor barked, "Time until the storm front hits?"

"Thirty hours and seventeen minutes," Wren, the demonic looking navigator called out. He was of the Haalken lineage, a long dying species of war-like aliens from beyond the spirals of the galaxy. They were nomadic and vicious, built like wiry, four-armed versions of human beings with an oversized head and eyes that burned with yellow hate. Among his more unusual traits, Wren sported red skin that set him apart from Koor's all Jah-Haran crew. But no one challenged Wren. His skills as a pilot were only rivaled by his murderous hostility.

"Let us hope the demons of T'Oghrah don't take the humans before we do," Koor smiled as much as a Jah-Haran can smile, "It would be a shame to walk away with no slaves."

"Sensors show several life signs on the planet surface, including human females and even one Denavian female," Jor-Kale leered. Kale loved the human women, and he loved the Denavian women even more. Koor nodded.

"Any signs of the traitor?" he growled.

"Not yet, my Lord," Jai-Hessex, the communications officer for the Black Wraith hissed back to him from the computer alcove to his left. The female Jah-Haran was like Koor in many ways, and he found her company to be more than just of professional interest. 

Hessex was dressed in her usual black leather clothing, her dark skin a shade lighter than Koor's but with a hot iridescent shine. Her hair was black as ichor and was pulled in multiple braids from her red tattooed forehead. Unlike most females around the known galaxy, Hessex had no qualms about being bare-breasted in front of her shipmates. From the wide v-neck of a tight fitting uniform that opened all the way down to her navel and exposing a muscled stomach hung two large black breasts that shined like the shells of some nocturnal beetle. Two brass studs had been pierced into her dark nipples to match the rings in her ears and the stud in her nose. Her amber eyes burned with more than just eagerness to do her duty as she reported to him, "We lost contact shortly after he landed."

"Keep searching," Koor commanded.

They would have to move quickly. Once the black rain began falling, their chances of salvaging the wreck would be shot and the raid would be wasted. Even worse, if the traitor was down there on the planet and the rain fell, Koor wouldn't have the pleasure of killing him. And that was a pleasure Koor wanted more than anything else in the galaxy right now, even more so than the human ship below them. The humans were a fringe benefit, but the traitor was the prize.

***

Jor-Halen sat on the edge of his small, stolen shuttle, legs crossed and still in his Jah-Haran flight suit. He looked out across the valley where the humans had crashed. They had spent a long time searching the wreckage and gathering outside. He could feel their fear even from his position at the tree line bordering the southern edge of the valley. Halen took his mask off and set it just inside the entry hatch. He considered offering them assistance, but knew it was a fool's errand.

And besides, they were not his mission.

"They'll be coming," he looked up at the sky, knowing full that well Koor was up there waiting for him. He had no doubt that the humans had been spotted and that Koor would come back for them. Halen hoped that the pirate captain would go for the humans first, giving him time to finish his mission. He doubted that Koor would do it considering how much the pirate hated him, but he hoped nonetheless.

Loud thunder raged overhead as lighting struck down in the mountains to the east. A fishy smell of rot wafted through the jungle and assaulted his nose. Halen grabbed his mask and put it back on, trying to filter out the stench. In a short while, the black rain would fall and then the demons that lived here would attack. Halen hated this place so much, and his journey here had not been one taken lightly.

"Curse this place," he muttered and picked up the large blaster rifle from the storage compartment in the right wing of the dark-hulled shuttle.

"Curse it."

...to be continued... 



Black Rain Ch. 03



EDITOR:

Miriam Belle

CREATIVE CONSULTANT:

Simply_Cyn

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

-"Again, addressing some concerns people have written about:

The skin colors of the aliens here are meant to be representative of different galactic species, but not of any racial stereotypes. The black coloring of the Jah-Harans makes them more threatening and interesting, separating them from the humans. Soniah is blue skinned, Wren is crimson red and the drone aliens are albino white. Some of you went so far as to attach these characters to certain ethnicities. Weird, but okay. That wasn't my intention, but if you insist.

The skin colors more indicate personality traits on a basic archetype level, the sleek black coloring of the Ja-Harans showing their natural evolution as a species born to hunt. Wren is treacherous and filled with hate, thus the crimson skin. Soniah, though a cast iron bitch, is really all about serenity and as such is a pale blue. The tattoos on the aliens, Jah-Haran and on Soniah are cultural markings. I have a fascination with body art and wanted to reflect that here." –bluefox07

*

EVERYTHING BEFORE...

TERRAN EARTH DATE

01. 16. 2179

"Yes," Koor growled as he watched his woman, Hessex, kneel down before him and suck the long, thick shaft of his cock. Her pink tongue danced around the black skin of his rod, teasing and preparing him. His amber eyes burned and smoldered with a deep pleasure as she began to pump his shaft and suck the swollen head. It didn't take long for the heavy testicles in his hairless, dark sack to begin to churn in excitement. However, before it went too far, Hessex pulled her mouth away, bringing a grunt from his lips.

"What are you doing?" he hissed and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her face up to look at him.

"Pleasuring you, my Lord," she smiled, her full dark lips pulled back to reveal sharp, strong teeth. A thin mist of sweat had broken out over her iridescent black skin, her facial tattoos red and vibrant in the hot light of his cabin. He snarled as she suddenly clawed her fingernails into his barrel chest and shoved hard.

She pushed Koor onto the bed until he was lying against the mesh pillows. Then she crawled onto the bed and knelt between his legs, her posture the seductive whim of a predator. She grasped his throbbing shaft hard and began to use her tongue to lick the head and then down to his squirming balls. She bathed his sack with her tongue, wetting him to the point of being dripping wet. With a hungry moan, she sucked one large orb into her mouth.

Koor breathed heavily, his massive hands gripping the edges of his bed as he lifted his hips. He was a little apprehensive about her having the delicate orb in her mouth, but it felt good and it was incredibly exciting. Her sharpened teeth grazed his alien scrotum with all the tenderness of a wild dog. He felt her tongue lave the orb and then flick it. A second later she let it slip from her mouth and took the other in. Koor's hands went to her head and grasped a handful of her thick, black hair as she forcefully played with his balls. His excitement was growing rapidly and he wanted more. However, his woman had other ideas.

Hessex looked up at Koor as she placed her hands behind his thighs. She slowly lifted his legs until his thighs were against his chest and his hips were almost off the bed. 

Koor had no idea what she was going to do until she bent her head and began to lick the smooth skin under his balls. His heart began to beat even harder as he felt her tongue slip down, inch by inch until suddenly it was touching his tiny rear hole.

A low, feral growl escaped his thick throat when he felt her begin to circle the hole. Then a long, deep moan escaped his lips as her tongue breached the opening and pushed into his ass. After she had lubricated his little hole with her tongue, she brought a finger to the opening. She looked up at Koor as she slipped her finger into his ass.

"Hessex," Koor gasped and lifted his hips as if to get away from an intruder. Although it was still foreign to Koor, this time, having her finger in his ass was much more sensual. Still, his tiny hole resisted and Hessex would not be denied until her finger was all the way inside him. Then she reached up and took his penis in her other hand as she began to twist her finger. Years of experience told her where to find what she was looking for. 

Koor could feel the tip of her finger massaging his prostate. It made the thick, yellow juice of his seed pour from the swollen head and his balls contract. The combination of her searching finger and her pumping hand had him ready to shoot within a few seconds. He growled and returned his hands to the frame of his bed, nearly bending the metal as she worked him over.

Hessex let go of his penis before he could climax but she kept her finger inside. She knew that he was very close. She almost giggled as she watched his long shaft bob in front of her eyes. Each time she twisted her finger across the lump inside she saw the large head pulse and produce more juice until it was running down his shaft like a river.

Koor gasped and began to squirm his hips, actually pushing down on the finger. 

Hessex smiled with confidence as she bent the shaft down until she could place her tongue on the sensitive skin just below the large crown. She ran her tongue back and forth across the slick surface and then up to the dripping tip. Her lips circled the head and she sucked in the steady stream of juice as her finger continued to pump inside him. With her teeth, she gently bit the head, bringing another moan from the incredibly excited bull male. 

"Hessex," Koor moaned, his eyes closed tightly. "Please."

Hessex giggled again and pulled her finger from his ass, "You're begging me, lover?" 

"I beg of no woman," he smiled, letting his demeanor soften a little.

Then she had him move down until he was lying flat on his back. She spun around and quickly threw her leg over him, her ass toward his face. Her head dropped back to his penis as she began to lick up and down the shaft, avoiding the sensitive head this time.

Koor opened his eyes to see her sexy butt almost in his face. His hands reached for her cheeks. He could see the tiny thong stretched across her asshole and the silky material covering her vagina. The center of the material was dark with her juices. He lifted his head and placed his mouth on the juicy material. When he heard Hessex moan he pulled away. Two could play this game, he thought. He used his tongue to tickle the sensitive outer lips hidden under the thin material. 

Without warning she pushed her hips back, thrusting her crotch in the pirate's face, smashing her vagina onto his mouth. Then she sat up. Now she was sitting on Koor's face, rubbing her swollen sex across his nose, mouth and chin. Hessex was in control and she wanted Koor to know it. It was the only time anyone ever had any control over the notorious pirate. It had taken years for her to earn his trust in this way. She was the only one to ever talk or act this way with Jor-Koor.

He got the message as he gasped for breath, barely able to breathe under the weight of her hips. He couldn't see the wide smile of pleasure on the woman's face.

Suddenly the smell of her excitement and the feeling of her swollen lips on his face consumed his senses. He began to rub his nose on her asshole and work his mouth on her now dripping crotch. 

Hessex gasped and continued to squirm on his face. She pressed down hard, feeling his nose pressing to her little rear hole. Then she circled her hips, rubbing her swollen sex lips on his mouth. As she continued to press her weight onto his face, she reached between her legs and pulled the tiny slip of material from her crotch, letting her exposed lips touch Koor's now searching tongue. A long moan escaped her lips when she felt his tongue enter her dripping hole.

Koor's face was rapidly becoming drenched in her copious nectar. His lips and chin were awash in her thick juices. What he couldn't swallow dripped down his chin. Hessex continued to buck her hips as her excitement grew rapidly. She pressed down on Koor's tongue and allowed a small climax to rush through her. It was quick and intense but she needed more. She rolled from Koor's surprised face and quickly stripped off her panties. She flopped onto the bed and turned to Koor, pulling him onto her. 

"Now," she gasped.

Koor was happy to comply. He was about ready to explode as he slipped between her spread legs and placed the grotesquely swollen head at the entrance to her vagina. Without waiting for permission he pushed into her.

Hessex screamed as she stretched to accommodate him.

Koor grunted as his shaft slipped to the bottom of her tunnel and against her cervix. He held it there, waiting for his urge to climax pass. Hessex needed him to move. Her hips began to buck upward and her hands grabbed his ass cheeks, pulling him down. Koor got the idea and began to pump in and out of her rapidly. Soon the bed was squeaking from their frantic activity. The room filled with grunts and groans and the slapping of their bodies together. 

"Yes, my Lord!" Hessex screamed, "Yes!"

Koor buried his face in her neck and grabbed her hips. He pulled her to him as he pounded his hips downward, forcing his penis all the way into her hole with each thrust. 

The bed rattled and the springs threatened to give out under the stress. 

Soon Koor felt his orgasm coming on. He growled, "Are you ready?"

"Yes, lover," she answered lustfully as her own climax began.

Seconds later the two of them were gasping in pleasure as Koor slammed into her willing hole one last time and began to unleash his pent up sperm. It shot from his overheated balls in torrents, filling Hessex's hole with his potent seed. The gasps and groans of the two continued for a long, long time as pleasure consumed them.

Finally, Koor fell to the bed next to Hessex, his chest heaving in a desperate attempt to catch his breath. He looked over and saw Hessex's large breasts moving up and down just as rapidly, a look of incredible satisfaction on her face. With an exhausted smile, Koor moved over and threw his arm over her chest, pulling himself close to her. 

"Always and forever," Hessex sighed as she opened her eyes. 

Koor began to squeeze her breast as he moved his lips to her ear. "You're the only woman I trust... the only person I can truly trust," he whispered, "Does that honor you?"

Hessex smiled and said dreamily, "Yes, my Lord."

"Does it please you to know I am pleased?"

"Yes, my Lord," she stared at him, her feral eyes alive with inner fire.

A few minutes later Koor leaned over and kissed Hessex tenderly. He continued to play with her breast as he bent over and began to kiss down the warm flesh of her swell until he found her pierced nipple.

"My Lord Koor," Hessex gasped as she felt chills run down her spine, "We must prepare the landing party."

"Soon," he dismissed her.

He kissed one breast and then the other until they were wet with his saliva. Then he kissed down her stomach. Slowly his lips worked across her stomach to the hairless expanse at her groin. Without a word he moved until he was kneeling between her legs.

Hessex looked up at him, suddenly very excited again, and asked, "Do we have time, My Lord?" 

Koor didn't answer. He kissed down her sex lips, gently licking the smooth outer lips as he went. Then he abruptly lifted her legs and spread them wide. He stared down at her ravaged sex. The lips were swollen and puffy from his recent attack. He could see that her hole was wet and still pulsing. With a groan his mouth dropped to cover her sopping sex.

"My Lord," she breathed as her body electrified under his tongue, "The approaching storm may-"

She cried out as her master bit down on her sex hard, not in love or even a sadomasochistic eroticism, but in anger. She cried out and tried to recoil but found a powerful explosion of pain on the right side of her face. Hessex recoiled back, her eyes wide.

"Silence!" he roared, his hand still raised high in the air.

"My Lord, I never meant-"

"Why do you persist?" Koor growled, grabbing her by the arms and pinning her under his muscular frame, "Why?"

"Our losses on this voyage have been severe, My Lord," she explained, cringing from the agony of her betrayed sex, "I'm only trying to insure your-"

Another vicious blow to the head lit her view up a bright yellow and then red. Hessex struggled against his grip, even as his long, claw-like fingernails penetrated the flesh of her biceps. Koor roared at her, "How dare you suggest that I am to blame for this!"

"No My Lord," she cried, "No. It wasn't you who did this! The traitor Halen did! I only seek to recover what he cost us. I only seek to help you, My Lord."

Koor looked at her and raised his large hand in the air, a tight fist formed and shaking enough to reveal the pirate captain's rage. He was furious, and Hessex knew that it wasn't really her he was mad at. It was Halen, the alien trader that promised them riches beyond measure for passage to this forsaken place. He had repaid Koor's hospitality by stealing a shuttle from the cargo bay and abandoning them without pay.

"You speak the truth?" Koor asked with all the reserved patience of a coiled rattlesnake.

"And nothing else," Hessex cowered. She loathed the fact that Koor did this to her on a regular basis, but she despised the fact that she allowed it to happen.

Koor lowered his hand and released her arm from his iron grip. After a moment, he said, "Let us not speak of this again."

"Yes, My Lord," she nodded and closed her eyes gratefully, though she did not feel it. More and more, this seemed to be the case. Despite the passion of their sex, the tenderness she wanted most from lasted only a few seconds afterwards. His abuse of her was taking a toll, and she wondered how much longer she could convince herself to feel things she didn't even know anymore. She might have been a slave to the pirate, but she had feelings.

Still, this did not affect Koor in the slightest. Without another word, he lowered himself down to her aching crotch and began again. She uttered a small whimper as he pleasured her, the tender flesh he had bitten still singing out in pain.

Hessex cried as he felt his tongue digging into her stretched hole. Almost immediately she felt an orgasm approaching. She couldn't believe that she was ready to climax again so soon. Her body was willing, but her heart was simply not in it anymore. Despite this, within a few seconds her body began to convulse with pleasure. She wrapped her legs around Koor's around head and lifted her hips to meet his hungry mouth. 

He would have smiled but his mouth was too busy. Then, before she had stopped climaxing, Koor pulled her over and made her get onto her hands and knees. He got onto his feet and squatted behind her raised hips. A second later he was slipping his hard, serpent-like penis into her with a brutal frenzy. 

"My Lord, yes," Hessex moaned as she felt Koor began to pound into her again, tears rolling down her cheeks. She hated crying almost as much as she hated being this man's consort. But she bit her lip and played her part. She played it so convincingly that sometimes, even she believed in her performance. 

But only sometimes. 

***

While Hessex endured the splendors of her master hundreds of miles above the surface, the survivors of the colony vessel Haven assembled in front of the wrecked bridge module below. Engineers Gordon and Sonny sat casually along the massive inner curve of the starboard bow, which was half buried in the soft soil of the uncharted alien world. They puffed on their cigarettes reverently, quiet and waiting for the captain to speak. Tishara and Captain Ashton were seated not far away, both of them looking content and somewhat relieved. The surviving passengers were grouped together next to them. 

Soniah, the blue-skinned Denavian woman and would-be administrator of the Delta Prime Colony looked perturbed and short of patience. Her beautiful face was slightly pinched in a frown of disgust. She stood away from the others, who had banded together in the short time following the crash and refused the comfort of their company. After a few failed attempts at small talk, most everyone had given up on her.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Captain Ashton addressed them, "We're here to discuss business. As you all know by now, our port bow was ripped away in the crash and landed in the jungle just a kilometer away from here. If there are survivors, we need to find them quick. We spotted a Jah-Haran pirate ship a few hours ago, and if they follow their usual M.O. we can expect a raiding party before nightfall."

He motioned to Tishara, who stood up and looked at them all.

"I will be leading the search party," Tishara said as she buckled her weapons belt and slapped a new ammo pack into her plasma blaster. The blaster was a larger gun than the standard laser pistols issued by the company, a personal addition to the armory on her part. She continued, "We don't know if anyone lives here or not, so it could be a dangerous walk. Engineer Gordon and Dr. Howe have already volunteered to go."

Gordon smiled and favored them with a small salute.

"Barrera and Cole," Tishara turned to the two sitting near Dr. Howe, "We need you as well, if you're willing."

"I'll go," Chastity nodded. The hardened construction worker stood up and looked at Tishara. The roughneck was wearing a tight-fitting tank top that only accentuated her rippled physique and deeply tanned skin. She looked out at the tree line and the gaping hole in the thick line of trunks where the bow had sliced through, "How many out there?"

"There were thirty people in cryo-tubes," Gordon said.

"Jesus," Jared Cole muttered. The skinny, redheaded welder was also dressed in a dark tank top with cargo pants and standard issue black boots. His pale skin was bright and white in the lavender hues of the alien sunlight. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his thin nose and looked at the forbidding tree line, "It doesn't look very hospitable, does it?"

"Don't sweat it, Coppertop," Chastity punched him lightly in the shoulder, "If there's anything dangerous in there, they'll be going after the people in the tubes first."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

"It supposed to ground you in reality," she replied.

"Dammed cold if you ask me," he added.

"Mr. Cole," Gordon said as he stood up and motioned at himself and Chastity, "We could use your help. If we have to cut people out of their tubes, it'll go faster with three people who know how to use plasma torches."

Jared looked pained for a moment, and then nodded to the large black man, "I'm in."

Tishara smiled, "We're traveling on foot, so pack lightly. We'll each take enough food to get us there and back again. Each member of the search party will be issued a weapon and first aid kit. You're all certified and trained with blasters, but if anyone feels uncomfortable let me know now."

None of them said anything. Tishara nodded and said, "Good."

"Search party will leave in one hour," Ashton said, "Get your gear and be ready. The rest of you are with me in trying to figure out what the hell happened."

Sonny and Soniah looked at each other and then at the captain. She asked, "And how can I or this engineer assist you with an investigation?"

Sonny gave her a sideways look that might have killed a normal person, the pointed emphasis on 'this engineer' about a subtle as slap to the face.

Ashton wished he could see what Soniah looked like. Her antagonistic nature and cold demeanor were indicative of a very ugly woman. But, considering she was a Denavian he imagined she was probably very beautiful, a slick package for a cast iron bitch. His eyes were still flaring with colors every now and then, but there was nothing he could truly see with any clarity. So he smiled kindly and said, "Ms. Soniah, I need the eyes of a trained and impartial professional. Sonny is my technical know-how and probably the best judge of character I've ever known. Between the two of you, I think the investigation will go much faster."




Black Rain Ch. 03



Soniah was silent for a moment, her yellow eyes suddenly uncertain. She tilted her head and nodded, crossing her arms over her three large breasts. Her tank top did little to hide her special anatomy, and despite his resentment towards her Sonny was only too thrilled about it. He shifted himself to the left to make room for the growing erection in his coveralls. After a moment, Soniah said, "I understand, Captain."

"Good," Ashton said. "Okay, search and rescue team go with Gordon. He'll equip you and go over the ship schematics."

Doctor Howe and the two roughnecks followed Gordon back into the ship. Tishara went to Ashton and Soniah. She ran a hand through her thick dark hair and looked to Sonny, "How's Miranda?"

"She's been sitting at her station in what's left of the bridge," he said and took a deep drag on his cigarette.

"How's she been acting?" Ashton asked, "Does she have any memories of what happened to her?"

"Nothing," Sonny sighed, "It's like she woke up from a nightmare or something. She doesn't know how she got from her tube to the bridge or how she ended up naked."

"Does she think Harmon might have raped her?"

Sonny looked down at his boots, smoke jetting from his nostrils, "She's not sure."

"Speaking of Harmon" Tishara asked, "What about him?"

"Still locked up in the head. He's been yelling and screaming since this morning when the Jah-Haran vessel passed over. He keeps insisting he didn't do anything wrong."

"The man doth protest too much, me thinks," Ashton said under his breath.

"I'd have to agree," Sonny nodded.

"Captain," Soniah stepped in, "Supposing we find your officers were at fault in causing the crash? Can I assume there will be a captain's mast?"

Ashton shifted his weight and nodded, "Of course."

"Intersystem law clearly defines dereliction of duty and willful sabotage of a starship a death sentence," the Denavian said coldly.

"Willful sabotage?" Tishara repeated, "We don't know they-"

"Precisely, lieutenant," Soniah cut her off, "We don't know what they were up to. At the very least, it was dereliction. At the most, they were an active part of this ship's demise."

"And an accident is beyond consideration?" Tishara stared at her, her dark eyes flaring.

"If you're referring to the possibility that during their misadventure on the bridge one of the control panels was damaged, then yes I can allow for that."

"Miranda would never do anything like that," Sonny looked at Soniah, "She's one of the most trustworthy people I've ever known."

"I'm not biased by personal feelings, Mr. Jackson," Soniah said evenly, "The fact remains, they were on the bridge and now we are stuck here."

"If they were at fault," Ashton said, "Then they will be dealt with."

"I can only hope the punishment fits the crime," Soniah replied flatly.

"What are you saying?" Tishara asked her, "Are you saying we should execute them? Anything could have caused their irrational behavior on the bridge."

"Deep space dementia? Cryo-psychosis?" Soniah stared at Tishara, "Lieutenant I agree that their minds might have been affected, but the fact remains that over fifty people are dead now because of their incompetence. Someone must pay the price."

"I'm not quite ready to execute two of the handful of people to walk away from this," Ashton said, his voice low and filled a subtle threat, "We will ask questions and we will listen, understand?"

"Yes, Captain Ashton," Soniah nodded and walked away. Once she was out of earshot Sonny patted Ashton on the shoulder and shook his head.

"I don't trust her," Tishara said under her breath.

"She's a bureaucrat," Ashton said, "For her, this all about statistics and cost analysis."

"Cold hearted bitch," Tishara said.

"Yeah," Sonny nodded as he watched her walk away, her shapely ass round and practically begging for his touch, "But she's the sexiest cold hearted bitch this side of the Asimov Quasar."

"Start thinking with the right brain," Tishara slapped the back of his head playfully, tussling his long blonde hair.

"I'm only human," he grinned sheepishly and flicked his spent cigarette away.

"Did you get anything from the flight recorder?" Ashton asked grimly.

"Well," the engineer crossed his arms and sighed, "We only have limited computer power. I've hooked the recorder directly to the A.I. alcove to get the most processing power. The main reserves are draining quick, but from what I can tell so far there was an unidentified failure in navigation that caused the A.I. to drop out of hyperspace, and subsequently causing us to almost collide with another ship. What the failure was I can't say. The data is corrupted."

Tishara said, "Are we looking at sabotage?"

"A lot of money was riding on this trip," Sonny said, "There was a lot of talk before we left that the company was going to have to default on their loans if Delta Site failed. If someone wanted the company to default badly enough, I think you could say we're expendable."

"Jesus," Ashton rubbed his useless eyes.

"I gotta say," Sonny added, "I don't believe for a minute Paisley had anything to do with this. She's one of the most loyal members of this crew, Cap."

"You don't have to remind me," the captain said, "But she was on the bridge with Harmon. They were both out of their tubes before this shit even started."

"Just keep working on that recorder, Sonny," Tishara said and gripped his shoulder, "We need to know what happened."

Sonny nodded and walked away. As he did, Tishara reached out and took her captain's hand in her own, squeezing reassuringly. She sat down beside him and asked, "What will you do if it turns out Soniah is right, and they did sabotage the ship?"

Ashton took a deep breath, his handsome features somehow pale and a former shadow of what they had been only days before. He said, "In that case, we'll have to lock them both up until a rescue comes."

"And if a rescue doesn't come?" she asked.

Ashton didn't reply. He didn't want to think about the repercussions of that event. He held onto her hand and smiled, dismissing the question, "Then we're all dead anyway." 

"Be careful out there, okay?"

Tishara kissed his cheek, "You too."

"I love you," he said.

Tishara looked over her shoulder and smiled, "I love you too."

***

More clouds began gathering and roiling above their heads as the search party worked their way over the alien terrain of the jungle planet. Following behind Tishara was Dr. Howe, loaded down with medical supplies and armed for the first time in her life with a plasma blaster. Behind her came Chastity and Jared, both of them looking mean and irritated in the humid weather as they hauled the case containing plasma torches between them. Gordon brought up the rear, his dark skin somehow a few shades darker than before in the waning daylight. He carried a large blaster rifle over his shoulder and their ammunition bag.

"Does the ground feel funny to you?" Chastity asked as they worked their up over the seventh knoll, the forest looming large in front of them.

Tishara felt her boots pressing into the soil and then bouncing a little, as though there were rubber under the dirt. She said, "Yeah, it has kind of springy quality to it..."

"Well," Jared huffed as his arms strained under the weight of the long, silver trunk that housed the torches, "We are on a alien planet. Who knows what this dirt is made of?"

"Feels like walking on a really tight trampoline," Howe said.

"Look at those clouds," Gordon said from behind, "That can't be good."

Above them, masses of blue and purple thunderheads coalesced and rumbled together across the sky and to the horizon. It was getting awfully muggy, to the point of their tank tops being soaked with sweat and their hair dampened to their skulls. There was an electric feeling in the air; a barely existent thrum of energy building around them as though lightning might strike. Tishara could feel it like the cloak of some phantom ghost enveloping them. In the distance a powerful clap of thunder rolled across the alien heavens.

Jared jumped as it sounded off like a bomb, echoing through the jungle ahead of them, "Jesus... that was a big one."

"You scared, man?" Chastity grinned, her dark exotic eyes filled with dry amusement.

"No," Jared snorted, "Are you?"

"Shit," she rolled her eyes, "Momma says when I was born it did nothing but thunder and lightning all morning long."

Jared looked back at Gordon, "That was God's way of saying He made a mistake..."

Gordon chuckled and shook his head.

"Fuck you," Chastity laughed as sweat dripped off her nose and landed on her chest in small droplets, rolling down into the crevasse of her cleavage. This fine detail was not lost on Jared as they walked, and he nearly tripped over a large gray rock as he admired her breasts.

"Hey watch it!" Chastity cried out. Jared lost his footing and tripped down hard to the spongy ground. The trunk slipped from his grip and fell as Jared scrambled to stand up.

"What happened?" Tishara turned around and faced them.

"Damn rock," Jared rubbed his shin and dusted the moist black soil off his pants and boots, "Fucking rock."

Gordon walked beside them and kneeled down by the angular, porous stone. He ran his fingers over the surface of it and frowned.

"What is it?" Dr. Howe asked, her green eyes wide and red hair flaring in the alien sunlight.

"Ain't no rock," Gordon said flatly, "It's a metal of some kind. Processed by a Terran refinery from the looks of it."

"Now how can you tell that?" Jared eyed the engineer.

"I know."

"It could be naturally occurring," Tishara offered as they gathered around the mystery rock, "Every planet has it's own unique ore."

"True," Gordon nodded and smiled, his dark eyes squinted as sweat beaded on his chocolate skin, "But..."

They watched as he dug his fingers into the earth around the rock and began clearing away the mud. A funny smell filled the air as he cleared the base of the rock gradually, the acrid stench of bile and something else that wasn't quite identifiable. Tishara covered her nose and stepped back a little as the aroma filled the air around them. And then she saw what Gordon already knew.

"Remember to wash your hands," Howe muttered, her hand to her mouth.

Gordon cleared nearly ten inches of soil away from the rock before revealing it to be a wedge of metal. He felt a little nauseated as he dug, the soil becoming a wet murky black slop the further down he went. The rock was pitted as though acid had been showered across it in a wicked spray. The gray metal was shiny with decay and decomposition, but there was a clearly visible red stripe along the trailing edge of the triangular shape. Tishara knelt down with Chastity as the welder put her fingernail to the red stripe and scratched.

"It's paint," she held her finger up, showing several red flakes on the tip, "It's marking paint."

"Another ship crashed here?" Jared asked hopefully, "There might be other people..."

"I'd say this was part of ship at one time," Gordon eyed the triangle of metal, "But it's been severely corroded. You can see where something acidic got on the hull. And look here..."

He pointed at the line were the metal had become submerged in the dirt, "You can see here that the corrosion is worse the further down the metal goes. See how it's all black and brittle?"

"And the smell?" Dr. Howe cringed, "What is that? It smells like bile."

Tishara shrugged, "Maybe some kind of naturally occurring phenomenon. The ecosystem here is undoubtedly as bizarre as the weather."

Gordon frowned and kept looking at the wedge of metal. He had seen this kind of damage before, but never so intensely focused. Duranium alloys, which were the staple of all known shipbuilding methods, were extremely tough and resistant to outside elements. The shit was damn near unbreakable, it's strength and durability second only to adamantium. Acid could scar the metal, but never pit it as this had been. And even stranger was the fact that the section submerged in the soil was more badly damaged than the part exposed to the elements.

"What are you thinking, Gordon?" Tishara placed a hand on his powerful shoulder.

"Probably nothing," he said and stood up, wiping his hands off on his pants. He felt a slight tingling on his fingers, a heat that was just hot enough to make him worry. He wiped the slimy, muddy residue off completely and then hoisted the large rifle over his shoulder again, "When we get back to the ship, I'll give it some more thought."

Blue lightning arched in the sky, dancing from one cloud to the other as the wind picked up and cooled them down a little. They continued on and worked their way up the last grassy knoll before arriving at the dense tree line. The alien trees were thick and wet looking, their bark shining in the dim light. The forest was shadowed and foreboding as they looked into the massive passage cut by the severed bow. A lopsided hole had been sheared and drilled back into the woods, creating a somewhat passable route for them to enter.

"If anyone survived that," Jared whistled, "I'll be surprised."

Around their feet were pieces of The Haven that had broken away in the crash, hull plates and twisted debris. It littered the hillside and made small breaks of gray color in the lush growth around the edge of the forest. Tishara shook her head and said a silent prayer as she and the others contemplated the dense woods. Darkness seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the thick overgrowth.

Gordon looked down at his feet and noticed that one of the chucks of debris, a long pole, had been speared into the ground. Had anyone been standing there during the crash, they might have been impaled. He grasped the rod and yanked hard. The ground seemed to suck and pull as it reluctantly slid out, a long rope of muddy, black slime hanging from it. Gordon cocked a doubtful brow as he held up the oozing rod and said, "Yo, Tishara."

She turned and looked at the mucus hanging from the rod, "Oh my God. Where the hell did that come from?"

"It was lodged in the ground," Gordon said, "I pulled it out and this shit was all over it. Smells like someone puked."

Dr. Howe leaned in and dropped her packs to the ground. She quickly opened one of the field kits and brought out a small specimen jar. She looked to Gordon and said, "Hold on one second, please."

She knelt down in front of the foul smelling substance and tipped the jar underneath the mucus. One fat droplet was slowly beginning to fall away from the main mass. It slowly detached from the glob of slime and plopped into the clear container as she capped it and sealed it. 

"Whatever this is," she smiled grimly and held the jar up to the fading light, "It's absolutely unprecedented."

"As opposed to what?" Chastity asked, "Look, I know this is a great discovery for the world of egg heads, but can we get rolling? It's getting dark and we still have yet to establish that we're alone here..."

"She's right," Tishara said and looked over her shoulder at the opening in the forest, "Break out your lights."

As the members of the team turned on their flashlights, Tishara glanced at the rod Gordon holding. The part of the rod that had been submerged in the ground was discolored and looked to be warped. She supposed that the bend could have happened in the crash. Even duranium wasn't indestructible. She met Gordon's eyes and they shared a moment of mutual doubt as he raised the rod and then hit it against the ground. The darkened part of the metal broke and shattered like shale rock. The remains floated in the goo that had corroded it.

"Now that's fucking unprecedented," Gordon observed and looked at the remaining foot or two of the rod.

"What could have cause such a complete breakdown?" Jared marveled.

"Worry about it later," Tishara interrupted and motioned for them to proceed. She wanted to worry about it now. She wanted to worry and get her ass back to the ship before anymore "unprecedented" discoveries made themselves known. But she had a job to do. If there were any survivors in the wreckage, they probably didn't have much longer. She steeled herself and shouted, "Let's go."

"Yeah," Chastity said under her breath, "Let's go get killed."

"And nobody touch anything," Tishara added.

"Seriously bad ju-ju from this place," Jared sighed, following them into the jungle.

***

In the tilted confinement of the mess hall, Ashton sat beside Soniah. Sonny was standing behind them, relaxing against the entry to the room and smoking another cigarette. Food and metal pots and pans littered the floor. The place was a disaster area, never meant to be angled like this in a gravity field. As such, they all sat off center and trying to compensate for the odd tilt of the ship. 

The captain listened as the Denavian explained the proceedings to Harmon and Paisley. He wished he could see their faces, to read their expressions and to determine for himself just who was lying and who wasn't. He hated relying on Soniah for that information. Gut instinct and experience had always been preceded by what he saw. As a starship captain, it was an essential trait of survival.

With his sight stolen, Ashton felt about as useful as the broken hulk of his ship. The crew looked to him for answer and guidance. How could he lead them when couldn't even see his own nose in front of his face? A cool, insidious doubt had gripped him in the last few hours. He supposed the crash, the arrival of the Jah-Haran pirates and the possible sabotage of his ship all combined to form one simple and inescapable monster. He felt overwhelmed, and he wished it had been Tishara at his side instead of the Denavian.

"Engineer Harmon and Officer Paisley," Soniah addressed them from across the large dining table, "Do you understand why you're here?"

"Yes," Miranda Paisley said quietly.

"Yes," Harmon muttered.

"So?" she looked at them, her yellow eyes seemingly burning holes in their heads with each glance, "What happened?"

Neither of them spoke.

"Lt. Paisley," Soniah spoke softly, but not quite enough to hide the edge in her voice, "Can you tell us what happened?"

"Ma'am," she said after a few moments of contemplation, "All I know is I woke up in the head, in my underwear with Sonny telling me that the ship had crashed and that you all found me on the bridge bare ass naked."

"And you have no recollection of how you came to be in such a compromising position?"

"No ma'am, I don't." She brushed her blonde hair away from her flushed face.

"Please don't call me 'ma'am'," Soniah told her, "Under the circumstances, Soniah will suffice."

Miranda could tell the invitation to a first name basis was merely a tactic in her investigation, to engender trust. The Denavian was supposed to have been the colony administrator on Delta Prime, in charge of everything from the supply barrels to the materials used in construction to the socks on every man, woman and child's' feet. The doubt and suspicion Soniah exuded towards both her and Harmon wasn't unjustified, she supposed. It was her job to sniff out the bullshit in her yard and get rid of it.

Besides, even Miranda had a hard time believing her story. If the truth were to be told she didn't know what to believe.

"Do you recall anything at all that might be helpful?" Soniah asked.

"No," Miranda replied, though her thoughts immediately went to the pain in her crotch. She knew what it felt like to have had sex after a dry spell. Every time she returned home to Earth following a long haul, her husband would have to be easy on her until she got used to it again. Now, her sex felt as though it had been worked over from every angle imaginable. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say it.




Black Rain Ch. 03



Soniah sensed this and eyed her, "Lieutenant?"

Miranda felt tears welling in her eyes. Only one man had been on the bridge with her before the crash, and he was sitting next to her as defiant and unpleasant as ever. She looked at Harmon from the corner of her glassy blue eyes and felt sick to her stomach. If he had raped her, then there was a chance she might have gotten pregnant. She couldn't bear the thought of that. She and her husband had tried for so long to have a child only to be graced with regular periods and many tests revealing negative results.

"If there's something wrong," Ashton spoke up, "You can tell us."

"Tell them, Miranda," Sonny added as he glared at Harmon, "You tell them, baby."

"Tell us what?" Soniah asked.

Miranda explained her delicate physical condition to her shipmates, feeling both embarrassed beyond belief and terrified. The entire time she spoke, Harmon only looked off beyond the shoulder of his captain, his round face placid and devoid of emotion. He looked sedated, almost peaceful. The details of Miranda's condition and the damning evidence pointing to Harmon seemed to be of no concern. He simply sat there as Soniah and Ashton questioned her and sympathized.

Harmon had expected nothing else. If he were the black sheep of the crew, then Miranda Paisley was undoubtedly the golden child.

"What is your response to this, Mr. Harmon?" Soniah asked, her piercing feline eyes staring at him.

He looked at her and asked, "To what? That I raped her?"

Soniah waited, as did Ashton and Sonny.

Harmon looked at them all and couldn't help but laugh to himself. They had already passed judgment on him as it was. He could read it in the faces, from the stern look on blue-skinned bitch's face to the promise of comeuppance burning in Sonny's eyes. He shook his head and smiled, "Lady, it doesn't matter much what I say."

"I think it does," she replied.

Harmon looked away, feeling neither condemnation nor guilt.

"What is your function aboard the Haven?" she asked.

"Does it matter now?"

"Answer the question, Harmon," Ashton said. His patience was growing thin. For as serious as all this was, Robert Harmon seemed to be taking it like a joke.

"I am the systems analyst for the A.I., primary and secondary systems," he said matter-of-factly and glared at Soniah.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means I inspect and maintain the ship's vital functions before, during and after a mission."

"Does this include the cryogenics systems?"

"Yes."

"Does this include the navigational systems?"

Harmon cocked a brow, "Yes it does."

"Would it be fair to say that you are, essentially, the caretaker of the crew and passengers during a mission?"

Harmon breathed deep, steeling himself to betray nothing though he felt like a water balloon with a pinprick and leaking steadily. He said, "Yes, that is true."

"You asked me does it matter what your job was," Soniah said, "There are twenty-three dead people in the sleeper bay who might have an answer for that. And I imagine before long we'll discover that people in the port bow might have a similar condition and opinion. Does it matter, Mr. Harmon? I think so."

"What are you trying to say?" he rolled his eyes, "That I sabotaged the ship?"

"No one has uttered the word sabotage here," she said coolly, "But the fact remains that this ship was diverted from her course and subsequently crashed beyond repair. The only two people awake during this time were you and Lieutenant Paisley."

Harmon folded his arms across his chest. He felt the walls closing in on him fast. His plan had never included the event of having to explain his presence on the bridge, let alone Paisley's as well. It looked bad for him and he knew it. 

"Why did you exit cryosleep early?"

"The computer woke me up," he replied.

"Why?"

"We came into contact with another ship in-flight," he said.

"You do know that the A.I. is programmed to wake the captain first?" Sonny asked.

Harmon glared at him, "It woke me instead."

"You'll forgive me if I say I find that impossible," Sonny said.

"A lot of things are impossible for you," Harmon remarked.

"According to the flight recorder," Sonny cocked his brow, "We didn't encounter the other ship until after the drop from hyperspace."

"Then it must be faulty data," Harmon replied, his heart thudding heavily in his chest.

"Did you find the lieutenant on the bridge?" Soniah asked.

"Yes," Harmon lied, his hands sweating profusely.

"Then why," Soniah folded her arms over her chest, "Would the communications officer have been woken up before you or the captain?"

Harmon licked his lips.

"Answer the question, Harmon," Ashton said. It wasn't a suggestion. His captain had given him an order.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"And yet it is your job to monitor these systems," she said, "To know what is happening and where?"

Harmon looked away and wiped away the mustache of sweat he had grown in the last few minutes.

"And you still have no idea how she came to be naked on the bridge?" Soniah asked doubtfully.

"No," he insisted.

"People don't sleep nude in the cryo-tube," Sonny interjected, "I checked her tube and found her top and bottoms in there."

Miranda felt like she was ready to puke.

Soniah nodded to herself and looked at Ashton, not that it mattered if she looked at him or did a dance in front of him. The man was blind now, and a blind man was of no use to her. She hadn't wanted to be here anymore than the others, and the idea of being stuck on this backwater planet with a blind man in charge made her furious. She was supposed to be overseeing the construction of the colony on Delta Prime, not acting as a prosecutor in some gerry-rigged captain's mast.

"You have no idea how the ship came to be diverted from its course?" she looked at Harmon.

The heavyset engineer looked down at his hand, twiddling his thumbs back and forth. His face was red and though he hadn't said much, Soniah could tell the man was ready to have a conniption. She said, "Did you hear me, Mr. Harmon?"

"Yes," he looked up from his lap, "And no I do not know how that happened. The captain shot me before I could finish my analysis. I don't know anything."

"You locked the doors to the bridge," Ashton said, "And you fired on me first."

"I didn't know what was happening," he replied, unable to look at his captain's blind eyes, "For all I knew you were a raider or some half-assed space pirate."

"And when I yelled for you to stop?"

Harmon wanted to scream.

"I don't know anything," he repeated.

That was a lie. He recalled everything with perfect clarity, though he didn't dare tell anyone that. He could remember everything from reprogramming the A.I. before they left Earth to wake him early to the sabotage of the navigational array to the moment he brought Paisley to the bridge. So he had taken advantage of her. Big fucking deal. Any of the others would have too, given to opportunity. Paisley was a blond bombshell with a body to die for.

'And your dick is the reason you didn't see the other ship in time,' he thought to himself dismally. 

He knew, even as he had pulled her out of the cryotube, her body doped up on enough sedatives to keep her out until he finished framing her for the job, that he should have just kept focused on the job. But when he gave in to temptation and undressed her, feeling her full tits in his hands and cupping her sex with his fingers he could not stop. She was the forbidden fruit he had been lusting after for years now. And this was the only chance he would get to have her.

After carrying her to the bridge, he figured he had a little free time. The security recordings were going to be erased anyway and no one was up and about. Why not have a little fun, he reasoned. He always suspected she was a dirty little slut and when he had finished fucking her, he knew for sure. He knew he had violated her, and he knew what he had done was rape.

But he didn't care.

He had loved it.

He'd loved it so much he had gotten sloppy. The minor course correction that would have put the Haven off schedule for a month in deep space, and thus causing the corporate powerhouse backing the expedition to default on some hefty loans from his employers became a serious problem. As if it had been preordained, the new course heading had taken them into the flight path of another vessel. Now, in retrospect, Harmon laughed at the irony and amazing odds of two ships colliding on the same course in the same backwater sector in this big a galaxy. The odds were astronomical, and yet it had happened all the same. 

Harmon had always prided himself on being meticulously accurate in everything he did. Even when it came to stabbing his friends in the back, he held on to this maxim. For the amount of money his employers had paid him for this one small job, he felt he owed it to them.

As he listened to the blue-skinned bitch go on and on about the implausibility of their story and her doubts about his honesty, he realized that the anger he felt wasn't over the people who had died in the crash. It wasn't over the fact that in all likelihood the crew would die here or that poor Miranda Paisley had cheated on her husband or that righteous Captain Ashton had lost his sight. He was pissed that he had gotten careless for a little piece of ass. The job had suffered. Oh, the men back on Earth who had dreamed the plot up would be thrilled; the Haven was lost and they wouldn't have to pay the remainder of the money to him.

'Fuck,' he hissed inwardly, 'Fuck fuck fuck...'

And now, if it was discovered that he had been the one responsible for the crash, he had no doubt that Sonny and his oversized ape Gordon would kill him. Ashton would try to stop it, and Tishara would too but in the end one of the cocksuckers would get to him.

'FUCK!'

"Are you listening to me, Harmon?" Soniah asked.

"Captain," he said after a moment, "Are you pressing charges?"

"Harmon, this is serious," Ashton replied coolly.

"So am I," he laughed, "Because I feel like I'm on trial here. I don't remember what happened. For all I know Paisley and I got a case of the DSD's and lost it for a moment. What is this shit anyway? A fucking kangaroo court?"

"Enough, Harmon," Ashton said.

"You might as well lynch us, because you've asked all the questions you can think of and I've given all the answers I know."

Ashton supposed they might have succumbed to DSD, or as it is more eloquently spoken amongst eggheads Deep Space Dementia. It's been known to happen to more than one person on a long haul through space. Sometimes, the change in gravity and the isolation can fuck with your mind. Sometimes you go a little crazy after being in suspended in a cryo-tube for months and even years on end. It wasn't a permanent affliction, but it sure as hell knocked some efficiency off the gray matter in a matter of days after a thaw.

"Did you sabotage the Haven, Lieutenant Paisley?" Soniah asked the communications officer.

Paisley looked up with glassy blue eyes and said, "No. I would never do anything like that," and then to Ashton, "Please sir, you know me. I've never given you a reason to doubt me in the last five years, have I?"

Ashton shook his head, "No, you haven't."

"I know something happened," she began to sob, her hands instinctively falling to her crotch. She could still feel the penetration of Harmon's penis inside her. A cold space had formed in her sex, and it chilled her to the core. She missed the warmth of her husband and the safety of his arms. She had never wanted to be with Harmon, not once. She was a good wife, and she was loyal. And now... how could she ever explain this?

"Easy," Ashton tried to soothe her, his hand raised up. He wished he could see her and reassure her, but only found the harsh reality of the dark. He said, "Easy, Miranda. No one is going to be lynched, despite what Harmon might say."

"I suppose DSD is an explanation for their behavior," Soniah said to the captain, "But it still doesn't explain how the ship was thrown off course like that."

"Some one is lying here," Ashton said, "When Sonny is able to access the flight recorder we'll know more."

"Speaking of which," Sonny said, "I better go check on the computer. Analysis should be complete."

"Go to it," Ashton nodded.

"Oh and Harmon?" Sonny said over his shoulder.

Harmon looked at him.

"If I find out you did anything to her, I'll kill you."

"Sonny," Soniah spun and faced him, her eyes glowing, "Stop it this instant."

Sonny only glared at Harmon and said, "Sorry."

"You're excused Sonny," Ashton said sternly, "No more bullshit, understand?"

"Yes sir," he breathed and then added to Harmon, "See ya around, Bob."

Harmon sat back in his chair, arms crossed and heart pounding in his chest. He had altered the sensor logs to show a ship passing by at close range to explain the course alteration and drop from hyperspace, but if Sonny went through the memory with a fine tooth comb then his deception could be revealed. 

'SHIT!' he cursed inwardly.

If all had gone to plan, by the time anyone wised up to his actions he would have already hopped the first shuttle home and been living it large on some Caribbean island on Earth. But things hadn't gone to plan. All because he had to get himself a fucking piece of ass.

He looked sideways at Miranda Paisley and felt his brain get hot. He wanted to kill her.

'All because of a piece of ass...'

***

A lone shuttle, much like the one that Jor-Halen had landed hours earlier, broke the atmosphere of the alien world in a hail of fire. It streaked across the terminator of the planet into the waning dusk of a foreign sky. While a human, or even a top-of-the-line android might have appreciated the gorgeous pinks and blues of the dying daylight, for Jai-Hessex and her raiding party there was only the reaction of gases in the atmosphere to the radiance of the class-VI sun holding this particular solar system together.

Hessex adjusted herself in her seat, still feeling pained and sore from her sexual interlude with Koor. The captain had stayed behind for some reason and allowed her to lead the raid. She imagined he wanted to keep his eyes on the high ground, waiting for the traitor Jor-Halen to emerge from hiding. That was fine by her count. Her distaste of Koor was growing more viscous and potent with each passing day.

"Mistress," came the rough voice of her pilot, "Landing zone in seven minutes."

"Very good. Land in one of the caves near the foot of the nearest hill as we discussed," she ordered.

"Mistress," the pilot said, "That site is a kilometer from the human vessel."

"And it is also safe from the black rain," she said, "Now do as I have instructed. I do not wish to be stranded here."

"Fear, Jai-Hessex?" came the voice of Jor-Kale. 

"There are darker things than the rain here," she said and then turned to the eight members of her party. Jor-Kale, the first officer of the Black Wraith sat beside her, waiting and leering through his fleshy lips. Technically, it should have been Kale leading the raid, but Koor had insisted that Hessex be in charge. If Kale were upset about this, he did not show it. 

Across from her sat Wren, his red skin glowing in the dim light of the cargo hold. He held an assortment of weapons in his four, bony hands as though they were extensions of his own body. The Haalken smiled at her and nodded, his gleeful anticipation of the battle to come an almost orgasmic experience for him.

She looked over the faces of the remainder of the compliment. They were all Jah-Haran, all of them dark skinned and all of them tattooed with the symbols of victories past and kills to numerous to count off. They were good crew, full of spirit and loyalty to their captain. Hessex trusted them with her life and they trusted her in kind.

"Ready yourselves," she said and checked the leather straps of her armor as the pirates made their final preparations. Their clothing and armor was dark and made for stealth, a conglomeration of different articles from the many ships and crews that they had raided. They only took the best of the best. Hessex leaned down and felt the dagger attached to her thigh-high boots, the sheath bound to the many black buckles by metal studs. The handle felt cool against her hand and she smiled.

"Time to storm front?" she asked the pilot.

"Three hours, Mistress," he reported. Outside, the evening was growing into waning daylight. The heavy clouds of the coming storm loomed outside the view port, an unstoppable juggernaut. She had seen what the rain here could do, and she was determined to be clear of this place before it fell. She feared the rain here even more than she feared Jor-Koor.

"Time is short," Wren said.

"Yes it is," Hessex agreed, "So don't make a burden of yourself."

"My place here is no more a burden than the leadership of a woman," the Haalken replied sharply, "I'll mind myself if you do the same."

Hessex smiled as her amber eyes flashed, "I mind the will of our captain, Wren. Not the impotence of his underlings."

Jor-Kale snickered at this.

"What's so funny?" Wren hit him on the shoulder.

"Nothing," Kale looked at his blaster rifle, "Nothing at all."

"Calm yourself," Hessex said evenly to the Haalken, "Focus on the task at hand."

Wren growled and within a seconds time had his long, wicked blaster aimed at her forehead, the nose of the gun a mere inch away from her flesh. The wiry red alien sneered, "Where I come from, we kill women for simply speaking out of turn."

"Is that why your race is on the verge of extinction?" Hessex replied, her face unmoved by his sudden outburst. Wren felt his bony fingers trembling on the trigger and was ready to pull when Kale tapped him on the shoulder. He looked to the large pirate and saw him pointing downwards. Wren looked down into his lap and saw the long blade of a thick dagger pressed against his crotch. Hessex pressed the tip against him enough to give him a feel of the tip.

Wren snorted and pulled his weapon back, his black eyes burning with rage.

"There's a reason she's the captain's woman," Kale said under his breath.

Hessex leaned back against the wall of the shuttle and sheathed her dagger again. She was fast, and she knew she was faster than anyone on this shuttle. But Wren, he was far more treacherous. His slippery designs and ideas for what the Black Wraith and her crew should be had always disturbed her, but it was his need to dominant all women that made her despise him. Wren was worse than Koor when it came to that. If Koor had treated her like a slave, the Wren would have treated her like a pile of refuse. They had never gotten along well, and it was only the unflinching loyalty they shared for Koor that kept them from killing each other.

Unflinching until recently anyway. As she watched Wren from the corner of her eye, she wondered if he could sense her doubts about the captain?

Hessex closed her eyes and meditated, seeking comfort and peace. She did not relish the idea of raiding the humans, but she knew it was necessary. Hopefully, the fully bounty of this raid would be enough that they might return home early. There, Hessex entertained the fantasy of leaving the Black Wraith and escaping her bondage. She dreamed of places that probably would never accept a pirate, let alone a Jah-Haran woman who had killed over thirty men and women during her time on the ship.

The taste of blood and the thrill of the hunt had given way to something she had never expected to feel: conscience. When Jor-Halen had approached Koor, bartering a fortune on exchange for passage to this planet, she hadn't understood what was so important. He had shown them scans of hundreds of ships that had crash-landed on the planet, all of them still salvageable. The planet harbored a fortune for a crew brave enough to weather the dangers of its natural defenses. What could have been so important that Jor-Halen would have traded a lifetime of riches for a ride?




Black Rain Ch. 03



After asking him several times, the lonely man had told her exactly what it was he was looking for. His wife had disappeared aboard a transport bound for the outland systems, and the distress call indicated this planet as their emergency landing area.

The Ja-Harans called the planet T'Oghrah, or as the humans translated it out through their inventive technology, Hell. It was aptly named and she had tried to warn Koor away from taking the mission. The beating that followed her plea had left scars down her backside that would never go away. He had whipped her within an inch of her life and she had learned the price of her tongue's ignorance in the chain of command.

"My wife," Halen had told her, "I need my wife."

"Why?" she had asked.

"She is my life."

Hessex found herself pondering those words over and over again. Halen was willing to risk everything just for the chance of finding his mate alive on a planet where death ruled all. Halen didn't seem to care. His love for her drove him as the fear of Koor's retribution drove Hessex. She began to realize that her life, her subservience to Koor was a pale commitment in the face of such pure emotion and love. Seeing that not all men were like Koor made her feel sad and alone, trapped like some animal in a cage. Once she questioned her place with Koor, everything else began to unravel for her.

"She is weak," Wren whispered to Kale, "When the time is right I swear by my gods I'll-"

Hessex was on him before the Haalken even had a chance to react. Her dagger once again pressed to his body, this time into his long, vein crossed neck as she hissed, "When the time is right for what, Wren?"

The red alien swallowed hard.

"You think as loudly as you speak," she glared at him, "We all know your thoughts about me. Either face me as a man or act like a fearful child, whispering and plotting behind the back of your captain to catch the ears of his men."

Kale looked at her for a long, horrible moment as she pinned Wren to the wall and then away. Wren stared right back at her, but his eyes betrayed his fear and embarrassment.

"Tell me," she pressed herself against the wiry alien, "What is it about me you find so threatening? What could a mere woman hold to put such fear in your eyes?"

Wren said nothing.

"Task me again," she slowly began drawing away from him, the dagger still tight to his throat, "Task me again and I'll kill you."

Hessex sat back in her seat again and closed her eyes, trying to let the rumble of the shuttle passing through thick air soothe her mind. She could feel the eyes of her men watching her, all of them quietly contemplating the small power play that had just unfolded. She hated Wren. She hated this god-forsaken planet and whatever evil had made it such an awful place. 

'Peace,' she thought to herself. Slowly, she calmed her heart and steadied her pulse until she was ready.

"We've reached landing coordinates, Mistress Hessex."

She opened her eyes.

"Deploy."

***

Sonny was glad to get out of the mess hall. There was enough evidence to nail Harmon for good, but there wasn't any hard evidence yet. The man was lying, that much was apparent. Sonny knew the ship better than the men and women who had designed and built her. The only way the A.I. would have woken Harmon up before the captain, or even Tishara and himself was if it had been programmed to do so. And only the captain and Harmon had the clearance to do that.

If Sonny had been captain, he would have strung Harmon up by his toes outside for the remainder of their stay.

"But I'm not the captain," he muttered to himself, the sudden need to urinate seizing his bladder. The crazy tilt of the corridor made the problem all more delicate as he navigated over the fallen support beams and dislodged tubing from the inner walls.

The hatch to the head was still open from when he and Gordon had let Harmon out for the questioning, but when he poked his head in he was greeted by a wretched stench that singed the hair in his nose. He staggered back, leaning against the deck plate, waving one hand in front of his face, "Holy shit."

It smelled like someone had puked in the compartment after a night of heavy eating and drinking. Sonny pulled his work rag out of the back pocket of his coveralls, pressing it to his mouth and nose. Stifling his gag reflex, he returned to the hatch and looked downward into the compartment. The flashlight revealed something he couldn't quite comprehend. The water that had flooded the room from the main tanks was no longer clear. Even in the flickering lights above the sink basins he could see it had turned a vile black color. Thick bubbles formed on the surface and expanded outward, followed by a thick wet *pop* sound. Steam was rising up from the flooded compartment, a slight hissing sound tickling his ears.

"What in the name of God is that?" he breathed into the rag. The substance looked like oil, a viscous sort of fluid that rippled and oozed into every available space. And then he noticed that the sinks were nearly submerged. Earlier, when he had thrown Harmon inside and when the water had been clear, the sinks had been mostly free and dry. The vile liquid was rising slowly but surely. Sonny imagined that given another couple hours, the entire head would be filled with it.

He stood back and sealed the hatch, locking it off. Whatever the stuff in the head was, it hadn't come from the water tanks. He frowned and looked down the corridor towards the bow of the ship. The two water tanks were located centrally in the forward hold of the vessel, a section now buried under the wreckage. Sonny scratched his chin and then turned to face the aft corridor. He unzipped his suit, took a moment to relieve himself and then quietly shook it off. 

"Sorry, baby," he whispered to his ship, "Never meant to piss on you. But these are hard times."

Instead of returning to the mess hall, Sonny stopped by the med lab, grabbed a flashlight and began making his way down to the water storage bay. He could hear his shipmates talking, their voices heated but not necessarily angry. He hated leaving them alone, the idea of a blind captain and a hotheaded Denavian to carry out the questioning with two people who might have lost their collective marbles making him feel sick. But the stench in the head made him feel even worse. Something was leaking into the ship from the planet itself, and he needed to find out what it was.

Sonny reached the access to the lower levels and opened the hatch. The same smell was here as well, though not as strong. He sighed and patted the floor plate as he climbed in, "Okay baby, show me where it hurts."

***

"What do you think?" Ashton asked Soniah quietly.

"I think Harmon is lying," Soniah said evenly. The two stood in the kitchen of the mess hall, out of earshot but within sight of Harmon and Paisley.

"Yeah," he nodded, "The A.I. is programmed to wake me first in the event of an emergency."

"Between that and the facts that he not only shot at you repeatedly upon entry to the bridge and his frankly ridiculous account of what happened with Paisley I think there's enough circumstantial evidence to at least keep him incarcerated," she leaned against the bulkhead.

"It's circumstantial though," Ashton reminded her, "We need proof."

"Once Sonny has full access to the flight recorder I think we'll know all that we need to know," she said, "But captain, if he did sabotage the ship, of which I have no doubt, what will we tell the others?"

Ashton felt a thick nausea in his stomach. Harmon's complaints about a lynching might not be that far from the truth. He could guarantee the behavior of himself, and even Tishara and Soniah for that matter. But Sonny? What about Gordon and the others? And what of Paisley? Under normal circumstances, they could be counted upon to leave Harmon alone. But if it were learned he had caused the crash, on purpose or not, he doubted that they would take the news gracefully.

Beyond that, locking Harmon up was the only punishment he could consider. Killing the man wasn't an option here. If he opened the door to capital punishment like this, then the next time it would only get easier. He couldn't risk that kind of thinking spreading to the survivors. They might be here a long time, and playing executioner would only make matters worse. Harmon might genuinely deserve to be shot, but not this way. Ashton knew that once he crossed that line, every step of the way past that line would be slippery and deadly for them all. 

"Your impressions of Paisley?" he asked, ignoring the question.

"She's been traumatized," Soniah said, "During most of the proceedings, her hands were covering her crotch defensively. Something happened to her."

"Jesus," Ashton exhaled, "I can't believe Harmon would do something like that. Could it have been DSDs?"

Soniah was silent for a moment. She looked at Harmon, who sat quietly in his seat with that blank expression on his face, the expression that told nothing of his state of mind. She said, "It's possible. But Paisley acts as though she were drugged and raped. I'll be honest, captain. I've seen DSD before and she's not symptomatic. Her hands aren't shaking, her eyes don't shift rapidly and her speech isn't slurred or erratic."

"And Harmon?"

"You don't want to know what I think about him."

"I do," the captain insisted, "That's why you're here."

"I believe he somehow sabotaged the ship," she said quietly, "I believe things may have gotten out of control and his plan failed in that sense."

Ashton didn't like what she was saying at all, but he knew deep down she was right.

"A lot of people want the Delta Prime Colony to fail," she told the captain, "There was an estimated 95 billion dollars in loans tied up in this project. If it succeeded, the corporation would have been in the clear with the lenders. If it failed, the loans would be defaulted and by contract the company and three-quarters of the Terran Space Exploration Wing would fall into the hands of the private sector."

"Jesus," he breathed, "No one told me."

"No one would have told you. You're a transport captain," she said, and then added, "No offense."

"None taken."

"Harmon fucked us, of that I have no doubt. The flight recorder will prove that," she said, "But who he was working for and how much they paid him is what I want to know."

Ashton smiled despite himself. Hearing the word 'fuck' come from the smooth, eloquent speech of the Denavian was amusing and rare. He asked, "Why is the money important?"

"Because," she looked at the captain, "If someone put a price tag on our lives, I'd like to know how much he sold us out for."

***

As Sonny lowered himself down to C-deck, the smell became suddenly thick and horrific with metallic odor. He staggered down shadowy corridor, lit only by red emergency lights until he found a med station. He could taste the metal vapor in his mouth. He opened the small door to the station and reached inside the compact compartment. After a few moments of fumbling around, he found an oxygen mask. He slipped it on and activated the canister attached to it by a long, thin hose.

"Oh mother of mercy," he gagged and sucked in the fresh air. He flashed his light on the canister and saw it held twenty minutes worth of air. He clipped it to his uniform at the hip and went to the computer terminal directly behind him. The screen was dark, but the light up console was flickering on and off. He reached under the console and felt around for a moment; grunting and cursing before his fingers discovered the battery back up.

The terminal lit up and he was greeted by the voice of the A.I. computer. The normally soft, feminine voice was distorted by feedback and interference. It said, "Hello, Engineer Jackson."

"Hey baby," he smiled behind the mask and wiped a thing film of sweat from his brow, "Glad to hear your voice. Damage report?"

"Hull integrity at seven percent... life support damaged..." the computer echoed in the corridor. As it spoke, the computer screen gave a read out of the ship, indicating damaged compartments and ruptured hull plating with flashing red indicators. Almost the entire ship was glowing red. Sonny felt his heart sink as the computer went on, "Primary and secondary drive systems damaged... fuel leak from tanks three through seven, no countermeasures available..."

"Baby," Sonny shook his head, "Can you identify the substance contaminating the water supply?"

The computer was silent for a moment, and then, "Substance unknown."

"Can you tell me where it is coming from?"

"Water tanks one and two have been compromised... suggest that water has been exposed to alien bacteria from underground source..."

"How deep underground are the water tanks?"

"Fifty seven feet, three inches at outmost edge," the computer crackled, and then followed with, "Power matrix unstable... estimated three hours before total loss of battery reserves..."

"Display current rate of infiltration of the contaminant," he ordered.

The screen changed and showed another schematic of the ship, this one updated to show the missing half of the ship and how deeply entrenched they were into the planet. The computer designated the strange liquid with a glowing blue blotch, spreading out from the tanks and rising into the upper levels. The deck below his current position was completely submerged as the water pipes and conduits running from those lower levels filled up and spilled over.

"Estimated time for the substance to reach A-deck?"

"Twenty two hours, three minutes and five seconds."

"Shit," Sonny rubbed his eyes. He swallowed hard and asked, "Computer, is the substance having any effect on its surroundings?"

"Hull integrity has been reduced to zero percent in the effected areas... rerouting to prevent power failure... trunk lines Beta through Gamma have been ruptured."

"Ruptured?" he leaned against the console and brushed his sandy blonde hair away from his face, "It's acidic?"

"Unable to confirm."

"If its rupturing trunk lines, then it's corrosive," he muttered. He was about to ask another question when a faint sizzling sound filled the hall. He turned and shined his light down the passageway. Thin wisps of white smoke were curling up from the floor at the end of passageway that dipped towards the ground. He could hear the snaps and crackles of power mains shorting out beneath the deck plate. Even through his mask, he could smell the vomitous stink of the ooze and that damned fried metal.

He slowly walked down the passage, carefully watching the floor as he went. The gunmetal gray paint started bubbling off the metal it had been adhered to years ago as the temperature began to rise. Steam began fuming up from the deck and filled the passage as Sonny watched. In the small circle of white light on the deck plate, he watched the metal disintegrate and vanish in a pool of the ichor substance. He backed up quickly and nearly lost his footing as the ship settled again. The framework moaned and creaked as it became unstable at the molecular level.

"It's acid," he breathed, his heart pounding in his chest, "It's some kind of acid."

He rushed back to the console and shouted, "Computer, sound red alert."

"Unable to comply... primary and secondary communications systems disabled."

"Use the navigational array as a bypass," he looked over his shoulder as the slowly rising pool of black liquid, "You can tap into the ship's P.A. system from there."

"Unable to comply... navigational array has been altered from recommended specifications."

"What?" he hissed, "How?"

"Unknown. Records for that time period have been erased."

"What the fuck?"

"Please restate the question."

"Computer, restore default settings for navigational array control, priority Jackson-Delta-Seven-Six."

"Unable to comply."

Suddenly, the deck beneath him began to sink, melting under his boots. Sonny jumped back towards the hatch as the black liquid started to affect the entire stability of the deck. He grasped the ladder and began climbing, the computer still waiting for his next query or command. There was a shower of sparks and flash of light as the console shorted out and the passageway went dark. He slammed the hatch to C-Deck shut and ran to the next hatch leading up.

'Harmon sabotaged the array,' he thought wildly to himself, 'He fucked us over.'

***

In the darkness, it rose.

It felt no need to hurry or rush itself along. This was simply the way things had always been. Steady and methodically it poured into the ship from the broken veins deep within the body, the black liquid a lifeblood and nourishing agent for an entire world. The metals sizzled and then fell away, as they always did. It felt nothing either which way about this process. It simply fed.

In the clouds of vapor rising from this process, Miranda Paisley could see. Her heart jumped into her throat and she realized that she was dreaming. Something had happened. She was no longer in the mess hall sitting beside Harmon and waiting for the captain and Soniah to return from their conference. She was gone, floating away inside her mind to another place.

She began to think she really did have the DSDs, though her hands did not shake and her vision had not blurred in the early warning signs. Instead, she simply drifted away into a deep sleep she hadn't felt coming on. She wondered what had happened in the mess hall, if her body had fallen over of if she were dead. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, so thought not.

The mist before her swirled and caressed her as she passed through. All around her there was frigid darkness. She could see no ground and no point of reference to establish where she was or where she was going. Her hair whipped wildly around her in an unfelt wind, eyes wide and desperate to see.

In the undulating black ahead of her, she began to see faces. It was as though someone were pressing against a huge sheet of rubber with their face, making a ghostly impression on the other side. The face was caught in a silent scream, mouth open wide and filled with fear. If she could have stopped herself from getting any closer, she would have. But the forces that had brought her here would not release her. She sailed towards the wall as more and more faces appeared, all terrified and in agony. She could smell the hot stench of bile now, thick and green in the air around her.

Finally, she touched the moving wall, her hands outstretched to keep her body away from it. The surface was wet and cold. She could feel hard things moving beneath the surface, rolling and pressing outward. The faces seemed to draw to her, hundreds of thousands of them all converging, bulging the wall out like the skin of oily black balloon. Miranda tried to push herself away but couldn't.

Voice filled the void in which she floated, whispers at first but growing into cries for help and pleas for mercy. She could hear dozens of different languages, some she recognized and some she did not. They were overlapping and running together now into one voice of gibberish, growing louder and louder. She covered her ears and cried out, shaking her head back and forth.

"No no no," she whispered.

The wall began to split. 

"Captain help me!" she cried.

Her eyes darted up to see the thin rubbery skin splitting open. Something pale and wet struggled to fit through the tear. Miranda began kicking backwards, trying to shove off. Blood, red and thick began oozing from the wound in the fabric of whatever space this was. It floated away as though being poured into space in long tendrils and bubbles. It splashed her and clung to her uniform as the thing in the wall began to break loose. The voices were screaming now and she knew given a few more minutes of this she would go mad.




Black Rain Ch. 03



"Please stop!" she screamed, "Stop!"

The voices fell silent and the blood stopped pouring from the wall.

For a moment, all she could hear was her own rapidly shallow respirations.

"Please," she whispered.

And then the wall broke open. Faces without eyes, all of them ghostly and pale and horrible came at her from the tear. Skeletal hands stretched out and grabbed her legs, arms, face, torso, breasts and crotch, pulling at her. She could feel her hair ripping out as the creatures grabbed her. She batted at them with her hands but to no avail. They simply pulled her into the bloody place behind the wall.

Something hot, terribly hot and wet and yet frigid to the point of chilling her soul enveloped her. She was drowning in something. She couldn't breathe.

She screamed.

...to be continued...



Black Rain Ch. 04



BLACK RAIN

CHAPTER 04

EDITOR:

Miriam Belle

CREATIVE CONSULTANT:

Simply_Cyn

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

-"Originally, Chapters 3 and 4 were one long piece, but the length was prohibitive. I split it into two separate chapters for the sake a shorter read, as my chapters do tend to run a little long on the whole. As such, reader beware that this chapter does not have a single sex scene in it." –bluefox07

*

THE STORM

TERRAN EARTH DATE

01. 16. 2179

"This is the thickest bush I've ever seen," Chastity whistled.

The forest had grown impossibly thick as they trekked into the depths of the alien world. Trees grew thick and solid from the ground on up, the trunks still wide enough to encompass a small space ferry where they disappeared into the leafy canopy of foliage hundreds of feet above. The air was stagnant inside the realm of the woods, humid and far too warm for anyone's comfort. Lush overgrowth swatted and snapped at the search party as they followed the path cut by the wreckage.

"Seen a lot of thick bush, eh?" Jared snickered.

"Fuck you," she reflexively.

"These trees are enormous," Howe marveled, her eyes glued to the gargantuan plants. She ran her fingers across the surface of bark and frowned. Instead of a rough exterior she found only a slick coating of viscous slime. She rubbed the substance between two fingers, "The trees are secreting some kind of mucus."

Tishara looked back over her shoulder, her light flashing on the doctor, "Did I not say don't touch anything?"

The doctor blinked and then wiped the goo off her fingers, "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Tishara sighed, "Just think. Is that shit poisonous? Do you know?"

'You're the biologist here,' she thought to herself.

Howe shrugged and put her fingers to her nose. She sniffed and cringed, "I doubt it. But it smells like that stuff we found at the edge of the tree line."

"Bile," Gordon said, "Shit smells like someone puked."

"You guys notice there's no sounds of wildlife?" Jared asked.

"Now that you mention it," Tishara said and then listened. It was true. Beyond the snapping of green branches and soil grinding underfoot, there weren't any of the sounds one might equate with life in the jungle. Only the rustling of leaves occasionally lighted through the alien woods like the maddening whisper of an enemy they could not see. Their searchlights flashed through the forest, revealing nothing but a closing wall of shadows and plant life all around them.

They pushed on into the thick, each member of the party feeling more and more uneasy. After twenty minutes of fruitless effort, they came across a debris trail. Large sections of the bow littered the path ahead. Some of the bigger chunks of debris had sliced into the surrounding trees and remained lodged, still burning and smoldering hotly. Some of the smaller trees and had been cut down in the catastrophe and lay at crazy angles. 

"Hello?" Tishara shouted, maneuvering her way through the maze of fallen trees and wreckage, "Anybody?"

Her voice traveled into the dark and bounced around in the woods, creating an eerie chorus that slowly faded away. Jared and Chastity moved off to the side as Gordon and Howe followed in close behind Tishara, carefully navigating the narrow debris field. Gordon sniffed the air and said, "Fuel. I can smell the fumes."

"Everybody be careful," Tishara said, "And if we have to cut any metal, check for puddles of fuel. We don't need an explosion here."

"Hello?" Dr. Howe called out, "Hello? Is anyone alive out there?"

They came to a large section of the framework that had composed one of the support bulkheads. It was twisted and deformed, small areas of it sparking and burning as moisture seeped into the circuitry. Tishara stepped up onto it and braced herself, being careful not to slip. She grasped a hand onto a support beam and pulled up. 

"Watch yourself," Gordon said.

"Always," Tishara grunted. She reached the top of the broken structure and found herself staring a dead body directly in the eye.

"Jesus Christ!" she shouted, almost losing her grip.

"What is it?" Gordon asked.

"A body," she breathed, unable to look away from the bloodshot eyes staring at her from dark sockets. A woman, maybe in her late thirties had come to rest here of all the crazy places. Her blonde hair was matted to her lacerated face and foul with blood, blue eyes fixed on whatever reality lay beyond this life. Her mouth was parted open, not precisely shocked in horror but more surprised. It was almost as though she had been mildly jarred by her own death, nothing more.

Tishara looked into those glossy eyes and felt the sudden sting of guilt in her heart. This woman had been her responsibility. She had been their responsibility. The crew of the Haven had promised to deliver her and her companions to the Delta Prime Colony safely. And they had failed her.

Tishara closed her eyes. What if this woman had a husband? A family? The ring finger on her left hand was bare of any jewelry, but that didn't ease her soul any. Not one little bit.

"You okay?" Gordon asked quietly from below.

She looked back at the dead woman. She said, "No."

"I found another one!" Howe called. 

Tishara hopped down from the bulkhead and joined the doctor, thankfully to be away from the company of the dead woman. This next person, whoever he or she had been, was burned horribly. Most of the sleepwear from the cryotube and flesh had been seared off, leaving behind a churned mass of angry red meat. Gordon looked down at the black sockets where eyes had once been and then at the scorched teeth grinning up from the corpse. It was like a sadistic effigy of a human being, looking eerily familiar and yet completely removed from the real thing.

"This one tried to crawl away," Howe commented, "See how the hands are clawed into the dirt?"

"God bless them all," Gordon shook his head.

"We may find others," Tishara whispered, "Keep hope, Gordon."

The big man nodded and made to turn around, stopping suddenly. He knelt down, his brow furrowed and lips parted slightly. He pulled a pair of thick gloves from his coveralls and put them on. Tishara knelt beside him as Dr. Howe watched, brushing a tangle of her hair out of her face.

"What is it?" Howe asked, "What do you see?"

Gordon touched the corpse, surprised by the rigidity of the cooked meat. With one slow motion he turned the body on its side. As the backside came up, thick ropes of slime hung off the body. They were greeted with a strong wave of the acidic smell of bile again. Tishara covered her mouth and nose as Howe fought off the rising urge to vomit. Gordon cringed, his nose burning from the concentrated stench. The thick substance sloughed off the body, taking large portions of the meat with it.

"The back half of this body has been liquefied," Howe said through her cupped hand, "My God, look at it."

"Just when you think you've seen it all," Tishara closed her eyes, her stomach threatening to heave her breakfast up.

"And look here," Gordon motioned to the bulkhead where Tishara had found the first body. At the base of the wreckage, the metal had turned a dull, dark color of mottled gray and brown. He said, "Something is eating the metal away too."

"This gooey stuff must be a bio-molecular acid of some kind," Howe told them, "It's not very potent, but given enough time it can break down duranium as easily as it does flesh."

"Acid under the ground?" Tishara stood up and looked at the doctor, "How is that possible? Wouldn't acid kill the plants?"

"We're on an alien world, Commander," Howe said, "The life here is undoubtedly far more removed from anything we've encountered than initially thought. For all we know, the ecosystem thrives on it. That might be why it's so abundant, just under the soil."

"My God," she breathed.

"Check this out!" Chastity called, "Look at this, Commander!"

They left the decomposing body and joined Chastity and Jared near a row of shattered cryotubes. Seven of the narrow tubes had been ripped away in the crash and landed here, their passengers trapped for the ride. The row of tubes was buried in the ground at an angle, the last four raised high in the air. The people inside these four were clearly dead, their bodies thrown against the cracked covering of their pods. Blood smeared the interior, faces brutally smashed to the glass and contorted.

But the remaining three pods...

Tishara looked at them, her eyes unable to blink and her hands suddenly cold. They were filled with more of the thick bile from the soil. Inside the mass of slime she could see white bone and thick discolored liquids churning about slowly, as though someone were cooking a stew. The first pod was partially buried and completely full of the substance. The second was also full and bubbling with the acid. The third was slowly filling up, the level rising and eating away the interior.

"The glass must be cracked underground," Howe pointed to the first tube, "It's filling up with that bile, and using the air vents to move from tube to tube."

"What the fuck kind of place is this?" Chastity whispered.

"And look," Gordon pointed at the bottom tube, "The stuff inside is turning black."

The liquid inside the compartments started to turn a nauseating brown color, as though something were dying it under ground. The darker colors swirled into the lighter fluid above, becoming black and opaque. Tishara took a cautious step closer to the tubes and then stopped as the plexi-glass began to smoke.

"Get back," Gordon said suddenly.

The glass splintered suddenly and then shattered. The acid flooded out of the tube and splashed down to the ground, carrying with it the remains of the poor souls inside. Tishara leapt back and scrambled up onto the safety of a bent support beam as it flooded around them. The others followed suit as the boiling liquid spread out into the underbrush. Tishara thought she might pass out, either from seeing the remains of the people inside float about obscenely just below her or the rancid smell.

"This black stuff is even more concentrated that the surface ooze," Howe shouted from the tree branch she had climbed up on.

"What does that mean?!" Jared shouted as he, Gordon and Chastity stood atop one of the thick hull plates of the Haven's ruined bow.

"I think it's some kind of natural function of the planet," Howe shrugged, "The deeper into the soil you go, the more potent it becomes."

"Some natural function," Gordon waved his hand in front of his face.

Tishara activated her radio and spoke into her headset, "Ashton, this is Tishara come in."

Static filtered through in a eerie reply.

"Ashton? This is Tishara, over?"

She looked at the others as the acid bubbled endlessly from the broken cryo-tubes, now acting as an open spout for the substance to flow through. Gordon looked down at the base of the wreckage they stood on and shouted, "We gotta go!"

Tishara didn't need to ask why. This new black acid was eating the metal away in a hurry, far more quickly than the stuff they had found on the surface. They began jumping from heap of debris to heap of debris, hop scotching like kids over a creek who didn't want to get wet. As they went, Tishara tried to raise the Haven. Only static replied. Once they reached a safe spot and were on dry ground, such as it was, she turned and said, "Anyone else getting static?"

Everyone tried their radios and found the same interference. Jared listened intently for a moment and then said, "We're being jammed."

"How can you tell?" Chastity asked.

"Listen to the static," he told them, "You can hear the wavelength they're using."

"The pirates," she whispered.

Tishara turned to draw her blaster and then stopped. She found herself looking down the barrel of a huge plasma rifle. The creature holding the mammoth weapon was at least seven feet tall, adorned with dark leather clothing and netting. A flat, wolf-like mask covered its face, copper hued and scarred with nicks and cuts from previous encounters. She could see a mane of thick, bronzed hair flowing from behind the edges of the mask, decorated with tribal braids and the occasional dreadlock. It looked at her through the hollow, black eyes of the mask and waited patiently.

"Oh shit," Jared moaned.

"Tishara!" Howe made to move towards her.

"Don't move," she hissed, her eyes locked on the giant alien.

The alien simply watched her, waiting.

Tishara dropped the gun. She was in no position to do anything else. The blaster rifle could have taken her head off in an instant, leaving a cauterized stump of hard, red meat in its wake. The creature didn't give the small hand blaster a second thought as it kicked the gun away into the brush. Tishara looked back at her shipmates and held her hands up, "Nobody move."

Gordon, who had already brought his rifle to bear, remained steadfast as the others stood back. This new creature dwarfed the big man, and he knew from looking at it that it was genuinely Jah-Haran. He scanned the woods for signs of others, as the pirates never moved in alone. Their salvage and boarding parties always consisted of five at the very least. He could see nothing but thick tangles of alien plant life and towering trees.

The alien nudged Tishara with the nose of his gun, and then glared at Gordon.

"Do it Gordon," she said.

"Son of a bitch," Gordon breathed. Slowly, the engineer placed his rifle down to the ground and stood back, joining the others. 

Tishara nodded to them and then turned to face the alien, "What ship are you from?"

The Jah-Haran said nothing.

"Are you a pirate?" she asked. 

The Jah-Haran only looked at her, it's head cocked to one side.

Tishara slowly began to realize this Jah-Haran wasn't a pirate. As Gordon had already noticed, this one was alone. In her mind, she made the transition from thinking of the alien as an "it" to thinking of him as a "he." The large alien bore no symbols of a pirate. He also wore none of the traditional garb. Certainly, he was dressed in Jah-Haran attire, but upon a closer inspection she found that his clothes were handmade, laced together with leather strips, but also beautifully decorated with subtle symbols and designs. His netting was more of a camouflage, not the thick metal mesh the pirates wore as protection against the cold and projectile weapons.

"You're not are you?" Tishara began lowering her hands.

Overhead, more thunder rolled and an odd fishy smell began to breeze through the woods and around them. Chastity leaned forward and whispered, "I don't think he speaks English."

"Of course he doesn't," Tishara said, "But he can hear the tone of my voice."

"Maybe he's got a translator in the mask?" Howe offered, her eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Big mother fucker," Jared breathed, his heart pounding in his throat.

"Can you speak English?" Tishara asked the hulking alien. It tilted its head again at her, listening. She wondered if he could understand her. English was ultimately the language adopted by the Terran Space Administration, and most of the translators used with other cultures worked off the basics of simple English. Many alien cultures had leaned to speak it over the years, though never having met a Jah-Haran until now, Tishara couldn't be sure they had ever taken the time to attend ESL classes.

"Tish, this guy aint fuckin' around," Gordon said quietly as thunder boomed above and the wind picked up. The alien looked to the small breaks in the foliage hundreds of feet above. The sky was getting dark quick, the shadows of the forest creeping in like ghostly hands hiding the dying light. Were it not for the small fires still burning in the wreckage around them and their flashlights, they would have been in total darkness by now. The Jah-Haran looked up to the sky, his posturing faltering slightly.

"He's nervous," Tishara said.

"*We must go*," came a mechanized voice from the metal visage. The alien had a translator in his mask, and though the voice was filled with distortions and the translation not very good, no one mistook the urgency in his voice, "*Must go NOW*."

"I think we must go now," Jared nodded in complete agreement.

Tishara knelt down and felt for her blaster, her eyes never leaving the dark holes in the stylized Jah-Haran mask. She found the weapon and stood up, moving to holster it against her hip when the alien stopped her with a gentle motion of his large hand. "*No*," he said, "*You need it now*."

"What does that mean?" Jared whispered.

"Exactly what you think it means," Chastity replied.

A branch snapped in the dark.

Everyone froze.

And then something streaked out of the darkness and sailed past Tishara's face, missing her by a mere inch. She stumbled backwards and lost her bearings, the world going topsy-turvy. There was a high-pitched scream to her left. She spun on her knees to face the sound, her weapon in hand and her eyes wide. In the wildly flashing light of the panic, she could see a large, muscular mass of fish-belly pale flesh. Three powerful legs, two in the front and one in the back were working up and down as whatever it was slammed Jared Cole to the ground. 

"Jared!" Tishara screamed and opened fire on the alien intruder. Several blasts of energy seared into its backside, a volley that would have fallen even a large man like Gordon within seconds of the impacts. The creature turned and regarded her with its sleek, fleshy head. She could see no eyes, but she could see a wide, tooth-filled maw at the end of its face. Fleshy, thick lips pulled back from the razor sharp teeth and almost seemed to grin at her.

"Get off him!" Chastity cried out and fired her weapon.

The white alien roared and then slammed Jared to the ground again. The welder was kicking and screaming, his hands batting at the side of the monsters skull. His wire-framed glasses fell off and into the underbrush, broken and twisted. Powerful arms tipped with large, humanoid hands and wicked black claws punched into his chest hard. Tishara heard his ribs break and knew he would be dead in minutes. The eyeless white alien squealed and bit into Jared's face. A gout of blood spattered the night as he wailed in agony, the creature shaking him back and forth like an overzealous dog with a chew toy.

"Blasters ain't working!" Gordon bellowed as he shot at the creature with rifle. The powerful blasts from the heavy gun sounded off with deafening booms, but despite the singed meat and blackened skin the alien seemed indifferent. 

Dr. Howe made to run and pull the alien away, but the Jah-Haran loner pushed her aside quickly and brought his own weapon to bear. Three bolts of pulsing green energy blinded them all and stuck the alien square in the backside. It screeched and fell to its side, smoke and black blood pouring from the wounds. It writhed on the ground, kicking and flailing about.

"Shoot the fucker again!" Tishara screamed, "Do it!"

The Jah-Haran walked right up to the white alien and slammed his boot down on its head. He tilted his big gun, aimed and fire. The skull exploded in a rain of gore and cauterized alien meat. A silence rushed in to fill the void left by the attack as they looked at the albino alien in a state of group shock. Howe was on her feet and then beside Jared, her hands already dark and wet with his blood.

"Is he?" Tishara asked, already knowing damn good and well that he was.

Howe felt around Jared's ruined neck for a pulse and then to his wrist. She could not bear to look at his ruined countenance. She had seen many atrocities in her time as a medic on rescue ships and as a physician at the frontier gateway stations, but the horror of what the alien had done to him in just a few seconds was too much all at once. She pressed her fingers to his wrist and then shook her head, "No. I'm sorry."




Black Rain Ch. 04



"Son of a bitch," Chastity whispered, her voice shaking with anger. She walked over to the smoking hulk of the alien and kicked it hard, "Son of a bitch!"

"*Must go now*," the deep voice of the Jah-Haran said, "*Now*."

Gordon knelt to gather up Jared but Tishara put her hand gently on his shoulder. The big engineer looked up at her, his eyes downcast. She shook her head and squeezed gently, telling him what he already knew. Gordon gathered up the blaster Jared never had the chance to use and the ammo packs he had been carrying on his belt. He saw something shine out of the corner of his eye in the brush. He picked up Jared's glasses and folded them neatly, doing his best to restore them to their proper shape. One of the lenses was cracked; the other had been popped out. Gordon tucked the glasses away in one of the pockets of his pants.

"Let's go," Tishara said, her eyes feeling hot and heavy in their sockets.

"We can't just leave him here," Chastity glared at her in the flickering firelight of the wreckage, "We can't."

"The big guy thinks we should get out of here," she replied and motioned to the Jah-Haran, "I agree."

"But-"

"Now."

Chastity shook her head, ready to argue but in the end choosing not to. She knelt by her friend's body and made the effort to close the lid over his remaining eye. Her hands shook as she choked back the anger and fear welling up inside. After a moment's mourning, she said a silent goodbye and fell in behind her shipmates as they followed the Jah-Haran loner into the jungle.

Not too far away, something roared. Moments later, even over the thunder above and the blustering wind, several more feral howls joined in. Chastity shivered and gripped her blaster tightly. She hoped that Tishara was as smart as she appeared to be. Chastity had no desire to end up like Jared Cole. And then she did something she hadn't done since she was seventeen years old. She prayed to God.

Chastity Barrera prayed hard.

***

Sonny ran as fast as he could along the broken corridors of his ship, tripping and nearly falling sometimes but still moving forward. When he finally reached the mess hall, he was out of breath and flushed red. All the damn cigarettes were catching up to him, his lungs burning and weak. Soniah and Ashton had just sat back down across from Harmon and Paisley when he came barreling in.

"What's wrong?" Soniah stood up.

"We got a big problem," he breathed and braced himself against one of the tables.

"What happened?" Ashton asked.

"There's some kind of corrosive acid in the ground, Cap," he said, "It's bubbling up and into the ship."

"Shit," Ashton muttered.

"And some asshole disabled the navigational array on purpose," Sonny added, his eyes falling on Harmon as he reported to the captain, "There was a working terminal down on C-deck. Before it shorted out from the acid, it showed that the nav computer had been reprogrammed from its original settings just after we left port."

Soniah shot a deadly look to Harmon, "You bastard."

Harmon only smiled smugly back at her. He was caught. What else could he do?

"Harmon, I swear to God I'm going to-"

And then there was a loud explosion. Everyone fell to the deck as the lights flickered erratically and sputtered sparks down upon them in a shower of hot light. The bulkheads rumbled and metal screamed loudly as another explosion followed closely on the heels of the first. Ashton rolled away and smacked his head hard on the wall as Sonny shouted, "That was a grenade!"

"The pirates!" Ashton called out, "Everyone get the hell out of here. Find a place to hide."

He could think of no other action. They were unprepared and unarmed. The Jah-Haran pirates would be storming the ship any minute now, shooting or taking prisoners. He'd hoped they would have more time top prepare, but that was a pipe dream now. Their only immediate hope for survival was to hide long enough to come up with a countermove. If there was a countermove... 

Ashton felt a hand grab his arm and pull. He wasn't sure who had helped him up but he was off and running within moments of standing.

"Where are we going?" he asked. The sounds of blaster fire rang through the corridors as he struggled to make his eyes work once more. Ashton felt out of control and useless as he let himself be led away into the bowels of his ship.

"The med lab," Miranda Paisley huffed, "We can hide in the supply storage unit. It has an inner lock."

"Where's Harmon?"

"Don't know."

'Hope those pirate assholes nail him,' Ashton thought, and allowed himself to be at peace with that. For what Harmon had done to them, he hoped the pirates took their time with it too. The revelation was grim, but then so was the heart of John Ashton at that moment.

***

Heading towards the bow of the ship, Soniah and Sonny found an open vent near one of the crumpled overhead supports. She tapped Sonny's shoulder and motioned to it. The engineer wasted no time in grasping the slim alien by the waist and lifting her up to reach the vent's edge. Soniah tucked her arms close and wriggled her way inside, teeth bared and lungs pounding for air. She had never felt so scared in her life.

The sounds of heavy footfalls reached Sonny's ear as he grasped the vent and pulled himself up. Soniah was already a few yards inside, so he was able to wedge himself in quickly. The voices of the pirates and the accent of their heathen language rumbled through the ship. They were laughing, having a grand time at their work. Sonny wriggled like a madman until his forehead brushed Soniah's heel. He could feel the hard inner walls of the vent shaft at the tips of his boots, so he knew he was inside safely.

"Keep going," he whispered to Soniah. She had stopped.

"Can't."

"Why?" he hissed.

"The vent is crushed flat just in front of me."

"You're kidding me."

"No," she replied impatiently, "I'm not."

Sonny rolled his eyes, "Fuck..."

All it would take was one pirate happening to look into the vent and see his feet and ass in the tube. Sonny could feel a claustrophobic panic trying to over take him, but he calmed himself as best he could and relaxed his body. He supposed there were worse places he could have been just then, but that didn't make him feel any better being packed like a prick in a condom with blood thirsty pirates at the back door.

"Fuck!"

***

Jai-Hessex led her team through the hazy wreck of the Haven. It was dark inside the ship. Their initial attack of two electrical grenades had knocked out the power quickly and effectively. The small devices packed a powerful punch and even sounded like a real explosive when they detonated. Instead of incendiary properties, however, the weapon released a powerful electrical pulse that could disable almost any power grid and leave it salvageable. Hessex knew that Koor would want every single scrap of technology that could be harvested from the Haven. 

As the clouds overhead blocked the last of the sun out, the wrecked ship became a fording labyrinth of steel and alloy. For the humans inside, this would be a disadvantage, but for her and those like her there wasn't much of a problem. The naturally glowing eyes of the Jah-Haran physiology were a natural night vision. It had become something of a legend amongst the species they raided. Their fiery eyes and the dark skin somehow evoked images of death and hell from those they raided.

This amused Hessex. To her, they were as natural and mundane as breathing air into her lungs was. To the humans, it was a frightening trait that made them uneasy and filled with fear. She had seen some of the texts dealing with what they deemed supernatural and evil, and if ever there was a species in the known galaxy that fit the description contained within it was hers.

"Cowards," Kale muttered, "Not worthy to be our equal."

"They think the same of us," Hessex said.

"Sympathy for the weak?"

She looked sideways at Kale. "Understanding."

"They are hiding when they should be facing us head on, with honor."

Hessex sighed. Here was a pirate speaking of honor when his sole skill in life was robbing people of what was rightfully theirs. She said, "With as loudly as your men talk and laugh, they have the advantage."

Kale looked back at the raiding party and barked, "Silence!"

Hessex nodded. "Much better." 

She motioned for half of her team to split up and branch out into the ship as they reached the mess hall. Jor-Kale led one half away towards the lower decks as she took the remainder with her further along A-deck. The humans were hiding, readily enough. There were many places to hide in a wreck this size. The further in they went, the more broken the vessel became. She was dismayed by the amount of damage to the ship. There wouldn't be much that could be salvaged beyond the viable computer systems and maybe the A.I. from the central control alcove.

"Wren," she spoke into her wiry headset.

"Yes?" came the garbled response, thick but still audible.

"Go to the central alcove and recover the A.I.," she whispered, her hefty plasma blaster aimed in front of her. She walked down the tilted corridor like a feline predator, cautious and alert, her eyes glowing subtly in the shadows. Behind her, two of her best men followed in close.

"As you wish," Wren replied and then closed the frequency. The hint of sarcasm and the accent underscoring each word were meant to needle at her. She bit her lip and pushed Wren from her thoughts. He might have been tempted to be petulant around her, but failure on a raid was grounds for execution as far as Captain Koor went. He would do his job.

"Be alert you two," she whispered to the men behind her.

The skies above the ship were beginning to storm. Soon the black rain would fall and their time would be spent. She had heard the stories about this planet, and while Jor-Halen had promised them the bounty of many ships to salvage, they had found none. None that were above ground anyway. It was as though they had all sank into the surface of the planet, slowing disappearing from sight over time.

Something caught her attention.

A noise, subtle but definite escaped from the end of the dead and blackened hall to her pierced ears. She readied her weapon and placed one hand on the grip of her ceremonial blade. The long sword was still steadfast against her thigh, one of the few exposed areas of her body at the moment. While she might have worn less on the ship, on a mission she would take no chances. The thigh-high boots she wore were connected to the hip-cut bottoms of her uniform by metallic netting, revealing a glimpse of her dark flesh and the red tattoos that adorned it.

She wiped a mist of sweat from her brow, a strand of her thick black mane loose from the tie she had used to keep it in a ponytail. She could see someone at the end of the corridor, moving back and forth as though trying to squeeze into a vent shaft. She charged her weapon and motioned for her men to stand by.

"Do not move," she spoke in English as she activated the powerful light beacon mounted to her gun, "Or we will shoot."

The person at the end of the hall paused for a moment in the sudden pool of bright light. She tried to get a better look at him as they approached, craning her neck to one side. He was very pale and white, and apparently without clothes. Hessex thought he might have gotten the message. She spoke very good English, one of the few aboard the Black Wraith who did. But after a few moments the man began trying to escape.

"I will not warn you again."

When the head of her prey shot up from his work, she realized she had made a mistake. The thing at the end of the hall was no more a human than she was. It was a ghostly white color, muscular and fleshy. Powerful tripod legs unfolded from underneath it and grasped the broken frame of the corridor with prehensile toes, tipped with deadly black claws. Its strong arms were poised to match the crouching attack position of its lean body.

"By the goddess," she whispered. She had never seen anything like it before. She had heard about the rains of this world and the evils that never sleep, but they had all been second hand stories. Myths even. No one knew for sure because no one had ever come back. Now, seeing this abomination standing before her, she understood why. This creature was one of the white demons, the T' Nogru.

The albino alien leapt at her.

Before it had cleared the distance of five feet, four blasts of pulsing green energy took it in the face and chest. The creature fell dead and skidded to her feet. She stood there, looking down at the carcass as her men stood behind her.

"What was it, Mistress?" asked Jor-Mammon, the weapons specialist.

"I do not know."

A gut-wrenching scream issued from somewhere deep in the ship. They turned and began running towards their comrades. Hessex could feel a sick feeling boiling in her gut. They had stumbled upon something far more deadly that a band of frightened humans. For all she knew, the humans were dead. They weren't as resilient as the Jah-Haran, and their weaponry was less advanced.

"Wren?" she called out into her radio.

No response.

"Wren, respond."

Static filtered through the earpiece.

"Kale? Respond."

"A jamming frequency, Mistress," came the frightened voice of Jor-Kell. He was the youngest of the crew and Koor's nephew. His bright yellow eyes were wide with panic. It was not befitting of a Jah-Haran to show fear, let alone a mature male. Still, she did not begrudge him for it. In fact, she felt if more Jah-Haran males would accept their fear and understand it, more of them might live longer. Besides, she was as frightened as he was, but she dared not show it.

"The humans?"

"No, my Lady. This is different."

"Interference from the storm?"

"Possibly." Kell looked back down the corridor and then added, "My Lady, the humans are most likely dead."

The came to the corridor Kale and the remaining troops had gone down. It was dark, as though the shadows themselves were living and writing just beyond the reach of her arm. She felt as though she looking into a chasm that wanted nothing more than to devour her. Hessex braced herself against the bulkhead and called down the inclined hall, "Kale? Report!"

Her echo came back to her quickly.

"Kale!"

As the second echo died, she began to hear clicking sounds, wet and thick in the darkness. A warm, thick odor wafted up from the corridor and graced the three pirates. Mammon stood back, her face pinched in a register of pure disgust. He breathed, "What could be down there?"

More clicking, and then the sounds of something scratching metal hard answered his question. She brought her blaster rifle to bear and shone the light into the shadows. At the end of corridor she could see the body of one of her troops, a second year member of the crew named Jor-Maul. Steam was rising all around him, from his body and the deck plating beneath. His lifeless eyes were tilted towards her as she began to realize he was slowly sliding down the incline of the deck.

"Maul!" Hessex called down to him, "Somebody report."

"The walls, Mistress," Kell said, "Looks at the walls."

Steam and smoke were beginning to filter from the metal as the corridor slowly sagged downward. She looked past the body of Maul to the heavy doors at the end of passageway. A thick, tar-like substance was bubbling up through the metal and creating a pond at the bottom of the corridor. Maul finished his dead journey down the incline and sank into the growing pool of vile liquid. The acid began eating his boots, clothes and flesh immediately.

Hessex stood for a moment, not wanting to believe what she was seeing.

"It's getting hot in here," Kell said and wiped his brow.

It was getting hot, Hessex realized. She looked at her subordinates and said, "We're withdrawing."

"But Mistress," Mammon stepped in her way, "Captain Koor gave express instructions about-"

"We withdraw now," she growled and stood an inch from his face. Male or not, he was in her way.

"My Lady," he bowed and stood back, though his eyes betrayed his sincerity.

***

Sonny and Soniah listened as the pirates walked away. The leader, the woman had spoken English but Sonny hadn't been able to make out the words very well. The tube in which he was jammed allowed for little audio clarity.

"Well?" Soniah huffed.

"They're pulling out I think," he said, "Something spooked them. There was weapons fire too."

"They're gone?"

"I think so."

"Then let's get out of here."

Sonny worked his was back until he came free of the vent. He was glad to be breathing fresh air, such as it was. He looked around carefully, unable to see much beyond the black surrounding him. The ship shifted again, settling and groaning under its own weight. Sonny nearly fell over as he tried to steady himself. There was a loud pop and snapping sound from above and then the screeching of metal against metal. As Soniah lowered her legs down, the vent bowed suddenly and pinned her down. Something heavy, probably a broken support beam gave way and partially crushed the shaft. She cried out and struggled to move.

"I'm stuck," she whispered.

"What?" Sonny asked.

"I'm stuck," she repeated, her voice echoing in the vent shaft.

"You gotta be kidding me," Sonny grasped her legs and pulled.

"The vent is collapsing," she said. She could feel it tightening around her, slowly beginning to crush her.

Sonny pulled again, this time harder.

"Shit!" he cursed.

"Go," Soniah told him, though she had never been more frightened in her life than she was at that moment, "Go now."

"Shut up," The engineer grunted and pulled, this time almost pulling her knee out of the socket.

"You're just wasting time and hurting me," she gasped, her lungs suddenly feeling tight as the vent closed in on her.

"Shut up!"

"Go," she wheezed.

"Hang on," he said.

"Just go," Soniah told him. In the distance, even through the moaning of the construct crushing her and the thundering of her own heart, she could hear the pirates moving about still, "Sonny go."

"I'm not leaving you here," he said and then patted her ass, "Don't go anywhere."

A few excruciating moments passed as Sonny hurried down the corridor and she was left alone in the vent, half her body stuck inside. She thought he might have actually gone on without her and hadn't wanted to tell her so. She wouldn't have blamed him. And then she heard him coming back. There was some movement around her waist and then something wet and cold coating her midsection.

"What is that?"

"Oil," he said quickly, "From the maintenance locker at the end of the hall. Almost missed it in the dark... just hang on."

Sonny coated her with the thick oil until she was dripping with it. She could feel her body getting slick against the metal of the shaft. The oil drained down to her arms, underneath her stomach and breasts. Soniah felt his hands grasp her hips from below. He said, "Exhale on three and pull in tight."

"Okay."

"One..."

Soniah took a deep breath.

"Two..."

With all her might she exhaled and positioned her arms out in front her, fingers reaching into the dark. 

"Three!" Sonny grunted and yanked back hard as she tried to compress herself. She slipped out of the vent and the fell to the deck, catching her chin on the edge and then taking Sonny with her. She bit down on the end of her tongue and could taste blood. He tried to hold on to her greasy body and help her up. Soniah grabbed the front of his coveralls and held tight as they stood up.

"We gotta go," he told her, "Come on."

"Okay," she nodded, tears stinging her eyes. Her tongue ached as she ran in along the back of her teeth. It was all still there, but it hurt with a vengeance.




Black Rain Ch. 04



Occasionally, an overhead light would flicker and spark but beyond that it was pitch black. Sonny felt his way forward, seeking the smooth metal covering of a control panel. After a few moments, he found what he was looking for. He opened the small door to the wall conduit, feeling around the circuits and control chips until he found the wiring port. He pulled on the seal, breaking the wires loose.

"You got a watch on you?" he whispered to Soniah, "Anything with a battery?"

"Why? You gonna run a starship off a battery?"

"Do you have one or not?"

A moment later Soniah slapped her wrist communicator into his open palm. Sonny loosened the casing with a few good hits to the floor. He listened; his face cringed as they waited for the thunder of footsteps to rush towards them. After a moment, they both exhaled and Sonny opened the casing.

"Don't do that again," Soniah hissed, her arms crossed. She had never felt so cold in her entire life. She felt as though a thousand eyes were watching her from the darkness. For all she knew, she was right.

Sonny pulled the powerful transmitter battery out of the communicator and wired it to the control panel. After a few sparks and a drift ozone the red emergency lights activated, blinking spastically to life along the running beams of the deck. In the crimson light, Soniahs' blue skin looked almost black, her reflective yellow eyes demonic and bizarre. She looked at him and shrugged, "Okay, how did you do that?"

"It'll only last for a few minutes and only on this deck. We gotta go," he grabbed her arm and led her down the corridor.

"Didn't the pirates go this way?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "But whatever they were shooting at is back that way."

"Good point."

"If I can get to the central control alcove, I can switch the A.I over to the last battery back up. They probably used some kind of pulse grenade when the came in," he whispered and stopped at the intersection just before the bridge. There were no Jah-Harans anywhere. "Weird," he muttered.

"So?"

"So, the last back-up wasn't on when the attack happened," Sonny explained, "The electrical grenades didn't fry it."

"So you restore power and then?"

"And then we can open the gun lockers on the bridge," he said.

"That's the plan?"

"You got a better one?"

Soniah opened her mouth to argue and then stopped.

"That's what I thought."

When he saw the coast was clear, he led Soniah down the corridor to the central alcove. He prayed none of the acidic shit he had discovered on C-deck had found a way inside the room. If it had, then their hopes for one lousy plan to work would be dashed. And, he really wanted his plan to work. Not just for the sake of his shipmates, but because he wanted to impress Soniah.

'It's juvenile, yeah,' he thought to himself, 'But she's so hot.'

"If you get me killed," she squeezed his hand tightly, "I'll haunt you for the remainder of your days."

"Baby," he smiled half-heartedly, "Something tells me if you go, you'll take me with you."

Despite herself, Soniah smiled.

***

In the med lab, Miranda tried to pry open the storage door. It wouldn't budge. The power had been severed to the lab for the moment, and while the red emergency lights had activated, nothing else seemed to work.

"Cut the hydraulics," Ashton said and handed her his pocketknife.

She took the knife and opened it. In the hot light she put the tip of the blade to the release lines and began cutting. A cold sweat had broken out all over her body, soaking her uniform to her skin. She felt like she was ready to pass out, and the fact that she could hear the pirates coming closer and closer to the lab only made her hands shake even more. She gritted her teeth and scowled to herself, 'Get a grip girl, get a fucking grip... just cut that line...'

The blade was not sharp enough to penetrate the reinforced plastic of the small section of hydraulic line. She cursed and banged her head on the door.

"This isn't going to work," she sighed.

"It's okay," Ashton reassured her.

"No, it's not," came the voice of Robert Harmon, followed by the report of a blaster being fired. In his blindness, Ashton could only duck down and hope Miranda did the same. As he hit the deck, he heard a muffled *flump* sound. It was the sound of phased plasma striking clothing and flesh. He heard someone fall to the deck hard, knocking over instruments and scanners in a loud crash. He cursed the day he had ever approved the transfer of Robert Harmon to his ship as he frantically tried to think of a plan.

"Paisley?" he whispered, "You okay?"

No reply.

"Captain Ashton," Harmon called from the blackness, "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"This is the second time you've tried to shoot me," Ashton said. He sighed and stood up. There was no point to hiding or being stealthy. Harmon knew where he was and he could shoot at any moment. Ashton simply stood his ground and hoped a miracle would grace him and save his sweet ass one more time. He asked, "How much did they pay you, Robert?"

There was silence and then, "Enough to buy my own back world planet, and then some."

"You sold us out."

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," he lashed back, his anger saturating every word, "The ship was supposed to be off course for a month, no more. No one was supposed to die. I didn't plan on a crash!"

"But people did die," Ashton balled his fists up, his heart beating fast with rage, "You killed half the crew and almost all the passengers! What the fuck were you thinking?"

"You shut your fucking mouth!" Harmon screamed. Ashton could hear he was crying now. The man was losing it. "I am not going to fucking die here! This wasn't part of the deal."

"Did you kill Paisley?" Ashton asked, his mouth dry as though desert cotton had been stuffed down his throat.

"No," he said, "I tagged her on the shoulder. She's out cold is all."

"So what now? You take me and her hostage and try to negotiate?" Ashton laughed, "With who, Robert? The Jah-Harans will cut your head off before they listen to your demands. The others? If Gordon doesn't kill you, then Sonny will."

"Fuck them both," Harmon's finger trembled on the trigger of his blaster, "They never liked me anyway. Always a private little club. This whole fucking crew is like that. You all never wanted me here anyway."

"You raped Paisley, didn't you?" Ashton pressured him. He could tell Harmon was ready to snap, but he didn't care. Why should he? The odds looked bad either way, and truth be told, the idea of living the rest of his life stranded here and blind didn't appeal to him in the slightest anyway. Better to go out his way. His choice.

"Harmon," he said, "You fucked the Haven's navcom, you crashed us on an uncharted planet and you've killed a lot of people. But all that being said, you still found time to rape a woman who put her trust in you."

"I-"

"Don't deny it anymore," Ashton snapped at him, "Be a man, own up to it. Don't be a pussy."

Harmon took a deep breath and felt that familiar anger wash over him, that cool reserved hate for this crew that had left him open to sabotaging their mission in the first place. Ashton had always just paid him lip service, and Tishara was too busy sucking her captain off to even notice him. Gordon and Sonny were like two peas in a pod, sorry Harmon, no room for a third. The rest of them, those like Miranda, had been aloof and unappreciative of him and his talent. Any guilt and fear he might have been gripped by since the crash were fading away, replaced by a righteous anger. 

He leveled the gun at his captain and shrugged. "So what if I did?" he asked quietly and then added, "Captain."

"You bastard."

"Oh," he laughed, "It's okay for the captain and XO to fuck each other silly, in violation of every single regulation in the book against such relationships on a TSE starship, but me? No. A little fun with a colleague and its twenty questions before the noose."

"A little fun?" Ashton exclaimed, "You raped her!"

"Let me clue you in, you blind-sighted sack of shit," Harmon spat at his former captain, "Sometimes in life, a man has to just take what he wants. Paisley wanted me to give it to her, but she couldn't admit it. So I gave it to her. Believe me, she had it coming."

"You miserable excuse for a man," Ashton breathed.

"Did you know when she orgasms, she cries?"

"Goddam you Harmon!"

"She even keeps her pussy shaved..."

"Harmon!"

"... so soft and smooth. Like a peach, captain."

"I swear, Harmon..."

"She even tastes sweet."

"I'm going to-"

"You're gonna kill me?" Harmon laughed, "Spare me the hero routine, John. It's old."

"You're finished," Ashton told him, "It's over for you."

"It is all over," Harmon agreed coldly as he leveled his weapon and took aim at Ashton's face, "And so is this."

Ashton cringed, waiting for the shot and the searing pain of a plasma blast to the chest or the head. He hoped he would get it in the head. It would be quicker that way. He didn't want to suffer.

Instead, he heard the clattering of a gun to the deck and then the scraping sound of metal over metal as it slid down the incline. Ashton stepped back against the wall, his hands grabbing the bulkhead tightly. He could hear strangled sounds of a man being choked and then finally the exasperated scream of agony. Harmon was in pain, but not any pain that Ashton could understand or see. He was squealing like small stuck pig, his boots slamming into one of the medical beds near the door. For once, Ashton thought maybe it was better that he couldn't see.

"Harmon?" he shouted, "Harmon?"

The screaming morphed into gurgling, wet gnarls and pleas for mercy. The words were incoherent and slurred together as Harmon tried to reason with his attacker. Ashton could hear the blood sputtering off his lips as the man was killed, terrified out of his wits. There was a final, whooping shout for help and then a hair-raising crack. It reminded Ashton of the sound his celery sticks made when he broke them all at once into small pieces. Small crunching and wet slurping sounds followed this in hungry intervals.

"Harmon," he looked into the blackness, "Harmon are you okay?"

'Brilliant question, dumb ass,' he thought to himself.

Ashton released his death grip on the wall and breathed deeply. He strained to listen for any sounds that might help him identify the attacker. 'Losing one sense heightens the others, isn't that what they say?' he thought.

Something fell loudly to the floor on his right.

"Shit."

He leaned back against wall as a cold sweat trickled down his back. He wished with all his heart Tishara were here. She'd know what to do. She would have been cool and calm. He didn't blame Paisley for being afraid, but her lack of attention to what was happening around her had made things worse. Tishara would have seen Harmon coming from a mile away. He cursed himself and nearly jumped out of his skin when something crashed off the counter next to him, this time closer.

"Fuck!" he cried out. His chest was heaving now. He was scared shitless, and his nerve was failing.

'Pull it together, man,' he thought.

"Who is that?" he demanded.

Nothing.

"I am Captain John Ashton," he said calmly. Maybe he could reason with whoever this was. It had to be one of the pirates messing with him, taunting him. He said, "I have a wounded woman here. There's no need for violence."

No reply.

"You don't have to do this," he said, "Please, take me and whatever you want. Just spare my crew."

Very faintly, he could hear labored breathing to his left.

"If you can guarantee safe passage off this planet for my crew, I'll let you take anything you want from the wreck. We won't fight you."

The breathing sounded wet, visceral. Behind the raspy inhalations came a deep-rooted growl. Ashton felt the hair on his neck prickle and rise up. The odds of this being a Jah-Haran were getting slim. They could growl with the best of them, but this was a savage sound beyond even a pirate. And he could smell something now as well. It was a sour, fishy smell. It reminded him of the bile stench he gotten a whiff of earlier, but this was more specific and more intense.

A blast of hot air touched his neck.

He spun and faced the attacker. If Ashton had been able to see, the large, misshapen teeth and the gaping jaws leering just short of his nose might have scared him. The eyeless face, ghostly white and now pink in the red emergency lights might have been enough to give him nightmares not even a cryotube computer could compensate for. But as it was, he could only sense that something was in front of him.

"If we could-"

When it bit him, it encompassed his entire head. A short, strangled scream escaped his throat, but it was cut short when the powerful jaws clamped shut as though powered by the same hydraulic lines that operated the doors. His skull fractured and he was dead before the pain of the teeth tearing his flesh even fully registered. Blood splattered the wall a deep crimson color and then ran wet with gray matter and gore. The world was already black for John Ashton, and when he died it was simply more of the same.

A last rattling breath escaped his ruined mouth into the throat of the white alien. The creature held him there for a moment and then released. The captain fell to the deck in a heap of dead tissues and meat, more a headless corpse than a complete body.

The overhead lights flickered and came back on, illuminating the bloody mess med lab had become in a few minutes time. The white alien looked at the woman lying on the floor. She was still alive, but she was not moving. It could sense that it was not her time. Close, but not quite. It turned, already hearing more of them in corridors.

It ran.

It was not finished yet.

***

When they entered the central control alcove, Sonny was amazed to see that the power had been restored. The hum of the A.I. computer cooling systems filled the small area and sounded beautifully familiar to him. He smiled and walked right in, dragging Soniah behind him. She blinked against the light of the small compartment, a sudden change from the red shadow in the passageway.

"The A.I. hooked itself up to the battery reserve," Sonny grinned and kissed the monitor, "Oh you beautiful old woman, thank you."

"Hurry," Soniah whispered, "I can hear them in the corridor."

"If we can jam the door shut," Sonny stood in front of the computer control panel, "Just shut the damn door..."

With a muted electronic beep, the door slid shut and locked.

"Thank God," he breathed, "We have a shot."

"No," came a watery voice from behind them, "I do."

Wren, who had been hiding in the corner, shot Sonny in the leg. He howled in pain, sinking to the floor as he shoved Soniah out of the way. The red-skinned Haalken stood tall in the doorway, his blaster aimed at them. He leered with rotten teeth, his almost canine features wrinkled with superior glee. His ink black eyes glittered with excitement. Slowly, he stepped over to Sonny and then looked at Soniah as he charged his gun. The Haalken leered at her and licked his chops, pointing the rifle at Sonny's head, "IS he your mate?"

"You speak English?" Soniah asked.

"Is this one your mate?"

"No," Soniah shook her head.

"Good," Wren grinned, "Then you won't mind if I shoot him?"

"I would mind."

"Shame."

She met Sonny's pained eyes as she furiously sought a solution to this problem. She had no doubt the pirate would kill him. Soniah was surprised to find that she didn't just want another member of this crew to perish. She realized she had come to like Sonny in the last few hours. In the heat of the moment, she discovered she liked him a lot. His willingness to stick by her and not her leave alone had made an impression she hadn't noticed at first but could not deny now.

"You'll need him," Soniah said suddenly, "he's our engineer. You'll need him to remove the components of the A.I."

"Is that a fact?" Wren eyed her.

"Yes."

"Forgiving the fact that I already have forgotten more about advanced computers and artificial intelligence than this pathetic excuse for a human will ever hope to know," Wren said, "I don't take orders from a woman."

One of his long, wiry arms shot out and smashed Soniah in the face. She staggered back as dark, red blood trickled from her nose and lips. She wiped her face and looked at the blood, her yellow eyes then falling to Wren.

"That was a mistake friend," Sonny warned.

"I'm not your friend," Wren kicked Sonny hard in the ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs, "Nor do I care what this woman thinks, if one can call such mindless firings of the synapses 'thinking'."

"You should treat the lady with more respect," Sonny managed.

"Shut up," Wren batted him hard across the face.

Before Wren could level his gun at Sonny's head, Soniahs' leg stretched out and kicked it out of his hands. Wren stood there, looking dumbly down at his empty hands. "How dare you..." 

Sonny looked at Soniah, his eyes wide. The huge blaster rifle fell to the floor on the far side of the alcove. Soniah stood defiantly in front of the Haalken and shrugged, "There I go, thinking again."

Wren reached for the second of four guns he carried on his armor. He drew his sidearm blaster with a speed Sonny had never seen before. But before he had brought the weapon to bear, it was gone. Soniahs boot returned to the deck, another perfect kick executed.

"You bitch," Wren growled as the weapon joined the rifle on the deck.

"So I'm told."

He reached behind his back and went to draw his third blaster, a smaller but powerful sleek silver gun with a long barrel. It was the same gun he had tried to intimate Hessex with earlier on the shuttle. He aimed and found her hand had already slapped his wrist so hard that the muscles released and dropped the gun into her hand. She pointed it at his head, a mischievous grin stretching across her dark blue lips.

"When I'm done with you..." Wren hissed

"When you're done with me?" Soniah asked innocently, "Well then you'll need this back." She spun the blaster by its handle and slapped it back into the pirate's open hand. Wren made to clutch it but she had yanked it from him faster than he could move. Her free hand struck out and caught him under the jaw, snapping his head back. She slapped the gun in his hand once more and again, before he could react, she had taken it back and struck him hard across the face.

Sonny watched, mouth open and eyes wide in their sockets.

"I'll kill you for that," Wren gasped, truly shocked at her speed and audacity.

"Too fast for you?" Soniah asked and repeated the process, slower but still faster than Wren could react to. 

The Haalken screamed and lunged for her. Soniah tossed the small blaster to Sonny and then slipped out of Wrens' way, her leg out and knee up. She connected with his stomach, her leg bearing a painful impact to his armor but nothing so serious she couldn't finish what she had started. Her hands, balled into fists smashed into the back of his neck and in one deft move slipped the fourth blaster from his shoulder holster while pushing him into the wall.

Soniah aimed the stolen gun and fired at Wrens' legs, two shots for each knee. Wren collapsed to the floor and bellowed in impotent rage. He turned onto his back and glared at the Denavian, "You'll pay for this! I swear you will!"

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, sounding almost bored. She then looked to Sonny, her voice warm, "You okay?"

Soniah knelt down beside Sonny and checked his leg out. The engineer, still in shock that the entire fight between her and the pirate had lasted no more than ten seconds, looked at her in complete awe and said, "How'd you do that?"

"Do what?" Soniah examined the cauterized wound that had drilled through Sonny's left leg.




Black Rain Ch. 04



"The moves there, girl," he laughed and winced as she touched the still smoking hole in his thigh.

"I grew up on one of the frontier mining stations," she explained casually, "My father was the administrator for the Korann Seven Outpost."

Sonny only stared.

"A girl has to protect herself," she smiled at him and then asked, "You gonna be okay?"

Sonny nodded, still dumb struck by her display of fighting skill. He smiled, "That was so hot."

"Sweet talker," she said dryly and helped him to his feet. She guided him to the A.I. and said, "Get to work. I'll watch laughing boy here."

Wren looked up at her and sneered.

***

Hessex stood in the remains of the bridge and looked out of the shattered view ports. She could already smell the scent of the rain. They had underestimated the time of the storm's arrival. She cursed silently as her remaining men stood by her, namely Mammon and Kell. They others had gone missing. No sign of them or their weapons. No sign of Kale. Only the body of Jor-Maul had given them any indication of what had happened. And even then, that hadn't said much. 

The rest of them were just gone. Wren seemed to have disappeared in the meantime, and with the communications jammed she had little choice but to watch as lightning flashed in the roiling sky above.

"Could we make it to the shuttle in time?" she asked Kell.

"Doubtful, Mistress."

Hessex sighed. "Great."

"Still no contact with the Black Wraith or with the other members of the team," Mammon reported as he slapped his radio set hard.

"Beating the equipment won't make it work any more efficiently," she commented.

A cold chill gripped the base of her spine and crawled up to her neck, causing her nipples to grow hard under her chest plate. Something was wrong with this planet. There were some places in the vast ocean of space that seemed to have an aura all their own, a unique quality that made them as much a living thing as the life forms that inhabited it. While some planets were dead husks or lifeless rocks spinning and tumbling to their ultimate end, others were graced with life.

Hessex could not feel that sign of life here. In fact, as she breathed in the air it was as though she were inhaling the carbon dioxide from a huge dragon's lungs. Everything here felt spent, or worse a façade to hide something more sinister. While the jungle beyond was lush and green, as was the fauna blanketing the valley in which this ship had crashed, it all felt false to her.

She looked to the sky and knew they would never make it back to their shuttle in time. The clouds above were spinning slowly. Odd colors ranging from black purples to heated oranges misted and birthed only to be swallowed up in the ever-changing formation. Lightning streaked across the sky, leaping from one bold thunderhead to another in a sizzling electric blue display.

"Your orders, Mistress?" Mammon asked.

She thought of the white alien she had killed in the ship. Hessex had never seen anything like it before, and while it had been easy to take down, she wondered if she would have been so fortunate had she not caught if off guard.

Several computer terminals in the aft of bridge flickered on as power was restored to the crippled ship. Their weapons rose immediately and without thought. It was instinct. In their line of work, instinct often meant the difference between a fat payday and the business end of a blaster.

"Wren?" she spoke into her headset.

Again, nothing.

She turned to Kell and said, "We'll go to the A.I. and find Wren, take the computer and wait the storm out. We can make camp here on the bridge and seal off that access door until the storm breaks and we can call for help."

"Understood," Mammon grunted.

Hessex looked to Kell. The younger male was gazing to the sky, his face shadowed with fear.

"Kell?" she asked.

"Mistress," he snapped his head back to face her, "Forgive me."

"What troubles you?"

"Is it true what they say about the rain, my Lady?" Kell asked.

Hessex looked to the sky once more.

"I believe so," she said.

***

Standing in the shuttle was all the proof Tishara needed about the identity of the Jah-Haran before them. Gordon, Howe and Chastity were resting on one of the long bench seats in the cargo hold. Normally, that hold could have held maybe ten pirates for a raiding party. Instead, it was loaded with supplies and gear to the point of leaving barely enough room for her weary search party to sit without rubbing elbows. Tishara noticed that the walls were covered with the bulky, angular language of the Jah-Haran people. She touched the intricate markings on the walls and said, "These are strange."

"They're incantations," Gordon spoke up, "Jah-Haran clerics use them to ward off bad spirits and demons."

There were red symbols all over the bulkheads, Jah-Haran inscriptions and most prominently displayed over the hatch to the cockpit was the familiar red and yellow sun symbol. It was the seal of every Jah-Haran vessel ever identified in civilized space.

"Freshly painted too," Tishara frowned as some of the paint came off on her fingertips.

"Never heard of a Jah-Haran pirate needing religious incantations," Howe said.

"This guy isn't a pirate," Chastity said coldly. 

In the warm lighting of the shuttle, the Jah-Haran loner seemed to be a pagan warrior figure cast of various bronze and gold metals. He stood in front of the cockpit hatch and removed his facemask. Strong, broad features marked by elegant red tattoos further revealed his lineage. Amber eyes beset deep in tired sockets looked the humans over wearily. As frightening as he looked, Tishara didn't see the usual Jah-Haran arrogance or dominance.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The loner regarded her doubtfully.

Tishara pointed to the facemask and the translator inside. She said, "You don't really need that, do you?"

"...beating a dead horse," Chastity remarked.

"No," the loner said quietly, his voice deep and guttural, "I can understand you."

Tishara had a thousand things she wanted to ask him, a thousand questions that needed answers. Instead of hitting him with all that, she said, "Thank you."

The loner cocked a brow, his flesh an almost blackened orange in the golden lighting of the shuttle. He asked, "For?"

"For helping us with that creature in the jungle."

The loner regarded her for a moment, as though he were coming to decision about Tishara Lee that would be forever permanent. Seeing this, she knelt down and gave a slight bow in respect of Jah-Haran culture. It was a male dominated species, chauvinistic and primitive by human standard, but a culture nonetheless. Being ignorant of that fact here would only make things worse. The loner nodded, "You're welcome. But do not bow before me."

Tishara looked up at him.

The towering alien said, "I am Jor-Halen. I am an outcast from my people because I do not think as they do."

Tishara stood up and offered him her hand, "My name is Tishara Lee. I'm the first officer of the T.S.E.W. Haven."

Halen took her slender white hand in his huge, powerful grip. She thought he might crush every bone in her hand. Instead, he was surprisingly gentle. She couldn't help but smile when Halen said, "The honor is mine."

"Behind me are members of my crew," she motioned to the three humans sitting in the hold, warily watching them, "Gordon, my engineer... Chastity, colony construction technician and Dr. Howe."

"I would not build a colony here," he said to Chastity.

"Neither would I, high pockets," she agreed.

"We crash landed," Howe said.

"I know," the big alien said.

Gordon leaned back against the wall, "What now?"

Halen nodded to them all. Then to Tishara, "You are in danger here."

"We saw a Jah-Haran pirate ship pass over earlier," she said, "Are you attached to them?"

"I was briefly."

Thunder rolled above them again, only this time it was as though they were right next to the colossal rush of air. The shuttle shook violently as the phenomenon faded out to a dull rumble and then a silent whisper. Gordon looked around, his eyes wide. Dr. Howe had gripped one of the supports next to the seat with hands that trembled, the knuckles turning white.

"The rain comes," Halen said quietly.

Tishara nodded and looked past him into the cockpit, through the front windows. She could see distortions forming on the glass, the wavy and blurred world of water over a transparent surface. The steady pattering and then drumming of rain outside filtered through in a hollow, tin sound that was familiar and yet alien. Halen quickly turned, his face worried.

"What is it?" Tishara asked.

"The rain is evil," he said and sat down in his seat in the cockpit. The Jah-Haran keyed the launch sequence into the complex control panel. The engines roared to life like some caged animal waking up, followed by the mechanical whine of the anti-gravity boosters charging themselves. The Jah-Haran had a gracefulness to his motions that Tishara had never seen before. Your typical Jah-Haran pirate had all the delicacy and tact of a bull in a china shop. Halen, on the other hand, worked the controls as fluidly as a fish in water.

"Evil?" she frowned and sat down in the co-pilots chair, "It's just rain."

"Not rain."

"What?"

Halen pointed outside the view port and engaged the exterior illumination. A bright floodlight came on and revealed two things to Tishara that gave her pause. First, the rain was black. It was black like the ink from a schoolmasters well, thick and heavy. It trailed down the glass of the front view ports in translucent murkiness. But it was through this mess that Tishara saw the second unique property of the rain.

Smoke was rising from the hull steadily but surely. Not just in one place either, but all over. She squinted and discovered that the rain was eating through the metal plating. She turned in the chair and said, "Get your shields up."

"No shields," Halen said apologetically, "This is a scouting craft, not a combat fighter."

"No fucking shields?" she blinked.

"No fucking shields," Halen repeated.

"Then get us out of here," she shouted and buckled herself into the oversized seat.

The small transport slowly rose into the black sky as the acidic rain hammered down from above. Smoke trailed and wisped off the tiny ship as she spun around on her axis and came about. The engines fired and they were moving along quickly, but still not fast enough.

"Engines are already suffering damage," Halen growled.

"Can we get into orbit?"

"I do not think so," Halen replied. 

Tishara grabbed Halen's thick forearm and said, "Get us back to our ship. We have a better chance there."

"Yo Lee!" Gordon called, "What's going on?"

"We're going back to the ship," she shouted.

"That's the best news I've heard in a long time," Howe breathed, her eyes closed. Her nose cringed suddenly and she asked, "What's that smell? Is something burning?"

"We are," Gordon replied calmly.

"Where?"

"Everywhere," he pointed to the ceiling with one finger. She and Chastity looked up to see the metal roof beginning to discolor and warp. The normally hard, straight-edged construction of the shuttle was starting to lose its rigidity, giving way to a slightly flaccid and drooped look. Steam and smoke were wafting down to them with the acrid stench of disintegrating metal. 

"What the fuck?" Chastity screamed, "What the fuck is going on?"

"Acid rain," Tishara shouted.

"Black rain," Halen corrected her, "It's the black rain."

***

It was only when Hessex turned to leave the bridge that she heard the rain begin to fall. Her heart grew faint as she faced the storm. She watched the black liquid hammer down from above, coating the valley and the wrecked starship in a viscous downpour. Kell and Mammon stood behind her, their glowing eyes uncertain and looking to her for leadership. She found that amusing. For all their posturing and bravado, these males turned to her for leadership.

"I've heard stories about the black rain," Kell said, his voice reverent and subdued, "But to see it is something else."

Hessex looked up at the roof of the bridge. She wondered how much metal and insulation was between them and the rain. She hoped that Terran building methods was as hearty as Jah-Haran practices. Even then, without shields to protect the hull, a mighty ship like the Black Wraith would soon fall to the corrosive properties of the rain. She could already smell the alloys beginning to come unglued and useless under the falling acid. What chance did this ruined hulk have?

"The most secure place right now will be the central alcove," she said as lightning flashed overhead and thunder rolled, "We must go."

Kell stepped back into the corridor and that was when another one of the white monstrosities leapt from the shadows. It tackled Kell hard, throwing him back on to the bridge and into a mound of mangled circuits and wiring. The creature was nearly as large as he was, and from the roars of agony escaping Kell's mouth, the two were not even close to being an equal match.

Hessex raised her weapon to fire but was tagged hard in the arm. Kell's fingers were squeezing the trigger of his rifle, firing wildly as the alien clamped its jaws down on his neck. She tumbled back, her weapon released from her shocked arm. She could smell her own scorched flesh. Pain shot from one end of her body to the other. She quickly gathered herself up and then took a dive for her blaster.

"Kell!" Mammon bellowed and began firing at the alien. He stepped up close to it, almost within arms reach as the fleshy creature ravaged Kell's neck, severing muscle, sinew and bone as though the were nothing more than cheap wet cloth.

Hessex cursed, her shot blocked by Mammon. From up in the ductwork of the bridge ceiling she saw something bulky and pale move. She shouted, "Mammon get back!"

He did not hear her warning. The alien was out of the vent and on him as quickly as it had emerged from hiding. Mammon cried out, his right shoulder caught in the eyeless monster's maw. It began dragging him backwards and towards the open tear in the hull at the front of the bridge. 

Towards the outside world. 

Towards the black rain.

Hessex made a desperate grab for his leg as he went by, kicking and pounding his fists against the side of the alien's head. The white behemoth seemed unconcerned with his vicious and powerful blows. Her fingers grasped his boot and held tight. She summoned all her strength and grabbed one of the consoles with her wounded arm, wrapping around and holding fast. The cauterized hole in her shoulder sang out a song of pain that made her eyes water. Her lips curled back from her teeth and growled against the agony.

"Mammon!"

"Mistress!" he screamed, "Help me!"

And then the boot came off and Mammon was rocketing towards the tear. The white alien slipped through, but Mammon was wide and too big to make such an easy exit. He slammed against the jagged metal, and for a moment Hessex thought the alien might let him go. Instead, there was a sudden tug backwards and the hiss of air escaping Mammon's lungs. Bone snapped and shattered as his body bent sideways, so that his feet slapped against his skull. With a final wet crunch the pirate's spine broke in half, folding him neatly and his body was yanked though the tear and into the rain.

"Mammon!"

Hessex scrambled to the window, her weapon in steady in her good hand. The remaining reinforced plexi-glass exploded outward and she took aim and fired. Mammon was howling in the dark. He was still alive somehow. And the rain was eating him alive. She tried to find him, to see any hint of where he lay. The light beacon on her blaster rifle had been broken in the fight, and now useless to assist her. She called out, "Mammon!"

Is she could only find him, she could put him out of his misery.

More screams, high pitched and so unlike a Jah-Haran pirate, came back to her, this time further away.

And then there was growl behind her. How could she have forgotten?

Gritting her teeth, she spun around and aimed for the alien that was atop Kell. She charged the weapon, letting the pale demon concentrate on its feeding. She thought it was odd that the alien made no move to get out of the way. In fact, it seemed as though the beast had no interest in her at all. It was focused on Kell and on him alone.

"Die," she whispered, the glowing red display on the side of her weapon indicating that a full charge had been established, "Just die."

She fired.

The alien and Kell exploded in a flash of fluorescent green energy and bloody debris. Hessex stood there for a moment, only the drumming of the rain on the decaying hull keeping her company. In the distance, one final bellow carried across the wind from Mammon and then was gone.

"May the Gods save us," she whispered.

In the corridor, something moved. Hessex set the charge on her gun and stepped towards the door, teeth bared and eyes blazing. She had to get to the central alcove.

"Who's next?" she growled, stepped into the hellish light of the corridor and opened fire.

***

"We're not going to make this," Tishara said. The seat in which she was strapped was vibrating badly now, shaking her to the point of her teeth chattering.

"Does your vessel have a shuttle bay?" Halen yelled over the turbulence of the storm as he worked the yoke, trying to keep his ailing craft level and in the air.

"We used to," Gordon yelled from the back, "It's smashed under the wreckage."

"We have to get out of this," Halen said. The lights in the shuttle began to dim and flicker. The stench of the rain was only amplified by the smell of burning metal.

The shuttle cleared the jungle and descended into the valley, speeding towards the Haven. Tishara could see the ship in the distance as lightning seared past the cockpit, casting a skeletal glow over the world. She was about call out to her crew that they were almost home when the shuttle lurched forward and then began tilting to the portside engine. A tired whine and sudden explosion rocked the shuttle. In the cargo hold, the straps holding Gordon and Howe to their seats snapped from the weakened metal supports, sending both of them to the deck.

"Look out!" Chastity screamed.

Gordon looked up to see the ceiling starting to cave in. The roof had bowed down like circus tent, or some kind of wax replica under too much heat to maintain its integrity. Without thinking he grabbed Howe and yanked her towards him. Together, they rolled under the bench they had been sitting on a few minutes early. Chastity unbuckled her harness and dove under her own bench, eyes shut tight and breath held. Everyone felt the air rip from their lungs as the cockpit and cargo hold depressurized, the air sucking out through the growing hole in the stern ceiling supports. The roof opened up and began falling to the deck in an acrid plume of steam and toxic vapor. Liquefied metal pooled thickly on the deck as the rain poured in.

"Gordon!" Tishara screamed, her hair whipping wilding in front of her face. She looked back but could only see a mound of decaying alloys where the cargo hold had been early.

"Stay where you are," Halen shouted, "Do not move!"

Tishara turned back around and eyed the Haven. After a moment, she said, "Can you get us to the ship?"

"Yes," he said, struggling against the controls, "But we won't be able to put down safely. The landing gear is damaged."

"Don't worry about that," she said, "This heap have weapons?"

"Yes."

She pointed at the broad starboard side hull of the Haven and said, "Blow it open."

Halen looked at her.

"The metal is already soft," she glared at him, "It's nothing but storage in that section. If we can get inside there we can try a crash landing where the rain isn't eating us alive."




Black Rain Ch. 04



Halen nodded and targeted the large ship.

As the dying shuttle soared towards the Haven, Tishara tried her radio once more, "Ashton? Anyone?"

No response.

"If anyone can hear me, get out of the starboard storage bays now!" she shouted.

Powerful discharges from the forward blasters of the shuttle streaked down to the Haven, the bolts of energy a bright green in the storm.

'Please, Jesus,' she thought wearily, 'Please...'

***

As Sonny worked to repair the damaged circuitry of the A.I., an alarm sounded off. The computer slowly turned on as all the screens in the claustrophobic little alcove came to life. Soniah spun around her heel, startled from her deep concentration on Wren. He was a sly bastard, and she had no doubt if she took her eyes off him long enough he would try to get the upper hand back again.

"Warning," the fragmented voice of the A.I. reported, "Incoming fire, starboard bow and bridge at high risk. Warning..."

"You gotta be shitting me," Sonny looked dismally at the computer screen.

"They're Jah-Haran," Soniah looked up from the console next to her. She could see the predatorial outline of a shuttle coming in fast, weapons firing.

"Your asshole friends are gonna blow us up," Sonny hissed at Wren.

"A shame, isn't it?" the demonic looking alien laughed spitefully.

"Brace your selves," Soniah shouted.

***

Hessex heard the alarm sound off and then the conversation between the human and Denavian female. She'd heard Wren talking, so at least he was still alive. From her position in the hall, she could hear the noise from outside filtering in through the fractured hull. The scream of phased plasma energy burning the air at high speeds filled her ears.

She hit the release for the sliding doors, but they would not budge. Hessex hefted her gun and blasted the release. There was a loud hiss as the doors lost their pressurization. Hessex wedged her fingers in between the doors and began pulling. Her fingers ached as they took the force of her efforts, but slowly the door began to open. Every muscle in her arms pulsed and pulled tight as she forced the heavy doors apart, her cry of anger almost as loud as the commotion outside.

"Holy shit," one of the humans inside shouted, "Look out!"

Hessex saw the Denavian woman level a weapon at her. She saw it was Wren's gun. Hessex kicked the gun away and then tackled her to the ground. The both hit the deck hard and rolled as the plasma blasts rocked the ship. The room shuddered, there were screams and shouts and then all went dark.

***

Tishara felt her body go cold and the universe grow silent as the hull of the Haven simply vanished. A huge section of the ship vaporized under the heat of the blasters. Through the hard rain she could see the interior of the ship, and most importantly the open cargo hold. She braced herself against her seat and tried to close her eyes, but found she couldn't.

The Haven grew into an immense object before them, humongous and imposing. The superheated metal along the edges of the hole they had blown open was glowing orange, acting as a guide for their point of entry. And then there was shadow and the sudden ear-splitting screech of metal against metal. Tishara was thrown forward, and even with her restraints in place her head smashed against one of the bulky computers mounted to the ceiling.

She was aware of her own screaming, almost as loud as the screaming of the shuttle as it slide along the cargo bay, steaming and spewing sparks. She covered her face with hands that trembled and were splattered with blood. Her blood. She was bleeding. She touched her forehead and then lost track of everything.

The shuttle smashed into the inner wall and crumpled.

***

Outside, the storm raged on.

... to be continued...