17 comments/ 6847 views/ 5 favorites Derelict 0006 By: AwkwardMD "More," Alise cried. Her tan skin glistened with sweat in the waning afternoon light filtering through the window. "That's already your third." Hitomi fell back on her haunches and grinned as she licked her two middle fingers. "Mmm. It's getting thicker. Aren't you getting thirsty?" "Don't... don't tease me," Alise whined, as she writhed on the bed. She hadn't opened her eyes in twenty minutes. "Just get in there already!" She grinned as she moved between the blonde's legs. Hitomi loved it when her girlfriend was nice and syrupy. She ran her tongue along the trembling woman's inner thigh, collecting a melange of sweat, ejaculate, and the spattered drippings of several extremely vigorous fingerings. She moaned happily as her tongue slipped between pink folds, her wet finger poised below- Hitomi shook awake and gasped. "No," she croaked. Her mind lurched to process the cold, sterile walls around her, but her body was on fire. Don't think! Her hand, stiff and lethargic from sleep, moved as fast as she could manage. Underneath the waistband of her polyester shorts. She clamped her thighs together tightly and rolled onto her side, fingering herself mindlessly. Relentlessly. Don't think! Don't think! It was so close, she could taste it. She needed the release of it. She needed it badly. Don't think! "Fuck!" she cried, as she rolled onto her back. As her orgasm faded further and further. She pressed her palms into her eyes and groaned. Her bunksheet and pillow were soaked in sweat, and the neck of her shirt felt grimy against her skin. The sweat cooled quickly as she rolled to the side of her bunk and put her feet down. She hadn't thought about Alise in a long time. Had fled hundreds of thousands of light years across the galaxy to get away from the memory of her. And yet, as Hitomi stared out at the dark side of Ganymede VII and at least two of its moons, she could still smell her. Could still taste her; sharp on the back of the tongue. Slightly bitter, and yet... A very long time indeed. With a resigned sigh, Hitomi dropped to the deck and started her morning PT. Her throat felt more raspy than usual as she counted off, but the quality of her voice was an increasingly distant concern as the number of reps rose higher and higher. Up. Down. Up. Down. She pushed through the aches and groans in her elbows, certain, as she was every day, that today would be the day she would match the numbers she could do in her 20's. Or her 30's. After the push ups it was crunches, to give her arms a brief rest before pull ups. She finally got a look at herself in the mirror nearly an hour later, as she staggered toward the showers. "She wouldn't even recognize me," she said out loud to no one, shocking herself that she'd spoken at all. She absently ran a hand through her short-cropped hair, missing the long, dark locks for the first time in decades. She'd also added 30 lbs of muscle and another 10 of indiscriminate origin in the last few years, as time refused to pass her by. Hitomi stared at herself for a long while, rattled by how rattled she was. The Corps had been a more than adequate distraction for two decades. She tried fingering herself again in the shower, without success. *** "SITREP." "Hello to you too, sunshine." The broad grin of Corporal Givens was blurrier than it should have been. Hitomi grunted, sipped at her coffee, and waited patiently for the awkward silence to force Givens to get on with it. "I got the geothermals back online, so Units 104 through 212 are running again." "Just the geothermals?" She leaned back and squinted at the readout beside her. "Oh." Gale force winds were the norm on Ganymede VII. When the storms hit, as they did often, the wind-powered Units shut down automatically to prevent mechanical damage. It also meant Givens was grounded, as takeoff and atmospheric flight near the equatorial belt were practically impossible. "Yeah. Gotta wait for the-" "I got it," she barked, interrupting her subordinate with the full weight of her rank. Givens clammed up and sat a little straighter. "What does that look like to you? Category 9?" "Probably a 10 before it's all said and done, sir." "I'll check back in with you tomorrow at 0700, but it looks like it's just you and your hand for a while." Givens grimaced and nodded. It looked like he wanted to say more, but Hitomi shut down the comm before he could. The good news was that it would be blessedly quiet. Givens was a competent fuck when the chips were down, but he never shut up. The talking during sex was barely tolerable. She drew the line at small talk afterwards. The bad news was that it was just her and her hand too. She blew on her mug as she switched feeds to one of their nearby satellites. Dawn on the fourth moon of Ganymede IX was something she tried to watch every day when she could. Unlike most moons, Fenome (her private name for it) was not tidally locked, had retained its atmosphere, and rotated fast enough to keep it. Most important, though, were its oceans. Fenome's oceans were heavily populated by a unique algae that turned magenta during photosynthesis. Every day, Hitomi sipped her coffee and watched the dawn break across the surface, followed several dozens of kilometers behind by an awe-inspiring wave of color. Although she wasn't one of them, most Marines had a bit of the stars in their eyes when they joined the Corps. She was one of the few who actually got to see something amazing, and she took advantage of the view every lunar rotation. A minor alarm tried to pop up in the middle of her viewing, but she quickly cancelled it and closed it out. The station safety alarms had a very different notification system, and none of the minor ones would require her attention in the next 8 minutes. Hitomi tried to refocus and enjoy her moment of zen, but even dismissed there were lights going off in her peripheral vision that were highly distracting. She shifted in her seat, pressing two fingers to her temple to block out sight of it, but that only bought her another minute before "Captain Motomo!" Hitomi was on her feet, saluting crisply, before the mug shattered against the deck. "Sir! Good Morning, Sir!" Colonel Gormes enlarged head glared furiously at her through the commlink. "At ease. Is there something wrong with your laundering systems, Captain?" "Lost a bet, sir!" "If that ain't the lamest excuse I've ever heard, it's sure as shit in the running." It was a lame excuse. She'd just gotten caught being lazy in her shorts and t-shirt. "How about your proximity alarm? Anything wrong with that?" "The Prox..." She turned, really looking at the alarm that had been quietly-but-determinedly attempting to get her attention. "Proximity?" She would have noticed a collision alarm. "Goddamit Captain, what is the point of having you out there if I'm gonna find out about this shit before you do?! All you had to do was turn your goddamn head!" "I'm sorry, sir!" When the Colonel didn't immediately launch into another tirade, she took a chance to head him off. "A proximity alarm, sir?" "I know you've never had the pleasure, Captain, but do I strike you as the kind of man who enjoys repeating himself?" "It's not that, sir, I just-" "It's a first for humanity. I get it, Captain, now shut the fuck up and look at your damn readouts!" Hitomi darted over to the insistent blue warning light on the dashboard beside her chair, and tapped rapidly. "A-Are you seeing this?" she stammered. "I'm starting to understand why we stationed you out in the interstellar equivalent of Buttfuck Egypt. Why do you think I'm calling you, Captain?!" Hitomi stared blankly at readouts on which she'd only had the barest training. Training not even her trainers had ever seriously considered would be used in their lifetime. "At Local 0706, deep orbit satellite Ganymede X LL19 detected an object on a near-impact trajectory. Confirmed at Local 0707 by Ganymede X LL12. Are you paying attention over there, or are you actually stupid enough to waste what might be the first interspecies contact in human history?" "How did we not pick it up farther out? This is practically on top of us!" "Captain, I've gotta wait for this info to be relayed to me through a dozen FTL comms and a half dozen intelligence handlers. I should not be telling you any of this!" She could practically feel the spittle coming off of his lips as he ranted. "Where is your goddamn corporal?" Despite her mind reeling, she finally found her wits and shook her head. "Stranded planetside. Sir, that thing is huge!" "Congratulations. That's the first useful piece of information you've given me today, now shut the fuck up before you ruin the wonderful first impression you're making. These reports tell me there are no FTL-capable ships out there in the ass end of nowhere?" "Sir! No, sir!" Hitomi straightened herself and squared off with the holographic representation of her superior, although she couldn't pull her eyes away from the flood of data that the outlying satellites were sending back. "I don't have anything even remotely near there that isn't grounded for repairs or already doing something I can't spare it from. Early telemetry data says this thing is coming from dark space, heading toward dark space, and fast. We've got about a 24 hour window." Dark space. Those two words put ice in her spine. Every FTL jump she'd ever made had been fraught with panic at the idea of ending up somewhere different than the intended destination, no matter how insistently the navigators argued that it was impossible. Something to do with parity. No one had ever gone so far as to call her an idiot for not believing them, but she was also aware that her reputation, which she took no efforts to disabuse them of, incorrectly attributed her mastery over several lethal forms of martial arts. Her terse, brooding nature had served her well. "Sir, first contact protocol is clear that-" "Are you trying to weasel out of orders before I even give them?" "No, sir!" "Prep your scouting craft and suit up!" "Right away, Sir!" "We're feeding intercept telemetry info now, but once you get within thirty thousand clicks, you're gonna have to put it on manual. We can only get so accurate about its course with the third-rate equipment sitting out there with you. Trying to find it after it passes through the other side of the orbital plane would be worse than pointless without concrete heading and velocity." "Understood, sir." "Get out there, map its course, run every goddamn scan you have access to, and head back before you hit BINGO." "Yes, sir." "Congratulations, Captain. You're about to be a goddamn hero to the human race. Colonel Gormes, out." "Givens," Hitomi cried, as she started the automated prep routine for the second short-range scout. The nav data was already transferring. "Givens!" "The first dick pic is free," Givens chuckled, "but after that it's gonna cost you." Visual was slow to sync, riddled with artifacting. "Get up here, now." "Christ, woman, I've only-" "Corporal Givens!" Even in the slideshow visual, Givens straightened and dropped his smirk. "Get off that rock right now." "Sir," Givens said, swallowing with difficulty, "that wind is hitting 2,000 clicks an hour!" Hitomi gnashed her teeth and killed the connection; there was no way he'd get through alive. She'd only ever met one pilot she thought could pull off breaking atmosphere in those conditions, and that crazy sonnuvabitch was long dead. She hurled herself down the ladder into the armory, unlocked the cabinet, and grimaced. "Captain?" Givens voice crackled over the PA. "Why the hell is the armory open?" "Can you get up here in the next hour, Givens?" "No?" "Then shut up and stop distracting me." Her mind raced, balancing mobility and carrying space against the worst her imagination could summon. She'd have brought two of everything if she could have, but had to settle for her kinetic rifle and the compact submachine gun. "Why is the proximity alarm going off?" After a brief pause, he added, "Wait... the proximity alarm?!" "Can it, Corporal!" Hitomi sprinted back down the hall, past the galley and into their quarters, and pulled out her armored flightsuit. "Oh shit, Colonel Gormes was on the comm?" "Corporal!" "I'm coming up there." "Corporal Givens," she shouted, staring angrily at the security camera, "you will not think about leaving your position until winds drop below 1500 clicks, and you will maintain radio silence until I tell you otherwise! Is that clear?" "Sir! yes, sir." She finished suiting up in a fit, stormed up into the docking portal, and stowed her weapons. The nav system was reporting ready, but the scout craft was only through 80% of its preflight checks. Hurry up and wait never went out of style in the military. *** Hitomi Motomo popped out of her light sleep seconds before the timed alarm went off. She stretched as much as she could in the cramped cockpit and took in the visual diarrhea of her HUD. 80,000 m/s, distances to and from. Yaw, pitch, and roll values, and her AGP. Hitomi was a barely passable pilot in space, with zero skill in atmosphere. The HUD had the object highlighted, but it didn't look like anything. Black on black, 100,000 km away. She held out her hand and spread her fingers, but it was wider than the distance from her thumb to her pinky. Over the next 20 minutes, Hitomi stared in muted horror and childlike awe as the black spot in front of her expanded and expanded and expanded, blocking out everything beyond it. 37 km end to end. 7 km wide. Cylindrical and rotating, probably to generate gravity. No thrust, but plenty of speed. The comm light flashed on her left. "Captain Motomo," came the voice of Colonel Gormes. "Right on schedule." "Thank you, sir." "You're gonna have about a six hour window with this thing before you need to head back, so we need you sharp. We fast-tracked the reports coming back from your sensors. We're not seeing anything that looks like an attempt at communication." "Neither am I, sir." "No power, very low heat signature." "Going manual." "You've got some time with it, Captain. For now, just stay parallel until we can pinpoint speed and trajectory." "Roger that." Hitomi shook her head as she banked alongside the hulking mass. She couldn't make out any features, even as close as she was. The most she could say about it was that she knew it was there because she couldn't see the stars behind it, and that it was bigger than any ten ships she'd ever seen combined. A couple hours passed in silence before the comm light flashed on her left. "Captain." "Yes, sir?" "We're picking up something a few clicks ahead. We need you to move in closer, and we'll direct the sensors." "Roger that." Hitomi hit the thrusters, although nothing she could see or feel changed. The hulk was still an indistinct mass on her right. A node showed up on her HUD above her, slowly circling away from her as the vast ship rotated. She frowned and tapped at a panel on her right, and the HUD painted yellow gridlines over the surface of the hulk. She couldn't get her head around the scale of it. She watched as the node curved further and further away, reaching its apex ten minutes later and beginning the slow arc back toward her. "Captain." "Yes, sir." "We're gonna need you to touch down on the surface when that spot comes back around. No clue how long the scans are gonna take or what they're gonna show, but there's no point in having you try to keep pace with it as it spins." "Roger that." A tiny bit of thrust, as she matched the position of the node, and she rolled 90º on her Z axis. She brought her craft in close as the node circled back around, and touched down roughly. "Confirmed maglock." "Copy that, Captain. Stand by." Hitomi sat back and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The space above her cockpit was full of stars again; she hadn't realized how much it had bothered her when they're been blocked out. "Captain Motomo, we're not getting the kinds of readings we want through the hull. Get a tight seal and tunnel through the bulkhead." Hitomi shook her head slowly. "Roger that." She knew it. With a few taps, the docking shroud lowered itself below her craft, and her chair flipped. "Good seal. Pressurizing. What am I looking for when I get inside, sir?" "Eyes open, Captain. We're getting a weak energy signature so you're going in after that, but everything you see is on the menu. Get footage of it all." "Roger." "Captain, I can't understate how important this is. You're venturing onto what is almost certainly an alien craft. The scale of it is beyond us. Take no chances, and come back alive." "Acknowledged." Hitomi strapped on her helmet and freed her weaponry. The compact SMG, her M-109, snapped into a molded holster in the small of her back. The kinetic rifle though, the M-2, she kept in hand while the shroud lasered through the outer hull of the unknown craft. She rechecked the battery charge on the M-2 twice, her ammo stock four times, and re-ran the diagnostic on her in-suit recording and communications suite. Green lights lit up the length of the docking shroud, and Hitomi took a deep breath. "I'm goin' in." "Godspeed, Captain. Gormes out." Servos in the shroud lifted away the excised hull plating, and Hitomi moved slowly, dragging herself along by the handholds. Pressure equalization had been minimal. Her equilibrium wailed at her skull as she fought to reorient; she wasn't lowering herself out of her ship, she was climbing upward into the other one. Her M-2 was the first thing to emerge, followed shortly by the top of her helmet. She turned, checking in all directions. "Begin recording." Pitch black, except for the three soft blue lights along the grip and barrel of the kinetic rifle. No sound. Gravity was a light 0.4 Earth. She turned and turned, carefully listening and observing, but there was nothing. Very low oxygen levels; breathable in an emergency. Several seconds later, her HUD painted gridlines along the inside of her helmet, and Hitomi gasped. She'd emerged on the side of a long hallway, one that ran lengthwise with the ship. There was a T-junction 20 meters ahead, but what had her jaw hanging was the scope of it. The width and height of the hall were massive in scope. She had no interest in meeting the thing that needed its hallways so vast. Everything seemed to fit at right angles to her eye; geometric and clean. Elegant, if unadorned, in the darkness. After a few more turns, she sighed and looked up. The node was some distance above her now. "Fuck. Floorplan." The gridlines painting the room faded to a pale, translucent yellow, and subverted behind a layout as best her HUD could display it. There was some skewing at the edges, which she guessed was probably because the ship was cylindrical and her suit was designed to show two dimensions. After a bit of searching, she found what looked like an approximation of an elevator shaft 800 m away. Her motion sensors still hadn't detected anything. No sound beyond her own breathing and footfalls. Not a groan, or a shudder. No mechanical humming. The urge to illuminate her path was brief and fleeting; It wasn't needed. Hitomi moved quickly and quietly through the black, the butt of her M-2 high and tight against her shoulder. Derelict 0006 There were regular narrowings in the hallway. She guessed there might be sealable bulkheads to prevent a vacuum leak from spreading, but it gave the impression of rooms. All identical but more familiar and less alien, which calmed her nerves a fraction for reasons she couldn't process in the moment. She had good traction against the material on the floor. There was a light layer of dust, at most, but her smooth, gliding stride kept sound to an absolute minimum. She slowed as she entered the eighth room. Abutted into the far corner was, as near as she could tell in zero light, a hole in the ceiling. The floor beneath it was flat and undelineated, utterly unremarkable under her feet. She gazed up as she moved under the hole, her HUD painting the shaft through to the third level. That's where I want to be, she thought, lowering her rifle for the first time. She ran her hands along the walls, finding a granite-like texture; no handholds or rungs that she could feel. Nothing to help her get up there. Hitomi walked back out into the center of the shaft and sighed. The fact that her craft obtained solid maglock on the outer hull was a good sign that she might be able to scale the wall with the ascent kit, but that was back in the cockpit. She turned to head back, and then paused when her suit detected a small power surge. The floor surrounding her began to glow; a broken line of soft yellow. Hitomi backed into the corner and away from it, M-2 raised and scanning, but there was nothing. The pale light did next-to-nothing to illuminate the room. An urgent, panicked feeling gripped her as she realized how she exposed was, but before she could dart away, she felt the floor rising. She dropped down to one knee, trying to look everywhere at once, as the elevator climbed. She grit her teeth as she approached the second level, eyes wide in acknowledgement of her tactically inferior position. She swung her rifle over her shoulder and withdrew her M-109. The platform continued upwards, taking her past the second level. It happened slowly, but as Hitomi reached the third floor, she saw more of the insides of the ship for the first time. Indirect, ambient lighting gained in intensity, and she gawked. The proportions here were scaled down, looking very much human-sized. Not just human-sized, but human-like. Hairs raised on every part of her body. This could be any room on any ship she'd ever served on. She swallowed hard as she took her first step off the platform and onto diamond-plated decking. "Are you getting this, Colonel?" Nothing. "Colonel?" She winced as her comm burst into a static-filled shriek, and cursed. Her cautious combat glide carried her surely through the empty vestibule toward an extremely human-looking door on the far side. Nominal oxygen and nitrogen levels; breathable. HUD put her distance to the node at 900 m. As she cautiously approached the door, it opened. Ominously. Hitomi switched back to her M-2, inspecting the room beyond as much as she could before pressing through into it. The second room was more spacious than the first, otherwise unremarkable except for the raised, rectangular platform in the middle. An oblong translucent bubble approximately two meters long covered most of the platform. Hitomi's eyes darted from corner to corner, assessing the threat while keeping her peripheral vision on the object around which the entire room had been designed. She was nearly on top of it before she let herself really look at it, and... Her rifle fell away, becoming lead in her hands, as she stared through the frosted glass. Her left hand reached forward, unbidden, palm flat against the shielding. "I-" Her throat closed entirely, cutting off her voice in a squawk. Her lips moved without sound as she stared down, eyes widening. The rifle clattered noisily against the deck plating. She jumped as the cover retracted back into the platform, revealing the comatose body of a young human female. 1.6 meters tall, with long blonde hair. Her clothes were just like Hitomi remembered them, right down to the damp, bloody bullet hole in the shirt. She clicked off her helmet, letting it too fall from her fingers with a crash. "Al..." she croaked. "Alise?" It can't be real, she thought. It can't be real. It can't be real. For the first time since holding Alise as she died, Hitomi Motomo felt fear. Paralyzing, mind-numbing terror. She managed a half step backwards before Alise's eyes popped open. "No!" Alise screamed, as she sat up. "No!! Oh God!!" Her hands pressed tight over her stomach. "Oh God, is this my blood?" She pulled at her shirt with crimson-covered fingers, revealing the smooth, taut stomach that had been there right up until the last second. No bullet hole. "Am I okay?" Her panicked, labored breathing slowed slightly as she looked up. "Tomi?" Hearing her pet name again after so long had a jarring effect on the confused and stricken woman. "Tomi, are you ok? Is this your blood?" "I ca... I ca..." "Where the... what happened to your hair? Whoa, and where have you been hiding that suit?" "Alise?" Incredulity overrode all thought, all emotions. "The last thing I remember is my legs giving out. Are we in a hospital or something?" Alise raised her shirt again and poked her finger through the bullet hole. "The blood on my shirt is still warm." She grimaced as she lifted her shirt up and over her head. "Euugh..." The tops of her jeans were soaked too. "Al..." Hitomi stared, mouth agape. Alise had often gone without a bra. Didn't need one. She'd always been a little jealous, as her own breasts were just large enough to require it. The blonde's puffy nipples popped in the cold, and Hitomi whimpered. "Where did you-" was all she managed before Hitomi lunged at her, taking her head in both hands and kissing her fiercely. The blonde recoiled weakly, smiling despite the liplock. "Christ, Tomi," she murmured. "I'm fine. I just-" "Shut up," Hitomi hissed, her fingers raking through dirty blonde silk. Alise moaned happily into the kiss as she reached down to unbutton her pants. "What if the Doctor comes-" "I said Shut Up." Captain Hitomi Motomo glared intently, and with every ounce of her rank, but the girl grinned mischieviously. "Yes Ma'am," she crooned in response. Hitomi grabbed the zipper of her flight suit, and suddenly they were racing to be naked. Alise had the advantage of starting halfway there, but her sneakers slowed her down. By the time she had them off and out of the way, Hitomi was already down to just her polyester shorts, and fully nude mere seconds after that. Alise coyly dragged out removing her jeans, pointing her toes and letting the fabric bunch in the webbing of her thumbs as she bared the sun-darkened flesh inch by blessed inch. "Have you always been that ripped?" Alise asked, as she laid back on the rectangular platform. "Do I have to sit on your face to get you to shut up?" Her wry quip popped out without thought. It was her go-to with Givens; he wasn't a big fan of cunnilingus, and analingus was completely off the table. "Yes Ma'am," Alise crooned, even more emphatically. The end of her lip and eyebrow rose in unison. Hitomi hesitated only a moment before hurdling onto the table. The blonde giggled as she lowered herself, and she sighed as a tongue slithered down along her slit and pressed against her backdoor. She reached back and grabbed her cheeks, whitened fingertips sinking into her muscular rear. Alise whimpered, happily smothered, her tongue burrowing in earnest. "Oooh fuck," Hitomi moaned, her head rolling back into her shoulders. Waves of long-missed pleasure spread outward from her core, and her breathing became labored. Intentional or not, having edged twice already today wasn't helping; her wellspring of emotions was churning, threatening to boil over. She bent forward, planting one hand on the platform for balance, while the other dove into Alise's wet cleft. Her fingers curled inward, easily finding the g-spot from muscle memory, while her thumb rubbed down on the blonde's sensitive button. Alise's muffled groans ripped through her middle. Hitomi gasped watching the muscles in her stomach clench and contort as she struggled for breath. The blonde pulled her legs up, knees out and toes pointed. The deep blue polish on her nails shined as brightly as it had when Hitomi had put it there. Alise groaned harder, louder, tonguing her even more emphatically in response to her frantic fingering. "Mmmfuck," Alise slurred. "Thasshuit made you sho shweaty." Hitomi fought as hard to hold back, as she was at trying to get the woman below her to cum first, but her raging orgasm would not be denied. She moaned louder and louder, her knuckles white around the edge of the platform, as she inched closer to the release she couldn't manage on her own. She pressed herself down, feeling Alise's hot breath blasting against her skin as she came. Her voice echoed loudly in the square room. "Keeegoin," Alise mumbled. "Iwannacumwishyou." But Hitomi was already cumming. Her fingers moved with rabid desperation, trying to bring Alise to completion, but the thin blonde showed no signs of being close. She rolled forward onto her elbow, panting through the agonizingly-sudden peak. Her hand snaked around Alise's hip, smearing and spreading the stream of fluid that flowed down out of the blonde's slit. "Yes! Two fing-Yes!" she screamed, as Hitomi penetrated her ass. "I remem..." Hitomi trailed off as the young woman beneath her broke into a frenzied twist. She hung her head and swung off the side of the platform, bracing herself against it for support. "Gaawd," Alise moaned, several glorious seconds later. "You play my body like an instrument." She squirmed on the dais, relishing in the warmth. "Mmmmmm, how long until the Doctor gets back?" Hitomi knelt down, taking the blood-stained shirt and jeans in hand. "The Doctor isn't coming." "I'm okay then?" "At 1632, Four May, 2461, you were shot in the stomach." Her voice was mechanical. Empty. "It's a good thing I got better," Alise said dreamily, not really listening. "The bullet struck your abdominal aortic artery." Emotionless. "You didn't scream or cry. You just looked confused, and then you passed out. Dead within seconds. They told me there was no pain." "That's... that's not funny," she whispered, sitting up. "It was a stray bullet, fired from almost two kilometers away. The opening shots of an armed uprising in the Corliss Cluster." Alise blinked. "...Why are you talking about it like it's-" "This is not a hospital. We are not in the Corliss Cluster. It's not 2461." With every word, Alise curled in on herself more tightly. "Tomi, you're scaring me." Hitomi looked back over her shoulder, her eyes reddened. "I joined up the next day. I couldn't handle it, so I bottled. Shut it up in a jar that I only opened whenever I got one of them in my sights. I shared my pain with every pull of the trigger." "You? You couldn't-" "Do I look the same to you?" Hitomi stood again, putting her muscled, scarred body on display. "Do I look like I'm still 22? Can't you see the haunted tightness around my eyes?" she shouted, pointing emphatically. "I promise it's there; every psych eval I've ever had talks about it." "But last night! We were-" "Last night was 23 years ago." Finality permeated every word. Alise was quiet, really looking for the first time. Her eyes roamed to the door opposite the one Hitomi had come in from, widening in fear. "Wh-where am I?" "I have no fucking idea." "Then how did you find me?!" "I wasn't looking for you, I just... did." Hitomi looked down at the ruined clothes in her hands. It was so much blood. "Can't wear these. Here." She tossed Alise her own smallclothes, and picked up her suit. "We can't stay." "Why not?" she asked, as her head popped up through the neck of the shirt. Hitomi blinked. "We just... can't." She zipped her flightsuit up over her bare skin, tucking the gloves into a leg pocket as she bent to pick up her rifle. "Whoa! Tomi!" Alise slipped away from her, to the opposite side of the platform. "You know how I feel about those things." "Yeah, well you might change your mind if you had to see what one of these did to your girlfriend." "No," Alise said, shaking her head. "I don't think I would." Hitomi laughed bitterly, running her tongue along the inside of her cheek. "That's real easy for you to say." "That's not fair!" "Watching you die wasn't fair," she snapped. "Please, I'm trying to understand!" Alise whimpered, as Hitomi moved toward second door. "Are you dead too?" "Don't be absurrrr..." Hitomi blinked as she stepped through the door and into the open streets of Taunin III, major trading hub of the Corliss Cluster. Light cloud cover in a blue sky fading to orange in the afternoon light. The twin suns burned just below the silhouette of the city skyline ahead of them. Her mind reeled. "I thought you said we weren't in the Corliss Cluster?" Alise's voice was distant. "We... we aren't. This isn't..." Hitomi squinted and shook her head, stupified. "Can't be." Alise walked past her, looking everywhere. "Is this a dream?" Hitomi took a few steps to the left as she stared at the sky, and frowned. "Do those clouds look right to you?" "Who cares about the clouds!" "We're on a vessel in space," Hitomi insisted. "Well of course we are," Alise said. "I mean, what is a planet?" "That's... that's not what I meant." The Marine stared at the walls of the alleyway. Ahead and behind. "We're on a craft of some kind." "Isn't this the alley behind Fouchad's bistro?" Both women leaned to the side, staring up at the skyline. At a drab, brown building half a kilometer away. Yellow towels hung over the balcony of a room on the 18th floor, waving slowly in the breeze. They'd left them there to dry after spending the morning at the beach. Suddenly, Alise spun, looking back the way they'd come from. "That door went into that little knick knack shop. The one you kept sneezing in." "This isn't Taunin," she argued. "No, but the way it just shifted from one place to another..." "This doesn't make any sense." Hitomi continued down the alley, following it around a bend, until it emptied out onto a back road. The street was empty except for the two of them, and all the little shops were still there. Fouchad's was still there, right where she remembered it. A tiny restaurant specializing in classic recipes reinvented with local ingredients. They'd gone there every day for lunch during their stay, indulging in one of Taunin's best kept secrets. There was only one table outside; both chairs were tipped over, just as they were the last time Hitomi saw them. The concrete sidewalk was stained red behind the chair tipped over backwards. Alise moved slowly to hover over the pool. "This is where it happened, isn't it? That's my blood." "Hello?" Hitomi cried, as she walked toward the door to the little shop. No answer. She shielded her eyes and pressed her face to the glass window, but the storefront was dark. Something was... "Does that counter look right to you?" "This is where I died," Alise whispered. "I feel like I'm standing over my grave right now." Hitomi squinted into the distance, listening. There were indistinct murmurs, the sounds of life in a city. Transports, local creatures that vaguely resembled birds. Distant conversations. Nothing close enough to see. Nothing close enough to understand. She turned back to Fouchad's and tried the door, but it was locked. "Please say something." "I think this storefront is fake," Hitomi growled. "That's not what I-" Hitomi spun her rifle around and slammed the butt against the tinted glass in the door, shattering it. The sudden crash of sound echoed loudly down the street, and Alise jumped back a few steps with a scream. Hitomi bashed the door frame a few times, knocking loose the jagged remains, and froze. Just at arm's length inside the store was a wall. She leaned through the door and scraped the tips of her fingers against the painted facade in horrified confusion. "It's fake." "Is that all you can say?" Alise's voice was choked, but she barely heard it. "This is all fake." She turned and stared at the cringing blonde. "None of it's real. That's not Fouchad's and you didn't die there." Alise's face pinched with tears. "...When did you become so cold?" That hit Hitomi like a slap in the face. She'd stopped counting the number of times she'd heard that over the years, but to hear it coming from Alise... "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I get that you've been through some stuff, but I'm going through it right now." Alise looked so fragile. She'd always had such an indomitable free spirit, and Hitomi ached to see her like this. "I'm- I'm sorry." "I don't know what to do with this, Tomi! Why the fuck am I here?" "I don't know." "Rhetorical," they said simultaneously. Alise laughed softly through the tears, as she padded closer on bare feet, but Hitomi looked like she was going to be sick. "Thank you for not forgetting," she whispered. Hitomi nodded weakly, looking anywhere but at the pretty blonde pressing against her. "We should keep going," she croaked. Alise nodded, and fell in beside the Marine as they headed down the street. "I know these aren't real," Alise said softly, as she stared into the buildings and windows they passed, "but I don't care." Hitomi nearly jumped out of her skin when the young blonde took her hand. No sooner were their fingers intertwined, comfortably familiar despite the years apart, than Hitomi was pulling back, putting her hand firmly on the stock of her M-2. "Your hands are rougher than they used to be." Hitomi nodded, fighting to keep the panic from her expression. "A lot's changed." "I didn't say that was a bad thing," Alise whispered, flashing her not-so-innocent smile. Hitomi chuckled, but... "What I meant was that I'm... I'm happy to have you any way I can get you." Hitomi nodded and swallowed, looking everywhere but beside her. "Are you going back to our hotel?" "I-" She came to a complete stop. The drab, brown building loomed ahead. "Alise, I'm here on a mission. I wasn't looking for you." "I don't understand." "I was sent to investigate this ship. Then I got here, and they sent me to investigate a part of it. That's where I'm going." "So we're not... going toward that hotel, we're just going in this direction." "Yes," Hitomi said, sighing in relief. "And it's just, what, luck? That I was in the path?" "Yes," Hitomi blurted, and immediately regretted it. "That came out wrong." "No, it's ok," Alise whispered. "It was honest." "I feel like I'm having to defend not looking for you." Alise peered quietly at her as they walked. "I mean, You were dead. You were dead in my arms." "You don't have to feel guilty-" "But I do!" She laughed bitterly and shook her head. "How fucked up is that?" They walked in silence for a few minutes down the narrow, windy street, neither getting closer to, nor further from, the distant sounds of city life. Every side alleyway was blocked, locked, or otherwise closed off, and it was making the hairs on Hitomi's neck stand up as she saw the writing on the wall; they were being herded. Herded exactly where she needed to go. Derelict 0006 The street began to... morph... from her memory of it. Shifting imperceptibly. The buildings encroached on the street, creeping inwards above her. Her eyes drifted up, following the yellow towels floating lazily in the light wind. The end of the street ran into the front doors of the hotel. In her mind, there should have been a... a cul de sac in front. Open space for transports to pickup and drop off. This was like the hotel had been picked up and dropped at the end of a row of buildings. It didn't make sense. Just like everything else. If Alise noticed, she wasn't saying anything. "Something is wrong with those clouds." Alise barely looked up. "They look fine to me." Hitomi shook her head as she put her hand on the front door and pulled... and paused. 15 meters ahead of her, yellow towels floated lazily in a light wind. The bed was still unmade, sheets thrown from the end of the bed. Two half finished wine flutes sat on the balcony table, condensed moisture trickling down the side. Hitomi held up her hand to Alise as she stepped through into their hotel room. The last room they'd had together, exactly as it had been when they left it. "Tomi, I..." Alise swallowed hard, peering through from her spot in the street. "I think we're in Heaven." "You know I don't believe in that," she muttered, as she crept through the room. She stepped up to the railing of the balcony, and found herself staring down at the street they'd just walked down. At a thin blonde woman, her long hair flowing down her back as she held open the door. "No, I know, but... it wouldn't be heaven for me without you..." "Look to your left." "What? Why?" 18 floors below Hitomi, the miniature figure in the street turned and looked over their left shoulder. She raised her M-2 and pressed her eye tight to the scope as she watched. Alise looked back behind her, down the street. "Don't move," she called, as she took careful aim. "Why n-" The sonic boom of the kinetic rifle firing shocked even Hitomi. When her eyes stopped fluttering, she had to blink a few more times. There was a crack in the sky. A smoking black hole, with several smaller cracks spidering out from it, just below the floor level of their balcony. Alise lurched and jumped back and forth between two of the cracks; artifacting. Hitomi looked up in horror at the clouds and drew her M-109, pulling the trigger while her arm swept before her in a wide arc. A dozen bullet holes hung in the air a meter past the balcony. Behind the bullet holes, the clouds continued to float by unphased. "I don't understand," Alise whimpered, suddenly beside her. "It's fake..." Hitomi's lips worked slowly, as she tried to wrap her head around the scale of it. "It's a... screen..." She reached out, grabbed one of the wine flutes, then downed the remainder in one go. "...That was real," she gasped after swallowing hard. Alise slumped against the railing, putting her hand to her forehead. "I'm not her, am I?" The Marine froze, hearing her own worst fears given voice.. Fears her heart had refused to let her head acknowledge. "I mean, I feel like her... I have her memories... but I'm not. I can't be." "Don't say that." Hitomi's voice was hollow. Ragged. "If everything here is fake, then why not me too?" Time slowed. She could see Alise breaking down bit by bit in front of her, losing herself. Falling. Hitomi could see the pain behind Alise's eyes. Could feel the doubt gnawing at her. At both of them. It was fear that sent her hurtling forward. She grabbed the blonde by the shoulders and slammed her back into the wall. Alise gasped as the taller woman leaned in close, breath hot on her lips. "You're real to me." Alise whimpered into the desperate, passionate kiss. Melted under the heat of it. Strong hands pinned her, and held her. Supported her. Mauled her. The shirt, ripped off. The shorts pulled down just far enough to be irrelevant. Hitomi's suit, unzipped and discarded. Bare fingertips parted and probed, drawing a shuddering breath from the crying blonde. Hitomi's teeth sank into the soft flesh of her neck. Her eyes stung from the tears. "Mine," Hitomi growled, and the thin woman's body wracked with sobbing convulsions. It was as it had ever been between them, and they slipped into their patterns like finely tailored clothes. Alise rose up on the balls of her feet as her head rolled back into her shoulders. Her clit, stroked and teased masterfully. The soft coo delivered with lips caressing the edges of Hitomi's ears. One wrist grabbed and planted firmly against the wall. The blonde would go nowhere until Hitomi let her. Their roles, oft practiced and well rehearsed. The shorter woman's moans filled the room, overshadowing Hitomi's grunts of effort. Tears stung both their eyes. Alise yelped as her arm was pulled up, and she rose up on her tiptoes. The arm stayed in place, posed, as Hitomi reached down and hooked her hand beneath Alise's knee. The young blonde, perched on the tips of one foot and while the other craned up at the Marine's whim. The petals of her flower spread as if in bloom, and Hitomi's fingers slipped inside her. As if they'd never been apart. Alise cried out as her orgasm tore through her, upright only by the design of the woman holding her. Strength of will and confidence that had been there long before the Corps. Hitomi lowered the shivering woman to her knees, bent her forward at the waist until her shoulders pressed softly into the carpet, and knelt down behind Alise's raised ass. The tips of her fingers danced along the backs of thighs, and Alise's feet twitched beneath her. Alise looked back and gave a little nod, and with that, she was off again. One hand pressed firmly into Alise's lower back. Three fingers slid into her pussy, stretching the smaller woman's walls. Alise moaned as the fingers whipped in and out of her rapidfire. Her arms curled tight beneath her torso, fingers knitting into the carpet for leverage as Hitomi fingerfucked her harder than she ever had before by a full order of magnitude. Her toes curled tightly into the balls of her feet. There were no words, no intelligible sounds between them; Hitomi's labored grunts, Alise's high pitched squeals, and the machine gun schluck-schluck-schluck. Her blonde hair gathered over her face, catching wherever it came in contact with sweat. Her doubts and fears, crushed beneath the expert hands of her lover. Of her love. Alise was wavy, through the tears, as Hitomi twisted her arm to feather the g-spot with the pad of her middle finger. Two fingers of her other hand pressed against the blonde's puckered anus, penetrating via copious sweat and hooking inside. Tugging at the ring. Pushing against her darkened walls. Alise wailed; putty in her hands. Just as her second orgasm reached it peak, Hitomi withdrew and brought her palm in hard and flat over the quivering lips. Alise tumbled onto her side, curling in on herself as her muscle spasms overwhelmed her self-control. Hitomi smiled as warm ejaculate sprayed over and between her knees. Wept, as she swiped a droplet from her thigh and brought it to her lips. Thick, with a heavy taste that lingered on the back of the tongue. Slightly bitter. Just like it always was. It was too much for her. Hitomi fell back on her heels, finally seeing the anxiety she was feeling for what it was. She shook her head, as if to deny the writhing blonde before her. "Tomi?" Alise drawled, as she rolled onto her back. "You ok?" "I'm alright," she lied, as she reached for her suit. Alise sat up, smiling hopefully. "You don't want me to... you know..." "It's fine," Hitomi lied. "We have to go." Alise nodded, and bit her lip as she picked up her borrowed clothes. "I know it's not the same for you, but I've cum, like, seven times in the last few hours." Hitomi's head dropped forward, planting her chin on her chest. They'd fucked like rabbits and gone down for a late lunch. She grit her teeth, doing everything she could to hold back the bile. "Tomi?" The dam burst. Hitomi struck out, putting her fist clean through wall board. The concrete just behind it, however, was less forgiving. "Please stop calling me that," she growled, hand and wrist still hidden through the hole. "Calling you... Tomi? "I lied. It's not okay." Her knuckles were scraped, blood already dripping down from her fingertips. "Wu-... Why didn't you tell me?" "What was I supposed to say?" she barked. "It's been twenty minutes for you. Nothing's changed. Everything changed for me! You were gone!" "I-" "I know!" she screamed. "I shouldn't be mad at you. It's not your fault, but I still can't handle it!" The blood felt warm as it ran down her forearm. "Baby, do you not..." "Not what? Love you?" Alise nodded, hurt. "I buried you! I buried you, and I buried us, and I buried all the... all the..." Hitomi put a hand to her throat to steady herself. "I buried it all." "And now here I am... like nothing happened..." Hitomi nodded, tears overflowing. "I feel like I'm losing my mind." Alise sat, dejectedly. Every instinct, every fiber of her being, cried out to console the woman she'd wanted to spend the rest of her life with, to console her pain. But she couldn't, not when she was the cause of it, and so she sat. Utterly lost, and more alone than she'd ever felt in her life. "We have to go," Hitomi croaked, several minutes later. Alise nodded blankly, and they both dressed themselves mechanically. Without eye contact. Hitomi felt weight in her chest as she lurched toward the door to the bathroom; the only other door led back the way they had come, and the young blonde quietly fell in behind her. She paused with her hand on the knob, unsure if she could take what might be on the other side. She managed one step through once she finally opened it. "Noo," she cried. Alise wept too. They both stopped and stared and knew, needing no reminders. The details, permanently etched in their brains. They didn't need to point out the faded red padding on the boothes, or the half-eaten apple pie underneath the glass cover on the counter. The song playing on the jukebox. The slightly green tint to the setting star Viridian, visible through the front windows. This was Oort's Diner, site of their first date. Except, on the table at the booth closest to the restrooms, was a single cupcake with a single burning candle. Alise gasped as she picked it up and blew it out. "Our first anniversary," she whispered. "This isn't happening," Hitomi cried softly. "This isn't happening." "This is a sign." Alise's voice was reverent. Hopeful. "It's not a sign." She took a dazed step, bracing herself against the register. "It isn't real." "It's chocowate," Alise mumbled, turning to show Hitomi the dark inner profile. "This can't be it," she whimpered, knowing full well how far she'd traveled. This was the node. This was what she'd been sent to see. "But what if it is?" "...is what?" "Heaven," Alise said, her eyes tearing up again. "Alise-" "I mean, what is Heaven?" she rushed. "A... a... a greatest hits collection? The best parts of your life over and over again?" "This isn't heaven," Hitomi croaked. "It's a ship, drifting in space. This is reality." "How do you know?" "What do you mean, how do I know?" Alise licked her lips as she rushed back to the counter. "Maybe you... maybe you had an aneurysm." "I didn't... I'm not dead, Alise." "How would you know? You just close your eyes and it's over!" "I would know." "How could you? It happens so fa-" "Why do you keep trying to get me to believe that I'm dead?!" "Why do you keep trying to take this away from me?!" Alise cried. "Look around! Can't you see where we are?" "It isn't real! None of it!" "I'm real," Alise whispered, stepping even closer. "Even if I'm not her, I'm real." "No," Hitomi whimpered, taking a step backward. "I could be her for you." "No." "I-" "Stop!" she cried, taking another step back and snapping up her M-2 in desperation. Alise gasped as the barrel settled against her forehead, fear frozen on her face. "I can't stay here! I can't do this!" "Don't leave me," Alise pleaded. "Please..." Hitomi took another quivering step backward through the door, passing impossibly across galaxies and time from a diner in one to a hotel room in another. "Please don't leave me!" Alise took a step after her, and shrieked as Hitomi jammed the gun back into her brow. "Don't make me do it," she wept. "I don't think I could live with myself if I had to shoot you. Not while you're wearing that face." "If you leave me here alone," Alise sobbed, "I'm dead anyway..." Hitomi grit her teeth, her arms shaking violently in hysterics. The kinetic rifle and the woman at the other end of it were watery blobs through the tears streaming down her cheek. Her finger, nestled tightly against the trigger. *** "Corporal Givens, checking in." Col. Gormes shook his head and sighed as he hit the comm button. "Go ahead, Corporal." "BINGO, sir. No sign of her, and no comm traffic." "Anything on the derelict?" "Derelict, sir?" "The ship, you moron!" "Oh. No, sir. Nothing. Half the sensor stations out here still say nothing passed through." Gormes stared sadly at the countdown clock he'd set up on his display. Captain Motomo was 26 hours overdue. "Not again," he whispered.