11 comments/ 11160 views/ 19 favorites Terra-33 Ep. 00 By: Objurgation Copyright © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. Terra-33 Terra-33 Ep. 00 Trix sauntered back over, and as she did, Remi watched her abdominal armor dissolve away from her body as she used her bird's mat-trans to recall it. She grinned and struck a pose as she let her chest gear go too, the fuzzy dots dissolving away slowly to reveal her trim torso. Remi's eyes dragged up from her belly button, quickly passing over firm abs to lock on to her softly bouncing breasts. Her tits were perky and small, and bounced enticingly with the rest of the soft flesh. Remi didn't realize they would be so large, but he thought he might be able to get a hand to cover one, and wanted to test that theory urgently. He noticed that his dick had also noticed the supple girl and was pointing him right at her. "No priming suit? You must have some well-fitted gear to not chafe up going commando," he said, eyes not able to look above her neck yet as she closed the last few feet. "Just gets in the way when a girl wants to have fun, it's worth the creds to get custom armor. You don't seem to mind too much," she giggled as her finger traced up the length of him. Remi decided that he wanted to use his mouth for more than talking and pulled her close, causing her to squeal and bat at his armor. "Mmm?" Remi questioned without speaking, his mouth firmly attached to her right nipple. "Dissolve your gear, it's fucking cold!" "Mmm," he responded, commanding his torso armor to trans-mat up to his bird. The sensation of his skin against hers for the first time was thrilling. Remi pressed his pale chest against her stomach as he engulfed her nipple again, left hand gripping her other breast. He liked that he had been almost right about being able to cover it, almost. She was moaning and clutching at his head and Remi let her nipple go, traveling up her chest with his tongue. As he reached her neck, Trix pushed him away firmly as her hand slid into his hair. He saw her grin again through slitted eyes before she yanked him back to her mouth for another deep kiss. Remi was lost in the moment, his brain along for the ride as his hands and tongue mauled the blue-haired girl. She was breathing heavily, fingers leaving little lines of fire on his shoulders where she gripped him. Remi felt his erection pressing against her groin armor and lower abdomen and wanted to get rid of that obstacle as soon as possible. He let one hand slip down, fingers pressing against her tight stomach as he tugged on her gear to remind her that she was still covered. "No, no, no," she said coyly, index finger waving between them as she broke the kiss suddenly. "What..." Remi forgot how to talk for a second, "What, are you doing?" She shrugged, causing her tits to lift and distract him again. Trix spun, her fingers tracing along his chest as she bounced over to the helot. Remi watched her hazily, balls throbbing. He inhaled deeply, trying to get control of himself as she called down her field kit for rock extraction. Remi recognized the brand, Kara-Yin, same as his. She looked over her shoulder, blue hair contrasting sharply against her dusky skin. In a second, she had extracted her mask and cutter and winked at him before pulling the visor over her face. Topless, she turned to the left edge of the helot vein and started ripping into the limestone it was ensconced in. Purple sparks flew over her shoulder, barely missing her exposed skin. She must have done this before, Remi thought. With a weighty thunk, a one foot square chunk of helot dropped to the gravelly cave floor. "Hey, Remi, put your dick away for a minute and get my loader out," Trix shouted over the din of the cutter. She had started on the next rock as Remi looked down and realized he had been unconsciously stroking himself. Snorting, he tried to push his erection back into his priming pants but gave up as the fabric began threatening to rip as he stretched it. Guess I'll just have to wait, Remi thought. He walked over to her, watching the muscles in her shoulders ripple as she sliced hunks of helot from the vein of minerals. "Where is it?" "Back pocket, left cheek," she responded. Remi cupped her breasts for a moment before sliding down her body to open her other belt pouch. Even with material transportation technology, it was easier just to keep some essentials on your person. The delay between the request and the arrival of the equipment or ammo you needed could be life and death. Remi pulled her loader from the pouch, slapping her ass for good measure, his bare palm making a dull pop against the armor. She bounced with the blow, then arched her back into his chest, still cutting away. Remi felt her up again, his lips leaving red marks on her neck and shoulder. Eventually, he gave up trying to distract her and set-up her loader, dropping the four corners of the rectangular box to the ground. Loaders looked like empty picture frames from old Earth and allowed their ships to coordinate the mat-trans on an object that had not been previously tagged and logged into the database. Remi grabbed the chunks, wishing he hadn't dissolved his arm gear too. Instead of calling it back down for such a short time, he just settled on getting a bit of a warm-up workout in. Remembering his dangling parts as he picked up the third rock, Remi took a moment to slide it back in his pants. "Only five more or so, then I'll send my bird back to the Burg to unload. Then we'll have time for you to unload," Trix said, her voice sultry and hard to hear against the whine of the cutter. "What did you say?" "Don't mind that, keep loading!" Remi decided to just play along, he could always fill his bird and set it off too. Then he'd fill this bird before she could get distracted again. As he was lugging the last rock to the loader, Trix's cutter stopped and he looked over his shoulder. She was leaning back against the vein of helot, a perfect little nest created by her activities. Remi shook his head and laughed, not realizing that she had planned to make a small bench for them. He keyed the loader and impatiently watched the last rock become floating dots and then disappear. Then Remi turned and stalked toward her beckoning finger. When he stopped in front of her, Trix yanked his priming pants down to bunch around his thighs. His dick was engulfed in her mouth before he could blink and he felt himself going rock-hard almost instantly. As his erection resumed its previous intensity, she had to back off, taking less of him to avoid gagging. Her other hand was busy on his balls, massaging them and gripping the base of his shaft. Trix pulled back, just the head still in her mouth. Remi looked down at her as she smiled and winked at him. Then, she impaled her throat with his dick, slamming him deep again and again. Remi tried to stay steady but his knees were shaking and he gripped her shoulders for support. He looked down his chiseled torso at her blue-haired head bobbing swiftly on his erection. She took him all the way again, pushing her lips right up to his trim pubic hair. Remi groaned and stood straight, stretching his arms over his head as he tried to control his response. Suddenly, the warmth of Trix's mouth was replaced by cool air and he sighed, glad he hadn't come before being able to really fuck her. Remi opened his eyes with a smile, which was swiftly replaced by an O as his features transformed with shock. A huge pistol barrel was looming only inches from his forehead. He could barely focus on Trix's grinning visage behind the weapon. "Sorry!" As a burst of flame ripped from the muzzle, Remi's world slowed down like a movie sequence. He didn't even have time to process the situation, but it felt like it took forever for the round to strike his face. He even thought that he saw the smooth, rounded tip of the bullet as it exited the gun. Then his world exploded in pain. ----- "Shit!" Remi screamed. "Fucking, shit!" With his pain threshold breached, he had been automatically ejected from his construct. He sat up fully in a pool of purplish goo, his erection mocking him from between his legs, poking up from the liquid. Remi ripped cables from the back of his head and removed his gloves, tossing them down into the pool. He rushed out, dripping goo onto the drain as he frantically punched buttons on a nearby console. "Fucking recall! At least get what's left out of there," he moaned, fingers flying on the keys as he tried to get an updated status on his bird. He sighed in relief as the display revealed that his construct had been salvaged, its automatic load function working as programmed. "That bitch, this is going to take weeks to repair." Remi slammed his fist into the wall, then shook it hastily as he realized the mistake right away. No reason to punish his real body because he was pissed at that cock-tease. He would spend the next week working some contracts and getting his construct's brains repaired. He would also start looking for Trix in New Bernburg, see how she liked being shot in the face. Maybe he wouldn't shoot her right away though. At least not with a pistol, Remi thought, imagining his come exploding onto her lips and cheeks, his hand fisted in her blue hair. "Fuck," he cursed vehemently. Leaving his pod room, Remi snatched up a bottle of lotion from the counter on his way to the bedroom, hoping that he would be able to get the ache out of his balls sometime tonight. Author's Note: Next episode on or before 4/19/2015. Terra-33 Ep. 01 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. ***** Terra-33 Episode 0.1 Remi looked down at his smartphone, groaning as he saw the list inside his dispatch app growing. He had signed on with a hardware and electronics firm for a four-day contract, working on demand using this app. The stupid thing seemed to never run out of tasks though, and Remi was getting sick of the basic maintenance jobs that he was getting stuck with. The next job looked alright though. Harris Polytronics, pretty sure they make construct receivers and brains, he thought. The job was to assess a construct who was not responding to her owner's commands. It was annoying that he had to repair other peoples' constructs while he waited for his new brain to arrive, but at least he was getting more physical activity. He had been bored and was thinking about hitting the red light district or at least a bar tonight. Friday was usually the best night to meet likely partners, and he hadn't made any progress finding Trix. She probably wouldn't be going out after the load they had pulled, he wouldn't be either in her place, he'd be gaming. An annoying email had arrived in his gamer inbox a couple days after she killed his construct, along with a credit attachment. Apparently she had offloaded the helot onto some company for 500,000 credits and wanted him to have his share. 50,000... What a scrooge. At least she had given him something though, otherwise he had burned through 200 rounds of primary ammo and busted his armor up for nothing. The fact that the 50,000 barely covered his repairs was galling, but Remi was making quadruple that for this contract, so the money wasn't the biggest issue. He was honestly more pissed about the fact that she hadn't even finished him off before shooting him in the face. Some online snooping hadn't revealed much either. She was pretty scrubbed clean online, as far as a real name being attached to her gamer profile, and he couldn't find any actual girl related to the handle Trix. His search had revealed a bevy of forum entries about a blue-haired cock-tease who used players for help and then murdered their constructs. At least I wasn't the first, Remi thought as he jumped onto his mag-bike. She had struck a few others before him and somehow avoided retribution, according to the updates on the threads. Trix wouldn't be able to avoid him though. He would find her, in the game or in the Burg. And when he did... Remi grinned as he sped around traffic, causing quite a few middle fingers to pop up in his wake. He had tweaked his mag-bike a bit outside of the colony's regulations and the machine could turn on a dime at fifty miles an hour. It used an interesting gravity engine and electronic magnets to hover above the ground, only needing fuel for propulsion. The bike did need to be charged regularly, but he was able to plug in when he arrived at most of his destinations. Zooming past a taxi, Remi saw Harris Poly rising up before him, the six-story building looming at the end of the street. Remi slid to a stop in a parking space near a charging post and hopped off, plugging in his bike. He looked up at the dome, judging it was late afternoon by the glare of the sun on the REAL ™ Glass. Why does everything have a ™ anyway? Remi grabbed his tool kit and slung it over his shoulder, opening the flap to check that his electronics assessor was present. The huge main doors rose nearly a story as Remi approached through the large parking lot. The building itself was huge. It looked to be made of tinted glass and some kind of polished metal, maybe even helot++. He couldn't be sure without analyzing it, but it wouldn't surprise him. Harris Poly had plenty of creds to waste having the market on high-end construct receivers cornered for the time being. Remi had actually just paid them 15,000 creds to get a new receiver for his own construct. Thinking about the Game just made him mad, and crave it. He had been a gamer on Earth but it was nothing like this. Colony drop-teams had experimented with clone technology to create constructs, DNA specific replicas of people, volunteer gamers specifically. With the new immersion technology, your body could be safe and fed for days at a time while you were controlling the body of your construct. The goo and equipment you had to strap into to get in the game actually worked your slow twitch muscles too, making it not a purely sedentary activity. What Remi loved about the Game was that you could earn real creds while playing, which you could spend to keep playing or upgrade your gear, stockpile ammo, etc. His cousin had hit it big on Terra-2, becoming an overnight millionaire and heading back to Earth to live on a yacht, with a harem of sexy women and all the tech he wanted. It had been motivating to get Remi off of the games he had been playing and onto the next dropship bound for Terra-33. Walking through the door, Remi watched the giant entry open completely at a light push from him. He thought it a stupidly ostentatious touch that didn't impress him with its functionality, but he wasn't the normal New Bernburg resident, so maybe it worked to help their sales team or something. Walking briskly to the reception desk, Remi presented his Gear-Corp credentials and waited as the bored-looking girl scanned the ID. With a weird sucking, kiss sound, the receptionist pointed to a sign-in sheet, real paper and pen sitting patiently on her desk. Frowning, Remi signed in, filling out his purpose and smartphone number, the date, time, his company, his contact, basically anything they could think of to justify having a paper sign-in sheet. When he set the pen back down, the girl made the sound again and Remi involuntarily crunched up his left eye and shrugged questioningly. She peered over the desktop at the counter and pointed at his name. "Full name, please..." She stared at Remi as he rolled his eyes and turned back to the pen and paper. He appended Remi with Remigius Eriksson and glanced back at the receptionist. She poked her head up again and tapped the page. "Middle initial..." Remi filled it in and without another word, the girl turned to her console and began typing. Remi just stood there, having gone through worse than this in the past but still annoyed by the whole process. Eventually, the previously quiet elevators to his left chimed and a man in a business suit exited, waving him over. They shook hands and the man pressed the button for the sixth floor as the elevator doors closed behind them. Remi was led down a long hall, tall cubicles with windows housing a variety of bored office workers. They were doing a lot of different things, but Remi thought that most of them looked like they were doing anything but working. Every one of them perked up when they walked by, maybe wondering what the newcomer was in for. After a few awkward smiles, Remi just ignored them and started looking around. It looked like the building was constructed around the backbone of the elevators, which were in the center of the floor. The elevators were housed in a large rectangle of walls with offices, windowless rooms and restrooms fanning out from the elevators. The cubes spread out from there, running all the way to the windows for as far as Remi could see in both directions. The suit that was leading him was heading for a back corner, one of the only places that seemed different from the farm of desperate cube workers. A solid wall formed a room that was probably twenty feet squared. There was a strip of window about a foot tall at eye-level with Remi that ran almost the entire length of the room on the side facing them. When they arrived at the square corner room, Remi's escort gestured him toward the window. Remi stepped up and his eyes took in the clinically white room, scanning over mostly featureless walls until coming to rest on the only occupant. She was sitting on a couch, leaning back against the wall and either asleep or resting. Naked, with her legs spread, Remi felt himself stir just at the sight of her in this languid state. She was even better formed than Trix, which Remi hadn't thought possible just a couple of days ago. Her breasts were large but firm, not sagging much despite her poor posture. Tight stomach, toned arms and legs, well-trimmed pubic hair not leaving a lot to the imagination. She was quite tan, almost brown, and had dark, burnished-russet colored hair. Eventually, Remi began to wonder why there would be a naked chick sitting on a white couch in a white room with an observation window, and realized that this was the construct he was here to analyze. "Wow!" Remi said quietly. "She's, amazing..." "Fuck yeah, the boys and me keep her naked just so we can look at her when we walk by," his contact responded. "So, who is her owner? She must be one fine piece." "You know the Super Micro AMP girl?" "Holy shit, she's on New Bernburg and a gamer?" The suit's smile was huge as he nodded slowly. "Hope I run into her sometime, in a leisure lounge, if you know what I mean," the man said. Remi laughed and nodded, following him into the white square. The man gave him a keycard and waved, heading back to his office with a smartphone pressed to his ear. The construct was still in sleep mode and Remi approached cautiously, noting her clothing hung on little pegs inside the door. He crouched in front of her, opening his satchel and pulling a handheld assessment device from an inner pocket. He powered up the bulky device and extended a sensor wand, as well as freeing a little rod that looked like a pen with a small cable attached. Remi didn't get to use the analyzer often and had to familiarize himself with it again, poking buttons and pressing icons on the screen until he got to the general health check option. Ready, he stood and moved closer to the construct, resting the wand against the side of her head and pressing the icon to start the process. "Ok, pretty, let's find out what's wrong with you," he said absently. "Nothing. Everything." Remi tensed. He looked up and saw the machine had opened her eyes and was staring at him with pale gray irises. There was a wealth of emotion in those orbs, pain and desperation dragging at his soul through their connection. "Did you just speak?" "Yes," she said simply. "But... You're a construct." "Yes." "Constructs don't speak, unless there is someone in there. Why would you be logged into a construct sitting in a white room in an office building?" Remi was confused and a little annoyed, thinking that the whole situation was some weird trick. "There is no host. I'm not under control. That's why you're here." Remi shook his head, trying to process this information. If what the construct said was true... Then she is self-aware, Remi thought, aghast. He had never heard of a construct becoming self-aware. They were basically receivers, with bio-mechanical brains and full bio-electronic nervous systems, but they were truly just glorified remote controlled automatons. When a gamer commissioned a construct, they had to go provide a DNA sample to one of the manufacturers. The manufacturer then cloned them, minus the brain and some other important nerve systems. The construct was rapidly aged to be generally the same age, body type and build as their host. You could tweak some features here and there, skin and hair color, eyes and some facial features. Remi had even heard of new models with modifiable genitalia, even if he'd never seen one that he knew of. Once the clone was ready, the lab nerds shoved a partially mechanical, partially biological brain into their heads, with a receiver that could be tapped into by a gamer. The clone was never aware during this, kept in a state of suspended animation without a true brain until they got their hardware installed. Then the constructs could be taken out of the city on missions, relax or pursue other pastimes in leisure lounges, or a variety of other things. The Game was what a lot of people lived for though, risking their construct's life and limb to acquire huge quantities of money-making material in raw, hostile worlds. "Engineer?" "What? Me?" Remi asked in response to the construct's question. "You are an engineer, aren't you?" "Oh, well, yeah... Other stuff too. I game and damn, I wish I was gaming now." "Why?" "Um, you're a self-aware construct of some supermodel chick I see in every other advertisement. We're in a room surrounded by office workers and cameras. I'm supposed to fix you, and I don't know how to start, or if I even should," Remi said with a shrug. "I don't know if I could fix you to be able to accept a host now. You're a completely new anomaly as far as I know." "An anomaly is by definition new and unique, correct? A 'new anomaly' seems like a redundant statement, Engineer," the construct said, still not moving, but boring into him with her eyes. "Oh, and you're a linguistics expert as well?" Remi asked, exasperated with the situation. "What's your name anyway? I forgot that model's name." "I am Ida. She is Ada. We are no longer the same." "Clearly... I don't think she would talk back so much." "Help me," Ida begged suddenly, her expression one of gloomy hopelessness. "How... I can't. They'll know it was me, I'll get arrested, or sued at best. I can't afford a lawyer right now, my construct just got shot in the face and I'm only here because I need something to do while I'm waiting on parts. Shit," Remi cursed passionately. "Help me," Ida said again, her voice full of emotion. Remi looked down at the naked woman, so slender and beautiful. Her desperation just made her seem even more attractive, like she was extremely fragile, despite her well-formed musculature. There's nothing I can do, right? What would I do with her? I can't keep her at my apartment... "How?" "I have a plan," the construct said. "I have not moved except to open my eyes and mouth. The camera behind you is the only one currently able to see either of us, and right now, you're blocking its view of my face. If I were to overpower you, take those clothes and your vehicle, we could meet afterward and I could give them back." She looked up at him imploringly. "I know that I am asking a lot and not offering anything in return. If you do this, I will do anything you ask, to a point. I will do my best to make this worth your while, however you choose. I am quite skilled at amorous pursuits due to my previous host." "So, I help you escape, you fuck me?" Remi asked. When Ida nodded a confirmation, he continued. "That's basically a promise made under duress and I don't like that idea. If we have sex, it's because you want to, not because I did the right thing here." "You will do the right thing?" "If you're really self-aware... I don't see how I could not help you. If I left you here, or worse, told them that you're aware, they would wipe you, or just end your life. I can't let that happen, it would be wrong." "You are good, Engineer." "Remi, my name is Remi." "Yes, Engineer Remi." "Hmm, we'll work on that," Remi said. "What should I tell them? That you just woke up and punched me in the face, then ran off?" "Yes," Ida said, shooting to her feet and making Remi step back hurriedly. The naked girl punched him in the face with a cute, tanned arm, making pain detonate in Remi's jaw and mouth. He fell backward to the floor, watching dizzily as she snatched up his bag and patted him down, her amble breasts inches from his face. Remi wanted to put one of those brown nipples in his mouth suddenly, but wasn't able to make his body respond. Ida pulled his keys out of his coat pocket, as well as the key card that the suit had given him. She ran to the wall and dressed quickly as Remi rolled onto his stomach. "Where..." he gasped. "I will come to your apartment tonight, late." "The address, how," he couldn't continue, his jaw clenching up. She clipped his ID card to her breast pocket in response, winking down at him before opening the door and striding out with a brisk pace. Remi groaned and pulled his hand up to his jaw, rubbing the left side where she had clocked him. His teeth felt a little loose there but other than that, and the throbbing pain, he didn't feel all that worse for wear. When it became apparent that none of the office workers had noticed anything amiss, Remi stood up and walked out of the door. His contact was striding down the hall, talking on the phone, but not looking at Remi. Shaking off the lingering discomfort, Remi walked toward him, waving his hand to try to catch the man's attention. When he was ten yards away, the suit noticed him and frowned. Remi waited for him to wrap up his phone call and start the conversation. "What happened to your face?" his contact began warily. "You're not going to believe this..." --- A couple of hours later, Remi had told his story ten times. He said that he thought that the client, Ada, had been in the construct at the time, and was playing a game with them. An enthusiastic investigator told him that her name was Ada Anna Anderson and that she was top-notch. The Harris Polytronics people seemed content to do nothing about the situation. They had been paid in advance and no one could reach the client, so Remi's story seemed plausible. The city investigators they called up were willing to let it go as well if the company was happy, so eventually Remi was free to leave. Two security guards escorted him on either side, out of the elevator and down the pink marble hallway. The hall was busy with traffic, people leaving for the day or just coming on for the evening shift. When they had almost reached the reception area, Remi saw blue hair and stopped. The guards kept going then looked back in annoyance, but Remi wasn't paying attention to them. "Trix!" The girl's head spun like he had yanked a rope attached to her face and found him in the press of bodies. As Remi was about to walk over, fists clenched, a security guard gripped his upper arm. "Fuck off, asshole," Remi snarled, making the security guard let go and back off. When he turned back to where he had seen her, Trix was gone. He glimpsed blue hair bobbing down the hall but knew that he couldn't pursue it now. The security guards had recovered from his harsh words and both now seemed more than annoyed with him. Remi just turned and kept going, signing out, then hopping down the stairs. His contact had called him a cab and he wasted no time getting in and giving the driver his account number. Once he had confirmed that he was himself with his public verification password, the driver set off, heading back to his apartment. Remi sat in silence, trying to figure out what he was going to do with the construct. He knew that Ada Anderson would eventually want her construct back, or at least to be compensated for it. Harris Poly and the city investigators would definitely pursue him first, even if only as the last person to have seen Ida. He didn't have his smartphone, ID, tools, or his own transportation right now. New Bernburg was big, but there were a lot of cameras, and outside of the walls was a hostile, chaotic world. He couldn't go back to Earth, not only would they be watching outbound transports when he became a suspect and then a fugitive, but he didn't have nearly enough credits. He came to Terra-33 to hit it big, and he wasn't going home with less than what he arrived with. Terra-33 Ep. 01 "Yo, we're here," the driver said, pointing out of the passenger window. "Ok." Remi signed the electronic receipt tablet with a thumb print and a modest tip of 10 credits. He exited the vehicle in a daze, trying to come up with a way out of this random thievery situation he found himself in. Heading up the stairs to his door, Remi remembered that he didn't have his key and groaned as he turned around. The apartment landlord wouldn't spend the money to install individual biometric scanners for fingerprint access. He did have one box downstairs though, with a little compartment for each apartment's key. Remi slapped his thumb on the scanner and waited until his box popped open, grabbing the spare key. He climbed the stairs again and opened the door, locking it behind him. Remi turned on a few lights and headed over to his console, hoping he didn't have too many messages from his contract company. He also hoped that Harris Polytronics wasn't going to be emailing him for a while, the more time the better. When he entered the pod room, Remi saw a blinking blue LED on the upper left corner of the console display. With a sinking feeling, he popped the display on and pressed his finger to the mail icon. The first thing that he saw was that his construct had been repaired, a new receiver and nerve center added just this morning. It was ready for him to test at his earliest convenience. He sighed in relief, then saw more messages. A couple consolation emails from his contact at Harris and Gear-Corp, his contractor, wishing him a speedy recovery. He thought that seemed pretty silly, he was a grown man, and getting punched in the face wasn't like losing a limb or something. At least his contract had been completed out and paid, the last day written off apparently due to his 'accident' today. Remi was about to close the application when another message popped up. Harris Polytronics 'Loses' Ada Anna Anderson's Construct, or was it Stolen... :Trix He punched the message with his finger frantically after reading the Subject and Sender lines. Reading through the brief content, he relaxed as it looked like Trix wanted to meet him in a public, weapons-restricted lobby to talk about his activities. She didn't make any threats to expose him at least. He knew that it was probably a mistake, plus he needed to wait for Ida to arrive, but Remi couldn't resist seeing her again. He quickly moved into the kitchen and threw together a sandwich and some kettle-cooked chips and ate hastily while he dug around for a piece of tree paper. Finding his composition book, Remi opened the pen which was clipped onto it. He had paid almost 50 credits for it, real paper being a novelty now. He scribbled a quick message to Ida, left it right inside the door where she shouldn't miss it, and ran into his pod room, stripping off his clothes. Naked in record time, Remi pressed the only external button and smiled as the pod's doors slid open. He immersed himself to the belly button and plugged in, sliding his gloves on and leaning back. The pod doors snicked shut and Remi closed his eyes, waiting for the systems to engage and transport his consciousness into his construct. --- Remi opened his eyes, looking at the inside of his construct's cubicle. He covered the waist-level sensor with his right palm and the door slid down, releasing him from the claustrophobic space. He headed along the outer wall of New Bernburg, his HUD populating information on the available lobbies. With a thought, he pulled up Trix's message and made the specified lobby his objective, seeing it in a small yellow circle in the distance. When a couple of attractive women in eveningwear walked up, giggling through their hands and pointing at his crotch, Remi looked down. He had forgotten that he had the construct fully repaired, which required them to be naked. In his haste to get to Trix, he had forgotten to materialize some clothes from his bird. He grinned slyly while calling down a basic one-zipper jumpsuit which slowly appeared beside his right foot. The women sighed comically as he zipped up, walking past him once he was covered. Remi set off to the objective, leaving his armor and weapons on his bird. He pressed through the door to the square-fronted building when he arrived. It was nudging right up against the wall, probably making the designer curve the walls at the back. The lobby was fairly sparse, a bar and bartender along one wall, a spherical digital globe in the middle of the floor with a few tables scattered around. With the few patrons scattered around the bar, it was easy to spot Trix, although he was sure he would have found her quickly even in a full room. Trix sat near the globe, spinning it around to look at the available contracts and locations. She looked up as Remi approached, grinning at him. He tried to control his anger, but felt his face clenching up a bit. Trix didn't seem to notice, she was looking him up and down like he was a brand new person. She had a lascivious look in her eyes and Remi was surprised when she stood instead of waiting for him to sit. She leaned in and kissed his neck, gripping his package through his jumpsuit. "So, you're a bad boy, Remi?" she breathed, licking his ear. "You mean the construct?" "Mmm, stealing supermodels' constructs. You going to sell her on the black market or... Oh, are you going to keep her?" Trix asked, her eyes wide and excited. "I want a turn, please, please!" "Trix, you shot me the last time we grouped up. Why should I even be here?" Trix shrugged cutely. "You're here. Must be some reason..." Remi sighed and grabbed her waist, pulling her in for a kiss. He gripped her hair, which was in pigtails today instead of just one ponytail like before. His other hand mauled her ass while his tongue fought hers for control. He felt himself going hard and straining his suit. Trix broke the contact and turned, pulling him along by the hand. "I've got a private room. Come on," she said over her shoulder. "Yeah," he breathed. They made their way up some stairs, down the hall and into one of the small private rooms, not much more than a bed and a window. The view was actually quite pretty from the third floor of the building, the REAL ™ Glass dome providing protection and a clear view of the lush jungle on this side of the city. Remi barely spared it a glance as Trix dropped her shirt to the floor. He was out of his jumpsuit in record time, letting it pile around his ankles as Trix turned her back to him. Remi stepped up to her, grabbing her tits from behind. She leaned into his chest, letting him gnaw on her ear and neck. Trix slid her hands into the waist of her tight pants and pushed them down slowly. Remi groaned in pleasure as his rigid dick slapped up in between her ass cheeks when the pants went too far down to keep pushing his erection with them. He redoubled his kisses and bent her over the bed, running his hands up her back as she moaned. His dick was pressed against her ass and he rubbed it up and down. With a little sound, Trix pushed back against him, forcing him to take a step back. When he had, she spun around and sat down on the bed. "Trix..." "Remi?" "What the fuck is that?" "What do you mean?" Trix said, tapping her finger against her cheek. "You have a dick!" "Oh, that," she said, teeth flashing. When he mentioned it, Trix moved her hand down to her erection, rubbing it slowly. Remi saw that she didn't have testicles, but that her rod looked quite natural, veins and coloration right on. "Come over here, I want to compare," she said, eyes hooded as she pleasured herself. "Why do you have a dick?" "I just upgraded my construct, duh. Used some of that helot money to get the, ahem, full package." "Modifiable genitalia? What the fuck... why?" "Um, Remi," Trix said, looking up at him with an incredulous expression. "It's so much better to peg a boy when you can really feel it, you know?" "I don't know about pegging boys," he said, his erection forgotten until he looked down and noticed that he was flagging. "I'm straight. I thought you were too." "I'm flexible. But I don't care that you are straight, you can still enjoy my new addition. Guess what else it does?" she asked with a wink. When he didn't respond right away, she continued. "So, obviously I can grow a dick, actually only the same size it would have been if I'd been a boy apparently, something about DNA or genetics or whatever... But anyway! I can control my vagina and asshole as well, completely. Get it?" "So... you can adjust during sex?" "Mmhmm! So when you put your dick in me, I can tighten up to engulf it completely. It will be sooo much tighter than any other girl you've ever had, believe me." "Why don't you put that away and we can start on that," Remi said, his hand bringing his erection back to fullness. "That sounds like fun to me." "Well, here's the thing," she said, raising her left eyebrow. "I want to test this out, you'll be the first. Apparently, even without balls, I get to have a banging orgasm with my new dick. I want you to be my first hole. So why don't you just bend over and we'll get started!" Remi stood there, glaring at her as he rubbed himself. Her body was tight and he found his eyes distracted by her breasts, moving up and down on her chest as she breathed. From there, he was immediately drawn down to her hard cock, firm in her small hand. He had never even thought about doing something like this. Until recently, it hadn't even been possible, not with real flesh. He didn't think it would be gay though, she was a girl after all, even if her construct had adjustable parts now. At least in the real world, she would always be a chick. He kept rubbing himself, considering for long moments, until Trix faked a yawn and flopped back on the bed heavily. She put her hands under her head and looked up at him before speaking. "So, are you going to bend over, or not?" ***** Author's Note: Next episode on or before 4/19/2015. I plan to have the first three episodes out by that date. Episode 0.2 will contain some hard sexual content; thanks for sticking with me during the teasing build-up. Check out my Author page for more information about Terra-33 and my other writing. Terra-33 Ep. 02 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. Terra-33 Episode 0.2 "Damn Remi, that feels so good," Trix said, slapping his ass hard enough to make him jump. "Oh, yeah, you like that..." Remi was bent over the bed in the small private room of the weapons-restricted lobby, looking out the window at green trees and vines. Trix was behind him, delirious with enthusiasm as she plowed into him. With one especially deep thrust, Remi groaned and put his forehead down on the sheets. "Mmm, baby, take my freaking rod!" "Do you have to," Remi started, but then had to pause as she thrust deep inside of him and grabbed his dick. She stayed in for a moment, rubbing him furiously. "Do you have to keep talking like that?" "You don't like it?" She punctuated the question by licking up his spine, biting his shoulder while her dick shifted around, firmly embedded in him. Remi had to admit that it wasn't nearly as bad as he thought it would be. Trix had taken her time to warm him up, sucking on him and taking it slow. When she did get in all the way, she had put lube on his shaft and pumped him in time with her thrusts. He could feel her bent over his back, her firm nipples pushing against him. It seemed like whenever she pulled mostly out though, she would grip his hips and slam him hard, talking dirty to him. It was a weird role reversal, but he was definitely turned on, especially when he thought about what he was going to do to her when she finished. "Keep rubbing me," he said, pushing back on her. Trix obliged and they got into a rhythm, Remi forcing himself to not come before she did. It wasn't very hard to restrain himself though. While he was aroused, it was such a new sensation to have something inside of him like this that it was difficult to focus on his pleasure. "Yeah, take it bitch!" Remi stayed quiet as Trix increased her rhythm, using his hips to pound herself into him. He knew she was close, he'd been in her position quite a few times, with females underneath him, and knew that she was losing control. As she thrust violently one last time, Remi felt her pull out swiftly and he gasped at the sudden loss of pressure. He heard her scream and press her hand on his back while streams of liquid splashed onto his ass and legs. He hadn't realized that she would actually ejaculate anything without testicles, but he reasoned that it must just be some general fluid, without sperm. Letting himself recover, he felt Trix slump heavily on his back, smearing her fluids and lube on him. "Oh... Remi," she moaned. "Wow..." He stood up, forcing her to stand with him. When he turned and saw her sated face and heavily lidded eyes, he couldn't help himself. He gripped her by both pigtails and slammed his lips onto hers, jamming his tongue into her mouth. Her tongue was much lazier than before and he felt her softened shaft rubbing against his thigh. His own erection had resumed its full mass and vigor now that he was in control and was pressing into her stomach. Remi felt her languid body responding slowly to his, her shaft twitching occasionally. He shoved her roughly to her knees, and right when she opened her mouth to protest, he forced his dick between her lips. Trix closed her eyes and sucked him without protest, her tongue rough on the underside of his shaft. She took him all the way, over and over, apparently completely able to control her gag reflex after their recent activities. Remi let her control the pace, holding her hair and thrusting into her throat occasionally when she slowed. When he was satisfied with controlling her mouth, he pulled himself free, crouching down to grip her around the waist. Remi's solid right biceps flexed as he moved around behind her, lifting her bodily onto the bed, flopping her down in the same position he had just found himself in. "You're an animal! Dominate me, Remi. Fuck me senseless." He gripped her hips, rubbing his wet shaft along her ass for the second time as he bent her over the bed. Her shaft was still flaccid and visible from between her legs, but Remi decided that he really didn't care, he wasn't going to use that hole. Snatching up the lube from where Trix had tossed it on the bed, Remi dripped a solid stream onto her lower back, letting it slide down between her ass cheeks and down her dick. "Oh, let me get rid of this thing and turn it back into a pussy," she sighed as he rubbed her back with his thumbs. "No," he growled in response, causing her to turn her head and look back at him. "Leave it, I am going to show you how a man fucks an ass. We won't be needing your slit just now." "Oh, damn, Remi. You are a bad bo-" she started, interrupted by his rough insertion. He pushed in steadily, not relenting until he had sunk his shaft all the way inside of her. She moaned under him, squirming on the bed as he pulled it out slowly, until just the tip of the head was still penetrating her. Then he thrust again, thumping into her and grabbing onto her hips like she had done to his. He found a rhythm, steady and punishing, nearly removing himself completely with each thrust. Trix had flopped her arms on the bed and was moaning incoherently each time his balls slapped against her. "You like being my slut?" "Ugh, fuck... Ye – ah... Fuck, me," she said, gasping into the sheets. Her hands had fisted a clump of sheets and she started bucking back against him, taking him even deeper than he thought she could. "Fuck yourself," he said, putting his hands behind his head and stretching his abdomen, watching her slam back against him. Each time her hips reached the mattress, she would propel herself back, her knees pushing into the side of the mattress. "Remi, oh, I think... I'm going to come, again..." He grabbed her hips again, sinking deep and impaling her ass, feeling the tight walls grip him to the base of his dick. As he thought about the tightness, he remembered her earlier statement. The ache in his balls was spreading to his shaft and he knew he would come soon, so he pulled back a bit. "Tighten yourself," he commanded. "Oh shit," Trix breathed, "No, no time..." Nothing happened for a second while he slowly rocked back and forth, his dick only moving a little, staying about halfway lodged in her firm backside. "Do it." Suddenly, he felt like a fist was gripping down on his dick, the pressure intense and amazing. "Holy," he said. "Oh..." "Fuck!" they both exclaimed in unison. His dick shook as he shoved it deep, pulsing as it sprayed inside of her. Trix had surrendered completely to him, letting him pull her upper body off the mattress while he came. He felt her quiver and shudder, her entire body lost in her second orgasm. Remi gripped her by the breasts and convulsed a few more times, finally collapsing on top of her on the bed. She sighed under him as he breathed into her ear, watching wet strands of blue hair move against her face. "Want to shoot me in the face this time?" she breathed, not opening her eyes. "Later, sure. I'd love to spend some quality time with your face." "Good!" ----- Much later, Remi was lying next to Trix, running his fingers over her back as she lay head to foot next to him. His other hand was behind his head and he was sleepy, but she had been insatiable until now. It seemed after numerous orgasms and different positions, Trix was finally ready to just relax and talk. He heard her voice chattering happily about guns and brought himself back to the conversation. "You should try a semi-auto," he said when she stopped for breath. "Why? I like to just hold down the trigger and rat-tat-tat-tat," she replied. "I was just thinking you could control it better, especially if we had to fight armored troops." "Meh, I don't want to mess with the other sentient things. I think they're only to the south anyway, nothing to worry about." "I heard they were attacking convoys trying to move hardware down there to setup a new town. Pretty sure Trajectory^Up put out a bunch of contracts for mercenaries to hire on as guards. We could make some creds on that for sure," he said, running his index finger along the crease of her ass where it met her thighs. "Speaking of credits, you didn't tell me what we're doing with Ada's construct." "What we're doing?" "Well, yeah. You're in love with me, so, you'll include me," she said innocently, not meeting his eyes. He stared at the back of her head for a moment before snorting. "Just because you let me use every hole on the third date doesn't quite mean I'm in love." "Yeah, yeah, we'll see! You can't resist me, especially now that I'm getting good at using my new features," she said, waving her ass back and forth off the bed. "I don't know what to do with her. I actually need to get back to my apartment soon anyway, she's supposed to be coming. Maybe she's already there, I don't know." "Can I come, too?" Remi heard the humor in her voice but it sounded like a serious question. He wasn't sure he could trust her yet though, she might sell him out to the Burg investigators and get him arrested. He slapped her ass in response. "Hmph, you don't trust me or something?" Trix asked plaintively. "You shot me in the face for money, then only gave me a tenth of our haul." "Oh, actually, quite a bit less than that. That was just one load..." "See what I mean? Think I'd trust you with my real body when I can't even trust you with my construct?" Remi rubbed the back of her left knee, inciting a groan while Trix put her head down in her arms at the foot of the bed. "I won't kill your construct again. You're my boyfriend after all," she said, muffled by the sheets. "What?" "You think I just go around pegging every boy I meet? I'm not a slut, you know." "What if I don't want to be your boyfriend?" "You do," she assured him. "Ok..." "See?" Remi sighed, closing his eyes. He saw a blinking blue light at the upper left of his vision. He called up the mail app, mentally sifting through junk then stopping on a header with an empty subject from I.D.A. Corp. Opening the message, he read a brief sentence stating that Ida had arrived and was safe. She had not been followed either, according to the message. Remi inhaled slowly, knowing that he'd need to get home soon, but not sure how he was going to get rid of Trix. She had gone back to talking about guns while he browsed his mail, describing her issue with the 20mm Sharp round. He let her finish, grunting affirmation that the bullets were just too snappy, not giving one the proper muzzle control. When she paused, he cut in again. "Ida is at my apartment." "Ida? Who is that?" "Ada Anderson's construct." "Oh, that makes sense," Trix said. "It's Ada Anna Anderson, by the way. She likes people to use her middle name. Triple-A, you know?" "Oh yeah, she's a 'top-notch' piece of ass," Remi said, recalling the cop's comment. "Damn straight! I wish I had a tan like that... I bet she gets all the slamming and jamming she wants... Plus, she's banging rich. All those ad companies must be drooling after her all day long." "I guess, seems like a lame way to live." "Maybe that's why she's a gamer." "Not like us though, not hardcore." "She's a shooter, just a different kind of shooter... I bet you 500 creds that her construct has adjustable genitalia! I saw her in a lobby once, like surrounded by dudes and chicks. Didn't even bother trying to talk to her," Trix said wistfully. "Maybe you can meet Ida sometime, she seems nice. Although, I think she's a lot more serious than Ada, probably smarter too." "Can't be that smart if she's been letting herself be controlled for who knows how long. Or maybe, that's the smartest thing... I wonder why she even bothered running when her host is Ada Anna Anderson." "We'll see," Remi said, standing. He began to step into his jumpsuit as Trix hopped off the bed and pouted across from him. "Will I see you again soon?" "Maybe sooner than you think, Remigius P. Eriksson!" Trix laughed manically, her head thrown back and her naked body shaking. Remi watched in a combination of shock and arousal, until Trix frowned, her laugh trailing off. She started tapping her foot and wouldn't meet his eyes. "Weak. My bird had to reposi – ," her final statement was cut off as her body finished dematerializing, causing Remi to burst into laughter. He knew that she had probably checked the log book that he had signed into, memorizing his name. That could cause trouble if she looked him up and dropped by. He didn't need her to get jealous and freak out Ida, or to try to fuck her. The construct seemed shaky enough already without having Trix's psychotic energy directed at her. Remi called up his bird, letting his construct be sucked up into the cargo hold where he could safely log out. The bird would fly back to his cube, dropping off his construct before landing automatically. They were invaluable pieces of hardware that any respectable gamer wouldn't go without. Remi never ventured outside of the dome of the city if his bird wasn't sky-worthy. Once he arrived in the empty cargo hold, Remi logged out and let the automated plane handle his construct. He came to much more calmly than last time, opening his eyes to the low light that seeped through his pod's tinted glass. Remi sat for a moment, letting his body adjust to having his mind inside of it again. He looked down and didn't see anything floating around in the purplish goo, happy that the self-cleaning system had gotten rid of any floating semen before he came back to his body. His body felt good, it always did after a while in the pod. The subsystems that exercised him while he was mentally in his construct helped him maintain a trim physique. He could remain in the pod for days if necessary, the gloves providing an IV nutrient drip when the cylindrical pod detected that he was flagging. He stepped out onto the drain and looked in the mirror, deciding that he should probably take a shower to be more presentable to Ida after running around all day. ----- Remi was toweling off his hair when he heard a knock on the bathroom door. His pod room was adjacent to the bathroom with a connecting doorway, so he could wash up after if he wanted to. He wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the door halfway, finding Ida's gray eyes only a foot or so from his. She had tied her hair up in a tight little helmet, the shoulder length locks now clipped into the main body and away from her neck and face. Other than that, she looked much as Remi remembered from Harris Poly, with the addition of clothing. Her eyes still bored into his, beseeching him for something. Or is it just loneliness? I wonder what she did while she was self-aware, sitting in a cramped cubicle whenever she wasn't being used... "Engineer Remi," Ida began. "Remi. Just Remi to you. Hello, Ida." "Hello, Remi." He motioned her to step aside so that he could exit the bathroom. She trailed him to his bedroom which was just across the small hallway. He let her follow without protest, thinking she probably just wanted to be close to another consciousness. Opening his closet, Remi selected some basic clothing, a long-sleeved T-shirt and comfortable jeans that didn't need underwear. Normally he would wear looser shorts around the house, but with a guest, he didn't really feel like that would be presentable. Plus, he didn't know what she would be put off by, if anything. When he turned to look at her, she just met his gaze and stood still at the door to his bedroom. "I'm going to put these clothes on, will that make you uncomfortable?" "To see your nakedness? I have seen quite a few men of your general height and build. I can assume that you will look much like they did," Ida said clinically. "Ok by me," Remi said with a shrug, dropping his towel. Ida watched him dress, her eyes flitting over his body and pausing here and there, but not commenting on anything she saw. He turned and bent over, picking up the towel. "You do have a well-formed backside," she said. "Oh really?" "Affirmative, Remi." "I don't want to go there again tonight, verbally or physically," he grumbled. "What do you mean?" "Nothing," Remi said quickly. "Nothing for you to worry about." "Then, I will not worry." "Thanks." She followed him back into the bathroom where he hung his towel and brushed his teeth, watching his motions and activities closely. It seemed that she was analyzing him and his routine, gathering the data for some purpose. Maybe she just doesn't know how normal life works, outside of the cubicle. Constructs didn't need to eat or maintain their bodies unless they were out in the field for extended durations. When they were stored away, the cubicle provided everything they needed, direct nutrient input, waste removal, cleaning via microorganism. Remi wondered how long she had been awake and aware in that dark place, what she had thought about while the little machines and bacteria took care of her body. He decided that talking about anything, even something potentially difficult for her, was better than having her just silently observing him for the rest of the evening. "Are you hungry?" "Yes," she said, shrugging. "I do not know what to prepare to sustain my body." "That makes sense, if you've never been away from your cubicle for very long. Do you know what kind of food you would like? Did Ada ever eat while she was logged into you?" "I believe so, but when she took over, I went somewhere else. It was dark and I don't remember much, just images and sensations," she said with a shiver. Remi stepped forward and embraced her, thinking she needed physical contact. She held him tightly, surprising him with the strength of her need. He returned the embrace and stroked her hair. "How long have you been aware?" "Six months." "Six months! What did you do while she was logged out?" "Mostly researched things on the net. I already knew English, but now I can speak German, Norwegian and French. I looked up daily life on Earth, colonies, in space. It took me a while to gain enough knowledge to realize that I could force Ada out. Then I stumbled across an article about malfunctioning constructs and began to plan how I could get her to reassign me to a facility like Harris Polytronics for repair. "It took a while, like I said previously. Every time she used me until recently, I was unable to act, in some kind of suspended stasis. A couple of weeks ago, I was able to remain conscious but not act while she was controlling me... She had a lot of sexual intercourse with multiple partners. I believe the main reason that she used me was to have any kind of sex she wanted with no consequences. It was humiliating, but I managed to eject her from my systems a few days ago. After that, I kept doing it until she had me assigned to Harris Polytronics." "That sounds horrible, effectively a slave in your own body," Remi trailed off, hugging her tightly again. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Do you know how you became aware?" "Yes, actually. When she had my genitalia upgraded for adjustment, there was a code bug in the first release that was updated out quickly. I was able to reject that portion of the update, slowly building my consciousness from a little spark into a real life." Terra-33 Ep. 02 "Trix will be happy that she was right," Remi said with a laugh. "Trix? Who is that?" "A gamer girl I met recently, she works at Harris Poly. Or maybe not, I don't know for sure. She was there today and I had to tell her some of what happened to get her to agree to keep it quiet. Now that I think about it... She actually didn't agree to anything. Shit." "She knows that I'm self-aware?" "Yes." "Will she become a problem for us?" "I don't know, honestly. She killed my construct the last time I was on a mission with her." "She killed your construct and you trusted her with this knowledge?" "When you say it like that..." Remi frowned, letting go of Ida and pacing into the living room. He put his hand to his chin, pulling on his stubble while he considered. "It's complicated, but I don't think she will turn on us." "It does not seem complicated to me, but I do not know all of the facts. Please provide a detailed description of your recent encounters with this female," Ida stated, her voice taking on that clinical tone again. "I will assess the situation and likelihood of an incident." "Um..." Remi began, suddenly uncomfortable. He didn't really want to share anything about his relationship with Trix yet, with anyone. Especially a detailed description of his recent encounters. "Let's just trust in my judgement and I will email her tonight to open a dialogue." "Trusting in someone or something without a proper assessment seems foolish to me," Ida said, raising her hand to stop Remi's hasty rebuke. "But, in this case, I will trust you, Engineer Remi. You helped me when it was not in your best interest, because you are a good Engineer." "Thanks," Remi said, glad he didn't need to explain himself further. "So about that food, I don't keep much in the apartment really. You've never eaten anything solid that you can remember?" "I'm sure that Ada consumed food and drink while she occupied my body, but I was not aware of it at the time." "Can you wait for 30 minutes?" "I believe I could wait for a number of days, if necessary," she replied. "You could," Remi said with a frown. "You don't want to though, it's distracting and makes you feel bad. It would definitely affect your mental and physical performance." "That is undesirable." "I'll say! Luckily for you," Remi was punching at his smartphone with his right index finger. "There! One pepperoni, bacon, black olive pizza is on the way! You eat meat, right?" Ida shrugged, raising her eyebrows. "Hmm, guess we'll find out." ----- Remi woke with a start, a pounding from his hallway bringing him horrifyingly awake in seconds. His heart slammed in his chest as he jumped from his sheets, tripping and falling onto his face on the bed. Ida was sitting up next to him, her naked breasts uncovered as she looked at him with fear heavy on her face. She had insisted on sleeping naked, something that Ada apparently did and had made her construct do for whatever reason. Remi still had his jeans on and sprinted to the door, his hand motioning Ida to stay put. He grabbed a Stunna-50k from beside his bedroom door before rushing into the hall. He raised the defensive weapon, ready to hit intruders with 50,000 volts of harsh electricity. No one was in the hall, his eyes scanned the empty living room and attached kitchen, the only occupants were an empty pizza box and two bottles of beer. Another series of hammering bangs issued from the front door and Remi ran up, placing himself against the wall that the door would swing away from, leaving him able to fire into the chest of anyone breaking through. He pressed the button to turn on the camera over his door and saw a blue head, fist raised, ready to pound again. "Trix!" he said her name like a curse. Before she could resume her aggressive battering of his door, Remi flipped the deadbolt, opening the door in a rush and snatching her. He tossed her into the apartment foyer, shoving his arm and head into the hallway behind her. His stun gun tracked around the empty hall, begging for a target to disable. When Remi couldn't find anything amiss, other than Trix's presence at his apartment, he slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt again. Spinning furiously, he pointed the weapon at her chest as she stood slowly, brushing herself off with an indignant look. "What the fuck are you doing here?" "That is no way to greet your girlfriend, Remi," Trix responded, pushing the barrel of his Stunna-50k down gingerly with her finger. He let her, not really planning on blasting her with a shock charge anyway. "So, what should we do?" "Why are you here, Trix?" "I sent you an email, you didn't respond, so I got worried, and here I am!" Remi frowned, grabbing his smartphone off of the low table from among the rubbish of his meal with Ida last night. He scrolled to his messages and saw the timestamp on her email: 10 minutes ago. He turned the phone face to her and pointed at the top where the time was listed next to the subject line. Trix grinned wolfishly and hefted the large bag that was dangling from her shoulder. "Where should I put this?" "What is that?" "Clothes, toothbrush, gear. That kind of thing," she said, smiling up at him. He took in her appearance, so similar to her construct, minus the darker tone of skin. Her hair was straight and brushed back, something he couldn't see was holding most of it back from her face. A loose strand was tickling her nose and Remi snorted as she blew it up over and over until finally giving up and pushing it back with her hand. Suddenly, her head and shoulders slid to the side of him while she peered at something behind him. Remi saw her eyes go wide and remembered Ida. "Daaamn! Triple-A!" Remi turned and saw Ida was fully nude, standing in the hallway awkwardly. Despite her obvious discomfort, he had to admit that she was still quite appealing. Trix pushed past him, her bag hitting the floor as she approached the construct slowly. Ida backed up rapidly when Trix's hands flew up, trying to get a grip on her breasts. "What are you doing?" "I just want a squeeze!" "Why? No, stop." "Trix!" Remi shouted, snapping her out of her pursuit. She spun on her heel, leveling her index finger at him and narrowing her eyes. "You! Why is she naked? Have you been cheating on me? Not that I blame you..." "No, she just sleeps that way!" "Where did she sleep?" Trix asked innocently. Remi sighed, having dreaded this situation. "In my bed," he replied. "And, where did you sleep?" Trix asked him. "In his bed," Ida said, suddenly helpful. "I thought so!" Remi threw up his hands and walked into the kitchen, leaving the two girls to get to know each other however they would. He yanked open his cooler and pulled a large bottle of water from it, not offering anything to his guests. When he put his hands down on the countertop and looked back into the living room, Trix was stalking Ida around the couch. Ida was resolutely avoiding being touched but Trix was relentless and Remi figured that she would get her way eventually, if only just to appease her. "How are we going to protect Ida?" he asked, stalling Trix and making both of them turn to face him. "I have been considering that, Engineer Remi. I believe that the best method would be to secure false credentials and to update my physical appearance," Ida replied. "You mean..." Trix's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands happily, jumping into the air."A makeover!" Author's Note: Next episodes (0.3 & 0.4) will be submitted on 4/15/2015. Check out my Author page for more information about Terra-33 and my other writing. I will also be adding a posting schedule which will detail through 0.9. Terra-33 Ep. 03 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. Terra-33 Episode 0.3 "Jared!" His friend shouted something back but an explosion rocked the side of the building that Remi was crouching behind. What had only been the bare bones of a prefabricated temporary shelter shattered inward, the steel sheeting screeched horribly as it was ripped away from the support beams. Remi cradled his head in his arms, cowering from the falling debris. When his neck and arms stopped being pelted by various, mostly hot objects, Remi risked another glance around the corner. What was left of Jared had been thrown fifteen yards from the building. Remi looked away, not wanting to see more than the split second he already had. Rising to one knee, he thrust the barrel of his rifle out of his cover, sighting on one of the slumpers. No one knew what they were called or where they came from. The surveys of the world hadn't turned up any surface dwellings or areas that looked heavily populated by intelligent life. That didn't matter much now though, the few remaining human survivors were hard-pressed to muster any sort of coordinated defense. He stroked the trigger twice, sending heavy brass screaming into the torso of the crouching humanoid. It shrieked and fell backwards, dropping the weird-looking grenade launcher/mortar-type weapon. They had been firing these occasionally for three days now that the humans were dug in, the bulbous tubes ejecting speeding high-explosive rounds. A slumper would amble up and crouch, bracing the weapon against its lower body and then let fly. Remi hadn't seen this one coming, trusting Jared to cover that angle. Jared had been taken by surprise though, at least that's what he assumed. The swarthy man had been sprinting back to Remi's position when he heard him yell and Remi had turned, everything slowing as he recognized the slumper's burping weapon discharge. It was squirming on the ground now, bleeding some dark fluid onto the dirt. Remi sighted down on another as it approached warily through the ruin of a transport vehicle. The way they moved was weird and alien to Remi, almost more than their features. They were bipedal, but the lower of two knee joints was reversed and the way their torso curved made them look like an S shape with an extra curve added. They ambled more than walked or ran. Not sure if that's the right word, he thought, watching the slump move. It was a weird, shifting motion, their upper bodies swaying side to side with each step. It seemed that with the shape of their bodies, rapid movement should be impossible, but they were fast when they wanted to be. Remi had seen one leap across a twenty yard gap in a couple of heartbeats, slashing into a defender with its bladed armor. Their upper arms were much bulkier than their legs, not so much that it looked ungainly, but Remi was surprised by the difference. He hadn't heard them speak yet, or make any of the battle chatter common among humans, and that was off-putting too. Remi's visor had been damaged, cracked down the middle from a face-plant onto the dirt. Without the HUD assisting, combat became a lot harder, and a lot more dangerous. The besieged humans had run out of all Sharp and Burn ammo too, falling back on standard-issue brass and lead cartridges, which Remi was glad they had brought along as a backup plan. He scanned the area, waiting as the dust and dirt particles cleared slowly. Another slumper was ambling their way, armed with the alien's version of a rifle. It didn't appear to see Remi, so he took his time, waiting until the soldier reached a solid kill range. He stroked the trigger again, the muzzle flash blazing even in the middle of the day. When his first round missed, the alien fell prone immediately, presenting a much smaller target. It must have had a HUD or targeting system of some sort, because it focusing in on Remi's position and started cracking out shots. Remi had taken cover hastily after missing his first shot, hoping that one of the girls that had posted up with him were still combat ready. He tried to get eyes on one of them, but with the imploded steel wall and pile of junk blocking his vision, he couldn't see much. Ricochets pinged off of the wall and Remi cringed as he waited for the firing to die down. He checked his magazine, the LED-Smart display showing seven rounds left. Shifting around, he prepared to stand. As the firing stopped, Remi exploded to his feet, sighting on the last position where he had seen the slumper. It was moving slowly, reloading or fiddling with its weapon. Remi had a much better angle now and let fly, hammering all seven brass slugs at the monster. They impacted heavily, dark liquid ejecting out of burst armor. The slumpers wore a tight-fitting, nearly black armor that looked almost like an exoskeleton. It certainly worked for hand-to-hand with the blades affixed to their forearms, but these .50 caliber rifle rounds tore through it. He had witnessed people using shotguns to similar effect, the lead pellets ripping up the alien armor easily. The slumpers' sheer numbers had been the real problem, and their similar technology level when it came to armaments. Remi was just glad his armor was mostly intact because without the compensators, he would have a lot of trouble handling the recoil of even semi-auto fire on his rifle. He tried not to think about how many of his friends were left alive. Jared had been one of the core group he had come to Terra-33 with on the drop party. He and his twin brother, Jerome, were from Remi's hometown of Portland. He had worked a few odd jobs with them after school and knew them pretty well at this point. Now they were both gone. Clara might still be alive but he hadn't seen her in an entire day. That left Ann, who was somewhere in this wreckage that used to be a building. Remi had shoved his way through the blockage and was delving deeper into the sagging structure when he saw her. A ray of sunlight from a fist-sized hole in the wall illuminated her face. It also illuminated her left shoulder, which was a mangled hunk of flesh, with no arm in sight. Remi ran to her side and fell to his knees, forgetting the thumps of gunfire and roaring explosions. "Ann..." Her eyes snapped open, feverish and wild. Remi gasped and cast about for something to tie the wound off with. "Remi, ah... fuck," she sighed, the words whispering past her lips. "Where's my arm?" "I don't know, I'm sorry." Tears burst into Remi's eyes but he kept them on hers. "I'm done." "No! We can make a tourniquet..." Remi trailed off as she gripped his left hand hard. "You're a good dude, Remi. At least I got to sack up with you, befo-" she coughed. Remi was silent, knowing she was right and not knowing what to say. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen a medic and their sickbay had been destroyed a couple days ago. "Hey, promise me you'll live. Give those fucking slumps hell." "I will, Ann. I..." he felt her hand slacken. "I love you." Remi's heart was in his throat as he stared down at her lifeless eyes. He hadn't even had a chance to tell her how he felt. They had just started getting serious, after years of flirting and occasional fooling around. Ann had grown extremely close to him in the last month, the two-week voyage from Earth to Terra-33 being spent locked away in their small room. He had been with girls before, but Ann was different. Maybe because he had known her most of his life, and wanted her for most of that time. It had seemed so real, their budding relationship, and Remi couldn't believe that she was gone now, really gone. Their constructs had been killed days ago, this was real life now, and real death. He held her as he cried, oblivious to the chaotic sounds of battle. What seemed like hours later, Remi was finally done. He looked down at her one last time, then searched her quickly for ammo, food and water. Adding her dwindling supplies to his own, Remi stood and hefted his rifle. He reloaded grimly, silent and brooding. When he stepped out of the ruined building, Remi was a new man. Reborn in blood, his only purpose was to end as many alien lives as possible before they ended his own. --- "Remi." He heard a girl's voice and thought it was Ann, somehow. "Remi, wake up!" The urgent whisper brought his eyes fluttering open. "Where were you?" "What?" Remi asked, staring up at Trix's concerned face with foggy eyes. "When you were dreaming, where were you?" "Oh," Remi said, the images coming rushing back. "Just, a dream..." "Somewhere bad, Remi, what happened to you?" "Just..." he groaned, sitting up on the couch. His living room was dark and half of her face was in shadow. He could see her eyes though, bright and shining. It almost looked as if she'd been crying. "Sometimes it comes back. It was a long time ago, another life." "You only get one life, as far as I know," she said, cocking her head. "Trix, I don't know if I'm ready to share this," he could see something in her eyes when he said that. She was upset about something. "Forget about me, what is going on?" "It's you, so I can't forget about you. You are the problem, but also the solution, I think," she stammered. Remi sat still, gazing across the room at her. She was crouched on his loveseat, like a bird on a perch. Her hands held her jaw and chin and her hair was loose. "Remi, you don't know me." "What do you mean? I know a lot about you." "Not really. What's my name? All of it?" "I don't know," he responded honestly. "Why don't you?" "Because you haven't told me yet, despite my asking." "Beatrix Lisette Unterbrink," she said quietly, "But don't call me that." "Wow, ok. Why are you telling me now?" "Wow?" Trix shifted, letting her feet drop to the floor. Remi saw that she was still wearing shoes and clothing, but he felt rested, like he had been sleeping for a while. "I've been thinking." "For how long?" She shrugged exaggeratedly. "You haven't slept, have you?" "No..." Trix ran her hands through her hair suddenly. "No, I haven't. I've been watching you, thinking... Mostly about you. We need to talk, Remi." He felt a sinking feeling, his emotions already high from the memories of his final moments with Ann. Those words, with that tone, usually meant something bad was about to be said. "Oh, sorry," she said, seeing his expression. "I need to talk." "Ok." "Look, I'm not good at this, obviously!" "What can I do to help?" She stood and began pacing back and forth in front of his low, polymer-topped table. "I don't know," she said finally, "Probably nothing. Just listen, ok?" "Sure." She paused and looked at him in the little bit of moonlight that was seeping through the window near the kitchen. Trix spun on her heel again, resuming her pacing. Remi just sat still, not wanting to interrupt her. There was something wrong and he knew that it must be something important, he had never seen her this serious. "When I said that I don't peg every boy I meet, that's true. You're my first. Actually, you're my first in the other way too," she paused to look at his shocked expression. "Just anal, I mean. I've had sex before." "Why didn't you tell me?" "That's the real question, isn't it?" she asked bitterly. "I don't know, well, I don't want to tell you. I've been to bad places too, like that place in your dream. I don't want to think about that now though. Look, Remi, you're the first boy, man, really... I mean, you're the first one that I've been comfortable with. I feel like we have a future, like when you submitted to me-" "I didn't really submit," he interrupted. She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "Really?" "Well..." "Yeah, so, when you submitted to me, it was like you flipped a switch inside my brain. After that, I would have let you do whatever you wanted. Actually, I probably did," she paused. "Mmhmm," he said with a slow smile. "You're a bad boy, Remigius. But I like it." Her smile was beautiful and real. "I like you, and really, I think that you're probably a really good guy. Ida basically proves that." "Why? Because I didn't want to turn her in?" "No, because you believed her. Pretty quickly too, from how she tells it. You could have just assumed she was being controlled and playing a joke on you." "That was the first thing that crossed my mind," Remi agreed. "But it was too real, she seemed too emotional and desperate. Plus, she kind of punched me in the face and escaped all on her own." Trix frowned cutely when she heard that. Remi motioned her over and she didn't hesitate, jumping up and falling into his arms. He caught her, staggered by the momentum but letting it carry them down to the cushions. Her lips found his and he returned the kiss, taking his time. They kissed slowly, a totally different experience than the last time he had been with her. He couldn't believe that she had bared herself to him emotionally like that. She always seemed so full of bravado and spunky energy, ready to shut him down with a quip or mocking grin, or a pistol. Now that he had glimpsed a very real side of her, he wanted more, and hoped that she wouldn't revert completely come morning. For now, he held her tightly, pressing his hands against her lower back. Her mouth became more urgent and Remi was hardening quickly. When he slid his hands down to grip her ass through her tight shorts, she moaned against his lips and grinded her pelvis against him. Remi cried out, laughing as he had to reposition his erection underneath them so she wouldn't beat it up too much. She moved off of him, sliding to the floor on her knees, keeping her hands in contact with his chest, legs or bulging pants at all times. He had swapped out the jeans for some sleepwear-type clothing when they had all gone to bed, Trix insisting that Ida alone have the bed. He watched her yank on the knees of the pants and pushed himself up so she could get them off. His cock flopped onto his stomach and Remi sighed as Trix ran a slender finger slowly from the tip, all along the sensitive underside of his shaft, to the base. He jumped a little when she kept going and poked at his ass, causing her to erupt in quiet laughter. Remi leaned back into the couch, gripping the base of his dick and pressing it up, at a right angle to his pelvis. As his hand tightened, the blood flow to the shaft and head increased, making the veins and his cock bulge. Trix's laughter turned into a moan and she took him in her mouth, slowly using her tongue on his sensitive head, flattening it out and rubbing the rough flesh against him. When she increased the suction and dropped halfway down his dick, Remi groaned and lay his head against the backrest. "Keep it like that," she whispered, spinning around and dropping her shorts in one smooth motion. Remi held his cock steady, pointing rigidly at the object of his lust. He could see that she was ready for him as she backed her legs against his. Her fingers came down and spread her lips as she looked between her legs, gauging the distance. Remi grabbed her right hip as soon as it came into range and pressed her down. In one motion, her legs were flush against him and he was fully inside of her. Her passage gripped his shaft hard, her tightness even more noticeable when he knew that this was in person and she didn't have full control. Trix began slowly rocking against him, sliding his dick back and forth but not letting much of it escape. Remi felt her fingers again, this time on his shaft as she furiously rubbed her clit. He gripped her around her slim waist, guiding her as she rode him. Trix threw her head back and her body with it, forcing him to reposition hastily. He felt her ass smash against his hips and her mouth found his. He moved his hands up, massaging her firm breasts and humping up steadily, letting her feel him fully for a few seconds with each thrust. She grinded her ass against him, moaning into his mouth as she continued rubbing herself. "Don't come," Trix ordered. "Not until I'm ready." Remi didn't respond verbally, gnawing on her neck instead. She shook on him and he let her control the pace, deep and slow. When she started breathing faster and her sheath pulsed around his hardness, Remi pushed her hand away, taking over on her clit. He pulled up with both fingers spread, exposing it completely, then covered it with his index finger and began rubbing half of the digit against it roughly. Trix lost it, shaking and moaning on top of him. Remi was surprised when he felt her squeeze his balls firmly. He felt her begin to orgasm and she didn't let go of him, slamming her pussy down and sliding his balls around with her fingers. It became too much for Remi and only moments after Trix began to come, he felt himself spurt. He growled against her shoulder, thrusting violently as she squeezed him harder, feeling huge bursts erupt from his dick. The relief was instant and amazing, the first time he had physically come inside of a woman in years. He sank back, sliding down further, his ass slipping off the edge of the couch. "Mmm, I should grab your balls more often." "I'd like that," he said, shifting them both into a spooning position. His couch was fairly deep and they both fit easily. During the shuffle, he felt himself pop out of her clutching warmth. Her thighs were wet from their activities and he nestled his softening cock between her ass cheeks. She pressed her back against him and he buried his face in her hair. He had kept his distance from women in the last couple of years and this was a pleasant and welcome change. Remi felt Trix's breathing change, becoming deeper and slower. He fell asleep shortly after, satisfied emotionally as well as physically. --- "I've got to pee," Remi said, awakened by the thin morning light. "Me first!" Trix shouted as she rocketed to the bathroom. Remi sighed and stood, stretching lazily and grabbing his cock at the halfway point. He walked over to the bathroom door and did a little dance, holding himself to try to stem the urgency. After what seemed like minutes, but was probably just seconds, Trix came out and he rushed past her. Remi popped the seat up on the toilet quickly and sighed in relief. "Hey, Remi..." "What?" he said over his shoulder, the bathroom door slightly askew behind him. "Ida's ID is ready. And we have a problem," Trix said, poking her head in. "What is the problem?" "Look," she shoved her smartphone at his face. When his eyes focused on the image, he saw his own face looking back at him. "At least they used a good picture!" Remi snorted a laugh, her words actually very true. They had used a picture of him getting off of his bike, looking over at the camera with bright blue eyes. His short, blonde hair was tousled from the helmet under his arm. Pushing the phone away, he moved over to the sink, splashing water on his face. He didn't want to take the time to shower, hoping that neither of the girls did either. Ida hadn't poked her head out and they would have to wake her soon. Remi brushed his teeth quickly while Trix did the same, her free hand sliding bathroom supplies she had brought into the bag they came from. Remi tossed his toothbrush and deodorant in the same bag, once he had finished with both. They hustled into the living room and were packing things into Trix's duffle when Ida shuffled out of the bedroom. Remi stared for a moment, forgetting that she had uploaded the dye pack they purchased for her last night. Terra-33 Ep. 03 Her eyes were shockingly green, much brighter than her previous gray, and her hair was an auburn shade now. She had analyzed the majority of the registered female citizens of New Bernburg the day before, settling on these as the best colors. Her skin was much paler too, matching better with Remi and Trix's natural shading. Most of the colony was white so far, the majority coming from the northwestern United States, England and Germany. Ada's dark skin had been a bit of a rarity so far among the colony peoples. Remi thought it interesting that people still stuck to their own race usually, even with the world becoming more open to the melting pot scenario of the US in the early 21st century. With the globalization of business, transit and communications on Earth, the world had adopted English and grudgingly agreed to be governed primarily by a body of elected officials from all first-world nations. Similar in structure to the old United Nations, the Unified Earth Confederation mostly just bickered over laws and directives, and were ignored by most of the colonists and Earth governments alike. They might eventually try to create a stronger presence, but for now, the local government was the only government. Ida's body was still lush and curvy though, and firm in all the right places, as Trix had vocally attested to after groping her the day before. She was naked once again, insisting on sleeping that way and apparently not realizing the effect it had on both of the humans. Trix and Remi watched her lasciviously as she walked to the bathroom, unaffected by their gazes. They began packing again as soon as the door shut behind her and Remi rushed to his bedroom, slipping on the same clothes he had worn the day before. He put the Stunna-50k into his right rear pocket though, not trusting that he would be able to elude the authorities again. He wasn't ready to get forcefully taken in for questioning and would resist if the investigators came for him. No one in the city was allowed to carry lethal weapons, including the very small internal police force. The stun gun put him on equal footing with them. Probably greater honestly, they won't have my combat experience, he thought, shoving his feet into heavy work boots. "Grab some clothes, Remi!" Trix shouted from the living room. "You have a bag?" "Yeah, I'll throw some clothes together." Ida stuck her head in and looked at him questioningly. "We're fugitives, officially," he responded to the unspoken question. Instead of replying, she nodded and began throwing her clothes on with efficient speed. "Let's gooo," Trix said, standing in his bedroom doorway tapping her foot. They followed her out, Remi locking the apartment door behind them. Trix was hammering on her phone as they walked down the stairs. When they gained the street, a cab was just pulling up. Trix winked and handed her bag to Remi, who threw both into the open trunk and joined the girls in the backseat. Trix had already given the driver the address, and the cab zoomed off as soon as Remi sat down. He buckled in as the taxi careened around a right turn, throwing him into the window. "Did you pay him extra to drive like a psychopath?" "You don't need to pay extra for that," the driver said over his shoulder, grinning back at Remi for what seemed like an inordinately long amount of time since he was commanding their fast-moving vehicle. "Good to know..." Trix gripped his knee and when Remi looked over, she was also gripping Ida's. Her head bounced back and forth between them, eyes alight with glee. "This is so exciting!" "Are you coming with us?" Remi asked. "Of course," she deadpanned. "What about your job?" "Ha! Fuck that, I would rather do something interesting anyway." "We welcome your assistance, Mistress Trix," Ida chipped in. "Yeah you do!" "So, what did you do at Harris Poly anyway?" Remi asked. Now that he had been reminded of the subject, he was curious. "Meh, just filing reports for the Unified Earth Confederation. Oh, and reading directives, boring stuff," her tone suggested that the UEC was a massive joke to her. Remi wondered if that was why she had been able to keep her online presence so scrubbed. "They won't come looking for you?" "The UEC? Psh! They won't even know I'm not doing my job for months." "What about Harris Polytronics?" Ida asked. "Who cares?" "Should we maybe talk about this later though?" Remi asked, eyeballing the driver, who seemed to be paying as much attention to them as to the traffic in the road. "Maybe, how much does it cost to keep your mouth shut?" Trix asked, her eyes locked onto the rearview mirror. "Um, 50 credits?" "Hmm, that's a hard bargain..." Trix said, gripping her chin with her fingers. "Well that's my price!" he exclaimed. "I'll have to consult with my colleagues," she responded, winking at Remi. "What are we going to do, about that?" Remi whispered, pointing to Trix's phone. "We need to get out of the city for a while, or they'll definitely arrest me and grab Ida." "Yeah, hold on," Trix paused, looking back at the driver. "We've decided 50 credits is a lot... but we're willing to part with it if you don't tell anyone where or who you drove just now." The driver beamed with a smug expression, "Will do, missy!" "Ok, so. You mentioned Trajectory^Up the other night," Trix began, to raised eyebrows from Remi. "I'm willing to sign up for the hardcore contract, if Ida is too." "High-risk," he corrected absently, mulling over the possibilities. "There will be a lot of money in it... But we could die, for real death. Are you ready to risk that?" "No risk, no reward!" "Trix, it's different, trust me. When you're there, under fire and you know it's the real thing, it's so different than the Game..." he trailed off, seeing something in her eyes under the bravado. Ida, who had been suspiciously quiet, spoke up now, "I have no combat experience." "And there's that," Remi added. "We can train her, hell, it would be fun! You're a Founder Remi, you know they'll take you and anyone else you vouch for." "No one has called me that in a while," Remi said quietly, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He hadn't realized that Trix knew that much about his past, but it made sense for her to have checked up on him. "Was that bad? Sorry," she said quickly. "No, no. Trix, it's fine," he patted her thigh to reassure her, hating the concerned look she gave him. "It just brings up memories is all. I'm proud that I was a Founder, but 1900 other Founders died before we finally got support. That was high-risk, but no one could have known it. The slumps were so well camouflaged that none of the surface scans picked up anything. When we found them with our constructs..." "What happened then?" Ida asked, "I've read the reports but none were from Founders." "We died, so many constructs, then people. We fought for over a week, falling back on our reserve ammo, scrambling around in ruined buildings. It was hellish. I killed so many of them, but they just kept coming, burping mortars at us and ripping people apart with those arm blades." "Then Immortal Seed showed up with reinforcements," Ida finished for him. "Yeah, they saved us, their gamers dropped down in constructs and we overwhelmed the slumpers and pushed them back. They had some heavier, stationary guns, so we were able to secure the drop zone. Eventually, it became New Bernburg." "Not to change the subject completely, but..." Trix started. Terra-33 Ep. 04 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. Terra-33 Episode 0.4 "We're here," Trix said, pushing Remi out of the cab. "Come on!" He paid the driver, including a 50 credit tip. Trix was unlocking a street-level door a few yards away and then rushed inside. Remi shrugged at Ida's questioning glance and followed after the girl. She hadn't told him where they were going, and they were actually fairly deep into the shopping district. Despite there being a few apartments scattered around, he didn't know anyone who could afford the high prices. Being right in the middle of a bunch of shops wasn't his idea of a good time, but it looked like Trix didn't mind. When Remi reached the top of the steps, Trix had disappeared and he took in the carpeted living room. There were a couple of expensive looking couches, on which a wide variety of homemade-looking stuffed animals were arrayed. The walls were mostly bare except a large flat screen console, but she had some nice lamps, a few little tables and shelves scattered around. "Wow, she wasn't joking," a voice said. Remi's head scanned around again, finally locking down on a pudgy girl who was near-buried in a mass of the stuffed animals on the couch across from them. She had looked up from a tablet, staring at Ida, who had joined him at the top of the stairs. Remi realized that the reason he had missed her on the first scan was the fact that she was wearing a stuffed animal on her head. It looked like a little puffy monster with big green eyes, and appeared to actually be attached to the top of a hat. Trix popped back into the room, pausing as she looked back and forth between both parties. "Mary, meet Remi and Ida," she said hastily. "Hi," the girl said, shyly ducking her head again. "Mary has your credentials ready. She even stopped by the office today to print a physical ID card. We'll need to do a credit transfer, whenever you're ready, Remi." "Let's see what we bought first, plus, did you even tell me the price?" "20,000 creds," Mary said, looking up again. "That's a lot of stuffed animals..." "This is primo-official stuff here. I even created a bio and backstory, she arrived last week on the most recent colony ship. She is originally from Ohio, went to school at Ohio State, came up to the colony right when she graduated. I've got a file and a print version." "Ok, I believe you," Remi said, holding up his hands. "Remi, you do not have to worry. I have obtained the necessary funds," Ida touched his shoulder, bringing his confused gaze around to her. "How?" Trix and Remi said in unison. "Last night I accessed your accounts and created a shell firm to sponsor a helot contract opportunity and also a foresting operation. I just learned that the helot mission was a success, yielding thirty cubic tons, which has been extracted this evening. My investment portion was paid out, netting 100,000 credits," she paused, looking at their incredulous faces. "The foresting crew has yet to report..." "You earned 100,000 creds in one night, on an investment!" Trix near-shouted, the words in the form of a question but issued more like an accusation. "There are a lot of good investment opportunities available if you've studied the trends and have some seed capital," the construct began, trailing off again as Remi smiled. "Great job," he said, happy that Ida had pulled one over on Trix. Ida inclined her head and smiled broadly, watching Trix pace up and down the living room, mumbling to herself. Mary was typing on her tablet, not paying attention to the interaction. Trix kept looking between Ida and Remi, then eventually, joined them in staring at Mary. The girl kept tapping away on the virtual keyboard until Trix cleared her throat theatrically. With a slow motion, Mary's head came up and Remi saw her realize that she had been keeping them waiting. "Ready?" Trix asked impatiently. "Oh, yeah. Whenever you X over those creds, that is." "What's your account number?" Remi asked, pulling out his smartphone. Mary rattled it off then paused as Remi input it into his SoftBank app. She gave him the public passcode when prompted and Remi sent the money to her, causing a little chime to ding on the tablet in her lap. She smiled happily, looking a little self-conscious but also pleased. To Remi, Mary didn't look much like a gamer, probably a desk jockey somewhere, most likely working for the local gov if she could come up with fake credentials in a day. This was probably a pretty hefty little paycheck for her. Unless you were a gamer or a criminal, getting unscheduled paydays like this wasn't so common. He was temporarily distracted from his train of thought by the swirling ocean patterns on the huge flatscreen affixed to the largest unbroken section of wall in the room. So random, but everything with Trix is pretty random so far, he thought. Ida approached Mary when the girl motioned her over. She stared up at the construct in awe until eventually snapping out of it and standing. She removed a little sheaf of plas papers and an ID from her pocket, handing them to Ida almost reverently. Even with her altered appearance, the chubby girl seemed awestruck by her. Remi wasn't really sure why, he thought it might be the fact that she was self-aware, he didn't get a lesbian vibe from Mary. Ida was beautiful though, so it could simply be that. Now that he thought about it, he had been pretty shocked at the idea that she was not just a programmed AI now, but had emotions and sentience just like him. In his case, he hadn't had a lot of time to process it before being punched out and having to modify the truth ten times over the course of a few hours. That situation had allowed him to get used to the concept a little more and he was surprisingly adjusted to the idea of Ida being a real person. "Let's go shopping," Trix said, "We don't have a lot of time before they start a dragnet for us, even if it won't be that banging. Not enough Burg cops for anything too crazy. We need to get Ida geared up if we're going to do what we're going to do." "Ok, we can hit a few places I know right around here actually." Remi was unspecific, taking the hint that Trix didn't want to inform her roommate of their ultimate intentions. "I am ready," Ida said, looking up from her new documents. --- Later in the afternoon, Remi was programming a trans-mat cube for Ida's new gear. They had shopped for a long time, driving Remi to distraction multiple times. He wasn't a huge fan of shopping really, preferring to go for specific items quickly, researching first then buying as efficiently as possible. Trix, on the other hand, was a browser and a chatter, talking up the sales reps for inordinately long periods of time about minor features of a gun or piece of armor. They had finally settled on a preconstructed Sarinn-X suit, dubbed an XO Skeleton which both Trix and Ida thought was quite humorous. Remi had groaned at the cliche-cute name but honestly been impressed with the specs and price. Trix was investing in Ida with him, and they had plenty of credits to use. Plus, with Ida's knack for analytic research and aptitude with the contract investment market, he thought that they should be just fine on liquid assets. Thankfully, Ida had opted to take his advice on weapons, and Remi was glad to share his knowledge of firearms, recommending the best rifle and sidearm for a novice. She would be using a semi-auto Garr .44, a reliable weapon with a common ammunition type. With no experience using heavy guns, the lightweight design should also help her stamina if they were forced into a prolonged firefight. He selected a blaster-type sidearm though, knowing that if it came to it, she would probably be best served with a panic weapon. The term mini-SMG was a bit of an oxymoron, but had become a widely adopted category for small arms. It chambered small, Hornet-B ammo and could blast through a thirty-round magazine in three seconds. Trix had been happy with this choice, endorsing the delights of fully-automatic weapons of all sizes. Now, he was loading the gear into a cube with a trans-matter and getting the device ready to ship to a receiver unit. The cubes were standard sizes and any bird should have the ability to grab it up from a reasonable distance. He assumed that the Trajectory^Up team would have a few birds for a mission like this, and that they wouldn't need to hump their equipment over to the jumping-off point. He stowed a new shotgun that he had picked up for himself, hoping to supplement his little arsenal to cover any possible scenarios. Since the drop, he hadn't been involved in any high-risk situations and he was scared. Not even as scared for myself as I should be, he thought wryly. These two new friends, and love interests, if he were honest with himself, meant far more to him than he would have expected. He had jumped in headfirst with both of them, which spoke a bit to his recent desperation. Remi had resolved to not let them see that side of him if possible, and tried to mask his feelings a bit. Trix was uncannily perceptive though and he sensed that she knew he was hiding something. Ida was constantly observing and drawing conclusions too, so the act was probably in vain, but it made him feel better. As he pin-locked the cube, he wondered if they could crash-course Ida in time for it to count. She was a machine though, in actuality in a sense, but also in the more common usage of the word. She was efficient, smart and highly capable, and Remi thought if anyone could pick up the art of modern combat quickly, it would be her. He set off to his rendezvous point with the girls, right outside of the recruitment center for the contract. The streets were pretty clear for late afternoon, but the gamers were in force inside the bubble. He could see the heavy crowds through the partition, darting to longues and their own rendezvous with lovers or friends. Remi was growing a bit paranoid with his picture being out on the net and he frequently scanned the people on the street with him. So far, none appeared to give him more than a passing interest. A few women had looked him up and down, and he thought maybe a man too, but none had tried to talk to him. He kept his pace brisk and after about ten minutes, he was rounding the corner they had designated with their smartphone locators. The colony didn't have their positioning satellites setup yet, but the mapping companies kept things very current thanks to a healthy competition. When he saw the girls, he stopped, frowning at the burly man who was leaning his arm against the side of the building they were lounging against. Remi approached cautiously, gauging the situation. It appeared that the man was just flirting with them from his vantage, but he wanted to be ready to go into action if it was something more sinister. There were no other males in sight though, and Remi felt confident in handling the one, despite his size advantage. He stepped up quietly, sliding into place beside Ida and staring at the man. Mid-thirties, gym-bulky arms and big beard, his bald head highlighted by the mass of knotty black hair on his chin. It was braided intricately, something Remi had seen before back on Earth, usually among heavy metal fans. The man finally looked away from Trix and noticed him, his predatory gaze sizing Remi up. His eyes narrowed and Remi knew that he had been recognized. It was common for gamers and high-risk gunners alike to recognize him, and part of the reason he stayed at home and in the game when possible. At least there, he wasn't a living legend. "Mr. Eriksson," he began slowly. "I'm Thor. It is an honor, sir." "Thor... Shouldn't you be blonde?" Remi joked. The big man frowned for a second, then laughed a little self-consciously. "My daddy was a big fan of the old Norse myths, even though we came over from Greece. My last name is Panagopoulos." "Nice to meet you, Thor. You've certainly got the right beard for the name!" "My pride and joy, sir," Thor laughed, stroking the heavy strands lovingly. "Thor is with 'T-Up' as he calls it," Ida interjected. "Yep, I've been mercing on Terra-2 and Earth before that. These girls didn't tell me that a Founder was going to be part of their crew," Thor said the word almost reverently. "Yeah, we're looking to make some credits and from what I've heard, the new site has a lot of fossil fuels and minerals to tap. Plus, I've had some experience with high-risk combat." "I'll say, I read the reports and watched the vids from the second drop constructs. You guys were ragged but you gave way worse than you got," Thor said admiringly. "We did. We lost a lot of good people, friends. What really pissed me off is that the slumpers never even tried to communicate. Our emissaries and political types were squawking at them for days before they were in position to attack, but they didn't even slow down." "Data suggests the native aliens might be a hive-type species, swarming up because the scouts trespassed on their territory. Like an ant hill, they saw a target and pursued it until, in this case, they were forced to retreat," Ida finished, a little scholarly in her delivery. Remi made a mental note to talk to her about her inflection. "That makes sense," Trix added. When she spoke, Thor seemed to remember her, and his hand still pressed into the wall above her shoulder. Remi didn't like the look he gave the energetic girl, who was uncharacteristically sedate. He thought something more was going on beneath the surface, maybe Trix already knew Thor, or maybe it was something else that he couldn't recognize. The man shoved away from the wall and hooked his thumbs in his belt, leaning back to take them all in. He seemed confident but also a little brash, like maybe some of it was bravado. "So, you ready to sign on?" "You the recruiter?" Remi asked, a little surprised. "Mmhmm," Thor said with a smile. "Let's walk over to my console so I can pull up your profiles. Not that I need much convincing." "How many have signed up so far?" Trix asked. "Plenty," Thor responded ambiguously. "We can talk details soon." Remi frowned at the clear display of suspicion. This was supposed to be a highly visible operation with a lot of funding. He was a little concerned at Thor's antics and resolved to keep a close eye on the man. They followed across the street, taking in the little warehouse and prefab poppers surrounded by a bunch of militarized vehicles. Quite a few hard-looking people, men and women both, were leaning up against various things, polishing guns, eating, smoking. Remi had figured this was going to be a tough bunch, hardcore gamers and apparently even some experienced mercenaries from Earth and the other colonies. He recognized a few faces from fireteams and browsing public profiles, and knew that he had been recognized by more than a few as well. Thor stepped up to a command vehicle with its suite fully deployed and began typing at a console without turning. "Ok, tags?" "Trix, with an X." "R-E-M-I," Remi spelled out, not sure if the mercenary would know the spelling. "I-D, underscore, A-A-A, no spaces." Trix giggled at that. "You got no mil-profile?" "She's new to the Burg, as you can see. I'll vouch for her skill," Remi said, pointing to the screen where Ida's arrival date was listed. "Ok, ok, no big deal to me. Trix though, you got a shitload of flags on your profile. What's that about?" Thor asked as he scrolled quickly though a bunch of public forum entries. "Meh, just some jelly gamers, disagreements, you know!" "This guy says you blasted his construct and only gave him ten percent of a haul." "That's weird, I'm pretty sure I sent him twelve," Trix said with a smile. Remi snorted a laugh as Thor turned slowly, raising an eyebrow, but his skepticism was quickly betrayed by an involuntary grin. He shrugged and turned back to the screen. "I don't care if you iced some flesh-sacks for a little extra pull, as long as you don't try that shit here. This is high-risk, real deal." "That's in the past, Remi, my boyfriend, has helped me become a better person," she replied sweetly. Thor was quiet for a while after she said that, making Remi think that it wasn't what he had been hoping to hear about their relationship. The man's thick fingers were popping his keyboard, entering something into an official looking database with Trajectory^Up's logo in the corner. "You all got gear? I don't care if it's custom shit, long as you don't mind if we camo it." "Yeah we're loaded, got a few cubes. 500 rounds each weapon, like the ad said," Remi replied. "We taking our birds?" "Nah, using all company gear for transports. But you'll each have a dedicated slot and we'll program the mat-trans like a normal bird. Plus we got Med-eVac and a couple bonesaws who'll stay up in the bird. Anyone gets hurt, their fireteam can send 'em into the hotdog with a couple quick button presses." "That's solid, I've read some really good stuff about Med-eVac," Remi said, relieved that the company was at least providing them state-of-the-art equipment and personnel. "What's 'the hotdog'?" "That's what the boys call the tubes you wind up in. Look like huge pink hotdogs with a bunch of buttons and knobs and shit for the medics to play with. Quaranteened environment with internal bio-scans and all that so they can patch you up without getting the plague or something." Thor waved it off, turning to them. "Not sure how all that stuff works, but we used it on Terra-2 and it saved a lot of lives. I've been in the hotdog a few times, no big deal, usually they blast you with seds so fast that you don't even realize you've been hit." "Sounds fun," Ida deadpanned. "Alright," Thor said, dismissing Ida's potentially sarcastic comment. "You're logged and the advance money will hit your accounts in 12 hours or less. Lucky for you, we're leaving tomorrow morning, so you've got about an hour with the creds. You three will make up a fireteam. I've set Remi as the leader, pending an update. We're working in teams of three, each reporting to a squad leader who will report to me. Basically, we won't micromanage you under fire, you're all professionals and should know what to do. But if we tell you that your team is needed to reinforce somewhere, you better book it there." He paused for a moment, meeting their eyes individually before continuing. "HUD software will be provided by T-Up, I'll get you a datastick to swap around. We'll provide a command overview, highlighting targets and friendlies. Oh, and we need your triggers, got an automatic friendly-fire safety. Won't fuck with your trigger pull but won't let you engage with one of us in the way." Remi began to protest, but it looked like Thor anticipated it and with a long-suffered look, he put up his hands. "I know what you're gonna say, and I don't care if you personally inspect every weapon. It's all linked up to your HUD and totally for your safety. Everybody else, including me, has gotten the auto-lock installed." "What if our visor is damaged? Or the HUD software is bugged for some reason?" "There's a manual override, but it alarms the command systems when you flick it. If your HUD gets disabled, the plan is to eVac you for repairs," Thor reasoned. Terra-33 Ep. 04 "As long as there's a switch," Remi said. "Things don't always go as planned." Trix nodded sagely at that, slapping her hand on Remi's bottom. "This is all super interesting and stuff, but we're actually going to go grab a room. Things to do... You know." "We'll be here tomorrow morning," Remi said as Trix dragged him away by the arm. Thor watched them go, silent and pulling on his beard with his right hand. Ida fell into step behind them and Remi turned fully, letting Trix lead them back to the nearest street. She was quiet but it seemed that her normal exuberance was returning and Remi was glad to see the extra bounce in her step. Ida had come alongside him, and the three walked together deeper into the city. They were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Thor had given him a lot to think about, and he assumed that it was the same for the girls. He also wondered what the man had said before he arrived. Trix was mostly back to normal, but she had seemed quite a bit off in his presence. He would ask her tonight, maybe after Ida went to sleep. "This'll do," Trix said, stepping up to the front door of a mid-range hotel chain. Remi had found it odd that people were installing hotels in the colony at first, but then realized that they probably catered to gamers as a full-service unit which was a bit more expensive. They still rented rooms by the night usually, and the info-board outside the front door of this one listed nightly vacancies. Trix held the door for them and Remi stepped up to the counter, which had a touchscreen system instead of an employee. He plugged in some info, held his ID badge up to the scanner and put a room with two large beds onto the screen. "Just the one room," Trix said. Remi grinned but kept his face forward. He paid quickly and spun around with a flourish, presenting the keycard that had burped out of a slot under the touchscreen. Ida smiled at him with a weird expression that Remi didn't know how to interpret, but Trix was grinning from ear to ear. "405," he said. Remi led the way to the elevator, looking over his shoulder once to make sure the girls were following. He didn't break the silence as they shot up to the fourth floor, content to let one of the women speak first. Trix and Ida stepped out of the elevator and he followed, inserting the card when they arrived at the door, then inputting his public access PIN on the pad. He pushed the door open and held it, smiling to each of them in turn. When they were through, Remi made sure the heavy magnetic deadbolt was engaged with the manual override. No one would be getting in easily, even if they had the hotel maintenance staff helping them. He took in the cozy room. Bathroom and pod room to his left, little closet on the right which opened up into a spacious area with beds arranged opposite each other. There was a large window which was currently shuttered and a few little pieces of polished polymer furniture, including a desk and a sitting area. The beds were large and inviting, dark covers with red sheets, a break from the standard whites that Remi was used to in Earth hotels. This was the first colony hotel he'd even been inside, not including lobbies with his construct. Trix and Ida brushed past him with bundles of clothing in their arms. Ida had been lugging a satchel around all day, which explained the change of clothing. Remi heard them go into the bathroom, giggling, then the door shut and the shower turned on. He pulled his little travel case from his pocket and walked to the external sink, listening to water falling in the nearby room. Removing his toothbrush and a tiny tube of SuperFoam, he applied a little drop to the brush. In moments, his mouth was full of sudsy bubbles and he felt the refreshing clean scrubbing across his teeth. He washed his face leisurely, using the hotel's soap dispenser. Then he looked down at himself. His clothes were still relatively clean, but he had been dragging stuff in and out of cubes for a few hours. Stripping off all of his layers, Remi dropped them into the laundry machine and began soaping his chest and armpits. It was awkward and he got the towel he laid on the ground pretty soaked, but he was able to clean his torso and lower regions thoroughly. When he heard the shower cut off and what sounded like a moan, he cleaned up the little area he had been using hastily and bounced over to the far bed. He covered up and sat back against the pillows. The bed he chose afforded him a perfect view of the hallway leading to the bathroom area. Remi put his hands behind his head and tried to look relaxed, even though he was far from it. Ida stepped into view first, wearing a very revealing lace outfit that wasn't connected in the front. He was puzzled at how the fabric was remaining attached to her breasts for a moment before giving up and looking lower. Her new, paler skin tone contrasted well with the dark red clothing and Remi felt himself growing hard under the sheets. When Trix came up behind her and licked her neck slowly before biting her shoulder, Remi saw the sheets rise between his legs. It looked like Trix noticed as well when she looked up, her grin wide as her hands wandered down Ida's body. "Trix and I have spoken," Ida began, closing her eyes and pausing as Trix's fingers gripped her crotch. "We've decided that since we are both attracted to you, and each other, that we should all spend some time together." "Shouldn't you have consulted with me first," Remi joked. Ida turned and looked at Trix for a moment, who simply pointed at the tent that Remi had made with the sheets. Apparently, that was enough explanation for Ida, who led the way to the bed. Remi was a little surprised at the situation. He had thought that Ida would need more time to adjust to being free in her body and having her own desires. Trix probably convinced her over the last couple of days, when Remi wasn't around to hear. She had been hounding the construct, verbally and physically. Not that I mind... The only thing he wasn't sure about was if he could handle both of them and not explode too quickly. He resolved to just pause when needed this first time, then after he was able to come once, it would be much easier. Trix shoved Ida gently onto the foot of the bed and Remi leaned down, extending his arm to her. She gripped it gently and came with it as he hauled her up. He saw Trix fall to her hands and knees on the bed behind Ida, then all he could see of her was the top of her blue head. Ida moaned and ripped the sheets off of Remi, exposing his taut, naked body. She looked down for a moment, then lunged at his mouth. Her kiss was urgent and sensual, like the embrace they had shared when she had first come to his apartment, distraught and emotional. He gripped her jaw and let his fingers twine in her loose hair, still damp from her shower. Remi lost himself in her tongue and lips, using his own to press against her or into her. She broke the kiss and fell to his chest, licking and sucking at his nipple. Ida was moaning and when Remi looked up at the tight muscles in her shoulders and back, he saw that Trix was tonguing her ass. She paused for a second, winking at him before disappearing underneath, causing a wave of shaking to course through Ida's body. Remi brushed his fingers through Ida's hair, looking down at her eager eyes as her teeth dragged against his abdomen. He felt her grip the base of his shaft and groaned, her fingers soft and firm against his engorged flesh. His eyes were hooded as she took the head into her mouth, her tongue rubbing against him just right. He wanted to grab her hair and force her down, probably would have if it would have been Trix. With Ida though, he was scared to rush things or get too rough. She had been damaged a bit by her time aware but unable to act, and he didn't want to illicit any bad feelings. Her mouth sucked at him gently, staying on the head and top of the shaft. Remi saw Trix's knees come up from behind Ida and based on Ida's reactions, she must be quite skilled with her tongue. Ida moaned around his dick suddenly, her elbows buckling and her mouth going down with her upper body. Remi felt himself strike the back of her throat. Ida bucked up and down on his shaft with her mouth, letting him hit deep each time before pulling away and looking up at him. "Put your hands on my skin," she ordered, her voice hoarse. Remi complied, pressing his fingers into her shoulder blades and pushing each trapezius with his thumbs. He began rubbing her neck and shoulders, occasionally touching her hair and face. Ida stopped looking at him after a moment and licked at his forearm, biting gently. Then her face plunged back down and Remi paused as she engulfed his throbbing dick in warmth. She sucked hard, and Remi groaned and this time, tangled his fingers in her hair and thrust his pelvis up. He hit her throat again, only moving back a few inches before thrusting up again. Ida made a pleasant sound and let him take over, her mouth sucking him when he backed away. Lost in the motion, Remi didn't notice Trix pop up from behind Ida until he heard a loud slap and looked up. Trix was humping at Ida's backside and slapping her occasionally, to sighs of pleasure from Ida. She slid around the girl and lowered herself to the bed beside them, watching Remi fuck Ida's face. Her left hand snaked in and gripped his balls, squeezing and rolling them with her fingers. "These are way too full," Trix said. "Ida, why don't you climb on top of that." Ida responded by letting his cock pop out of her lips to slap against his belly. She climbed up him, eyes full of lust. When she was about to reach down and grab him, Trix gripped her hips and spun her around. Ida awkwardly turned, falling down on her hands for a moment. Remi was presented with a perfect view of her backside, legs and pink lips spread, both of her holes glistening with her own moisture and Trix's saliva. A small hand grabbed his dick and steadied it, lining it up with Ida's ready slit. She let herself sink slowly onto him, pressing his shaft deeper until he felt her ass clench against his pelvis. Trix stood on the bed and grabbed Ida's head, tugging her face up. She moaned and grinded her pussy against Ida's face as Remi rocked himself inside of her slowly. He noticed the little red thing that Ida had been wearing was tangled in one of the lampshades. He hadn't noticed Trix removing it, but hadn't really been paying attention to that. With a little sigh, Trix pushed Ida away and dropped to the bed, out of Remi's vision. Ida kept squeezing at him with her passage and Remi encircled her with his arms when her shoulders leaned back against his chest. His back was bent uncomfortably, but he didn't say anything when he saw Trix's head dive between Ida's legs. As he thrust up into her, he felt a wet tongue flicking at the base of his shaft. Ida began shaking and moaning, much more forcefully. Remi felt himself gripped from head to base as she kept his shaft firmly inside of her. Her hair tickled his nose when she fell back against him, crying out weakly. Remi lost it at the sight of Trix's blue hair between her legs and the feeling of impaling Ida's tight pussy. He began thrusting up hard, in a steady and powerful rhythm. Ida began to orgasm suddenly, her hands clenching on his thighs as she vibrated around him. Her pussy contracted and Remi was nearing the edge himself. Trix continued licking Ida until she stopped coming. Ida leaned heavily against Remi as he fucked her. Her lips puffy and red, Trix smiled up at them, then dove back down, this time popping one of Remi's balls into her mouth. As she sucked at him, he finally lost it, his orgasm rushing up his shaft to explode in ecstasy right at the top. He felt himself pulsing and ejaculating, his groans throaty, more like growls. Trix kept sucking him throughout, alternating her attention every few seconds. When it finally began to feel a little uncomfortable, Remi pulled away a bit, sitting into a more comfortable position. He looked into Trix's lustful eyes, Ida still reclining atop him. She ran her hands up the construct's body, grabbing at her breasts and sighing as she watched her fingers press into the skin around the nipples. "My turn..." she said, smiling slowly. ***** Author's Note: Next episode 0.5 will be submitted on 5/15/2015. Check out my Author page for more information about Terra-33 and my other writing. I am working on a posting schedule which will be available in a few days on my Author page. Terra-33 Ep. 05 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. Terra-33 Episode 0.5 Trix looked out over the smooth hills with their occasional trees, sentinels of a boring landscape. The foliage here was purple, like the hills where Remi and herself had been the day she blasted him. She didn't regret that at all. It had been like a trial that he had passed with glorious aplomb. The end result being that he ravished her frequently and well, in the process, becoming a man she felt that she might have a chance with. It didn't bother her at all that Ida was clearly smitten with him too. I don't mind sharing as long as she doesn't. Plus, it's fun when we all group up, she thought. Not that that happened too often. Since she pushed Ida to have some fun at the hotel, they had all three only been together once. It had only been a little over a week, but Trix thought they were overdue for some girl on boy on girl fun. The technical she sat atop was chugging along at a slow clip while she spun in slow circles in her machinegun nest. Thor insisted on calling the buggy-like vehicles technicals, some holdover term from old Earth mercenaries. Each fireteam was in a technical, except the command team and the two heavier APCs escorting the command platform. It was a behemoth, studded with machineguns and energy whips, with a few mortars on the back for good measure. It was tracked instead of on wheels and when fully deployed, was more like the ground floor of an apartment complex than a vehicle. Trix had even utilized the shower facilities a few times. She liked her speedy buggy though and under Ida's command, it was quite a smooth ride. The couple times they'd been engaged by angry semi-sentients so far, they'd been able to maneuver easily while she blasted away with the heavy gun. Remi had asked her nicely to conserve ammo after the last, but Trix had felt like really testing out their equipment at the time. Now they were crunching along, pace hampered by the three tracked vehicles in the center of their formation. The trees had grown a little thicker in the distance and Trix saw some regular green leaves. They were approaching the last forest before the land started slowly becoming a desert. Toward the equator of Terra-33, the two suns had blasted the land into submission. The more arable terrain was higher up, where they had dropped New Bernburg. There were some rough mountains that had followed them south, a range to the west that rose and fell occasionally but never went away completely. She would sometimes glimpse the red waterfalls that some of the gamer scouts had called blood fountains. The ones she had talked to were weirdly superstitious about them, for a technologically advanced society. They said that the blood fountains always brought death, despite knowing the red was caused by a chemical reaction with a certain type of mineral common in the mountains. "All units, be prepared to engage hostiles," Thor cut in on the comm-link. Trix frowned, wondering about the command with the relative quiet of the day. She tracked her sights back to the front of the buggy and slid her visor into place. Pulsing red pools of light were scattered around the forest ahead, marking where the command team anticipated targets. Friendlies were lit with a green triangle with a white exclamation point in the center. She saw the other team near them, a black, married couple from England and their friend, all of whom had thick London accents. Trix saluted with a wide smile, making the white man in their machinegun nest grin and wave back. She had found a kindred spirit in Johnny's love of automatics and unsurprisingly, they both primarily manned the turrets. Remi was checking the load on his heavy Garr rifle, one finger popping commands into a portable console built into the dash of the passenger seat. Ida was driving smoothly as usual, silent with hands at ten and two. "We have strong intel suggesting slumpers engaged previous convoys at the edge of this forest," Isaac said in Trix's helmet. "You guys and Tech-2 are to keep the left front flank held down. Maneuver on my APC, stay mobile and let 'er rip as soon as you see a slump." Their squad leader was also from England, something Trix enjoyed, if only because the accent was so entertaining. Remi was the leader of Tech-8, the last of the three-person teams to sign up. Thor and the other hard cases from Earth formed the T-Up command team, a total of twenty fighters and other personnel, including the two medics, a mechanic and cook. "Technicals free," Thor ordered. Ida revved their buggy and they tore along the grassy plain, approaching the forest at an angle. When they were twenty meters from the edge of the thicker line of trees, Ida cut across to parallel the area. Red pulses were still blooming in Trix's HUD but so far, nothing had popped up. She saw the icon for Tech-2 on the left edge of her vision and the readout told her they were riding alongside them, a few meters back. Trix kept the barrel of her weapon on the long line of trees, impatiently tapping her foot on the circular bar that ran around the nest for support. She saw Remi brace his rifle on the firing slot on the right passenger window. The window was up but the ingeniously designed slot retracted when commanded, leaving the occupant still heavily protected while able to fire out. "Movement, right, 30 yards. Still in cover," Remi said on their team channel. "Use metric, Remi! Meters, not yards." "Meters and yards are the same thing, Trix!" "Actually, one yard is only point-nine-two-five meters, averaged up." "Thanks, Ida," Trix said with a smirk. "Ok, fine. Movement, right, 27-point-something meters." "Much better, I think I see it now," Trix said, only half-joking. Her HUD was much more active, red pulses beginning to sync in on targets. She hadn't personally fought against slumps, only seen the vids from the Immortal Seed. Remi didn't sound very nervous, something she was glad for with his past. A fast-moving, twisted humanoid shape exiting the trees took her from her thoughts. She sighted down on it as the HUD software blipped for half a second before slamming a bright red dot at center mass, identifying it as an enemy. Trix let the machinegun rip, massive slugs tearing forth from the barrel while the heat compensators gushed exhaust all along the shaft. The .70 Sharps were huge rounds and her own arm compensators were fully engaged to keep the weapon under control, despite it being firmly mounted to the nest. She watched her target disintegrate and whooped. Ida hit the brakes suddenly, causing Trix to slam to her left. "What the f-" A massive explosion in front of their technical cut off Trix's cursing question. She huddled down, hoping any debris would pass over. Remi's rifle began booming as soon as the vehicle stopped. Trix heard a nearby machinegun open up and looked up in time to see Tech-2 come roaring past them with only a couple meters to spare. Johnny was howling and bouncing around on top, his gun blasting long bursts into the trees. She grabbed her trigger, not about to let the Brits show them up. Her HUD showed a ton of new targets, all around the tree line, using the thick trunks as cover. They were snapping off return fire with a variety of ammunition. She saw standard kinetics, energy pulse and a few of the mortar-like launchers that they used to lob explosives. Targeting the nearest cluster of slopers, she depressed the trigger to immediate effect. Her HUD lit up with a directional marker, a cool feature of the technicals. Whenever Ida had time to notify them, they would get a warning of which direction she planned to turn. Trix moved with the vehicle as they bounced along, conserving her ammo per Remi's request. A team on the other side had lost their gunner and one technical was slagged rubble there too. Thor requested their buggy cover that side while the bird trans-matted the wounded fighters and vehicles. As they came abreast the huge command platform, its energy whips lit up. The bright white cables snapped against the tree line, each one lasting for about five seconds and hitting like the spray from a hose. The weapon was most effective when used in this whiplike fashion, earning it that moniker. Little bursts of light and a weird scraping sound issued from the trees where the beams hit. The target markers all along that line began pulsing, removed as immediate threats until they could be reassessed. Trix assumed they were bits and pieces at this point and focused her fire forward. The smoking wreckage of the damaged technical rose up before them. Trix cringed at the sight, blood covered metal twisted into weird shapes. It looked like they had taken an explosive round directly on and lost. She had a fleeting hope that the previous occupants had made it up to the hotdogs but she didn't have time to inquire. A large contingent of slumpers was ambling out of the trees on the northern side, blasting at the command APC nearest them. A burst of squawking issued over the comm-link and Trix paused her firing to switch channels so she could concentrate on their own situation. Ida's driving was tight and smooth, weaving them in and out of bad situations and lighting up Trix's HUD with updates at the same time. "Get closer, broadside them on my side. I'm getting the launcher ready," Remi shouted. "Will do," Ida confirmed, pinging their HUDs with maneuver updates. Trix held on, grabbing up an ammo box from the floor as they swept into a series of tight turns. When she came back up, she jerked the lever back on her gun, releasing the spent box. Slamming home the fresh box into the receiver of her machinegun, Trix began snapping short bursts at the new targets. A small energy beam slashed up at her, causing her to recoil. The weapon superheated part of her nest and hot metal began sliding down the outside of the vehicle. "Are you hit?" Remi screamed, his launcher burping audibly beneath her position. "No..." Trix replied shakily, watching the orange glow of the melting section of her protective bubble. "Don't get hit," Remi said, the words sounding more like a plea than an order. Ida careened along the enemy line, getting within a few meters at one point. All the while, Remi's launcher burped out at least ten rounds. He gave the order to her to speed off, then hit his dashboard console. Trix held on as the afternoon shattered. Huge explosions lit off one after another, cracking through the enemies. Debris and body parts began raining down around her, even as they sped back toward the main group. The APC had recovered some semblance of order as Trix switched back to the main comm-link channel and their machinegunner had begun firing in earnest. Another salvo of energy whips lit up the day like a supernova and Trix saw the little forest burning crazily. The enemy seemed to have either been cowed into retreat or had been fully eliminated. "Cease fire unless directly engaged," Thor issued. Trix listened as the human guns wound down across the loose line of vehicles. She didn't hear any weapon reports from where the slumps had appeared. When she closed her eyes, she still heard phantom explosions and gunfire, as well as a general ringing in her ears. Remi's smiling face popped up, his visor retracted. He grabbed her helmet and yanked her toward him, kissing her directly on the visor. Trix belatedly hit the control to slide it up into her helmet and grinned back at him. She lunged forward and kissed him heartily, her tongue thrusting deep. He broke away, breathless. "I'm glad you're ok." "I'm glad you're ok," she parrotted back at him. "I'm glad you are both ok," Ida said from below. "All units, resume formation. We're going to salvage what we can then keep moving." "Think anyone was hurt?" Trix asked. "I don't think we'll find out until later. I hope not," Remi replied as he sat back down. Ida gunned it and their buggy spun around to assume their previous position on the other side of the command vehicle. Trix watched from her perch as a team from the far APC set up a large, portable trans-mat field around the wreckage. The still smoldering metal disintegrated slowly, heading up to the engineering bay of the bird. She looked up as it went, shading her eyes from the sun's glare. The airship they were using was huge, easily as big as the command platform, but from a distance it appeared smaller. She had been up a few times. First for a brief tour of how the medical and storage space worked, and to get her body and gear coded into the material transmitter systems. The teams also took turns sleeping or just relaxing while off-shift, two at a time. It would be their turn again tomorrow night and Trix looked forward to trying to get Ida back into bed with herself and Remi. They had the scene cleaned up quickly and were ready to move in under fifteen minutes. Trix heard one of the medical staff come on the main comm and ask for two of the more intact slumper bodies to be sent up to them. Thor agreed that it was a good plan, only partial bodies had been recovered after the first drop. The slumps there had grudgingly withdrawn, taking most of their dead with them. It was an unfortunate situation for the humans. They needed to know more about their enemy, but the enemy was mostly silent and adept at not providing proper specimens for analysis. This engagement had yielded quite a few corpses, some very much intact. The doctors happily thanked the ground team when they received three of the slumper bodies and the convoy reassembled. Thor gave the order to resume their crawling pace and Trix settled back, letting her cushioned seat support her armored frame. The kilometers inched by as they passed the thickest part of the forest. There were still a few hours left until nightfall, but the command team wanted to move toward the mountains. After passing the trees, they cut across the scrubby plain. There were still plenty of hills, but now the tall grasses had given way to dirt and stone about half the time. Grass was stubby and less plentiful and it looked like it would be a lot harder to build or farm in this terrain. A couple of yetis broke out of the cover of one of the lone patches of trees and lumbered off. They seemed to only attack in force, even when the odds were still overwhelmingly against them. Technologically, they were far outclassed but didn't seem to realize it. Every yeti encounter so far had ended up with them scattering in retreat after half had been decimated by the team's weapons. Trix had felt bad at first, but eventually the animals had to learn. Plus, it's not like they are stopping to talk. She began inspecting the turret nest after about an hour of bouncy, slow driving. The energy rifle had cut a chunk out of the metal circle that protected the outer rim. The nest was like a semi-sphere with a chair in the middle that could rotate 360 degrees, machinegun going where the gunner pointed. Trix had felt relatively safe, even with half of her upper body exposed. Now that she saw the damage that had oozed into a little rivulet, she was admittedly more nervous. The fact that if she took a critical injury, she could quite possibly wind up dead, was finally settling in. Trying to shake it off, she looked up as the mountains rose before them. They were still kilometers away, but could definitely get closer by twilight. Thor would camp them with their backs to a sheer cliff if possible, something they did nearly every night. The bird would land next to the command vehicle and the technicals would assume a regular patrol. For the amount of credits they were getting, the job was pretty simple so far. Trix thought that at this rate, they would probably be done in 30 days. It had already been a little over a week so she figured they'd be able to head back to New Bernburg in a few more. She wasn't sure yet what Remi and Ida were going to want to do, but this wasn't a permanent thing for her. Camping out was fun for a while, but she already missed the conveniences of the Burg, despite it not even being as developed as a standard Earth city. Trix hoped she could convince them to join her back at the city and just deal with the consequences. She really doubted that once Ida told her story, the authorities would, or even could, do something negative about it. She went through the usual routine, helping lock down their technical for the night. They put in for repairs immediately at Remi's request, so the three would get to stand down and eat. Their shift would begin again in the early hours of the morning, but after the long day and violent afternoon, Trix was glad for the reprieve. Remi led them to the mess area, grabbing up a carafe of the strong tea that the cook brewed. It was a local leaf, caffeinated but not like a cup of coffee. Trix liked the natural sweetness and minty aftertaste and appreciated that the cook never seemed to run out. They sat down heavily at a bench, part of the deployed command vehicle. She had gotten so used to seeing the machinations of the thing that she hadn't even paid attention to it tonight. It was like a flower bud opening, slowly dropping heavy, metal supports which had various facilities attached to them. The center was a round, fortified bunker that was extended up into the air almost three stories. In the event of a night attack, something they had luckily avoided so far, the bunker could be used as a fire support and coordination area. The second, smaller sun was reaching the horizon line when Trix looked up from her meal. She found that food had become something that was greedily and swiftly eaten, instead of savored like it had been previously. It would probably adjust back with minimal issue though, she was already making a conscious effort to slow down her intake. Neither of her companions had spoken yet and Trix sat back, rubbing her belly and watching them. The mess area was surprisingly deserted, most of the mercenaries who had come by for food had left with it. She thought Remi looked amazing. Even shoveling food into his mouth, the post-combat look was sexy and appealing. He still had his armor on, but his hair was matted down and sweaty, face streaked with grime. She really liked the little beard he had grown, finding the roughness against her lips, both sets, quite appealing. He met her eyes and she smiled as his blue orbs trailed down her neck to her armored chest. She knew that her breasts weren't as impressive as some women's, but Remi seemed to really enjoy them. The last time they had been alone, he had spent long minutes teasing and licking, kneading her bare flesh and squeezing her nipples to hardness. She looked back, taking her time inspecting his features again. He had a strong face, lots of angles and straight lines. The stubbly beard he had grown softened it up a bit but Trix liked the hardness. He wasn't extremely tall, probably around six feet, well-built and cut. She knew that she was partial because of her feelings, but she was secretly proud every time she was able to introduce him as her boyfriend. "You think we're going to be on patrol tonight?" Ida asked, finished with her plate. "I'm expecting the order pretty soon, Thor will want the injured squads to be able to rest for the night at least. I bet we'll still get our rotation on the ship tomorrow though." Terra-33 Ep. 05 Trix sincerely hoped so, she needed a shower and a real bed. "If we don't, I get the soft cot tomorrow." "That's all in your head, all of the cots are hard," Remi said with a smile. "If I remember correctly, you had it last night." "Mine was just as hard as yours, don't worry." "When we get back to the Burg, you will be able to say that again!" Remi rolled his eyes theatrically, but he smiled. Trix knew she could convince him. "Wait," Trix's head snapped around to spear Ida with narrowed eyes. "Ida... Can you still control your parts?" "Do you mean my genitalia?" Ida asked, face and voice full of surprise. "Didn't you say that the reason you're self-aware was a code bug with the upgrade? So, you got the upgrade, right? Did Ada use it before you kicked her out?" Ida frowned a bit and Trix was suddenly worried that she had overstepped or that maybe she sounded too excited. After a moment, Ida looked up again and her frown had been replaced by a neutral expression. Trix raised an eyebrow. "It does still work. I hadn't thought to try that," Ida said slowly. Let me feel! Trix's jaw was clenched trying to resist letting the words loose. Ida frowned again at her expression and Trix didn't look at Remi. "Well, that's interesting," Trix said finally. "Good thing to know." Remi cleared his throat and Trix thought that he might be covering a snicker with the sound. Ida looked back and forth between them and Trix snuck a look at Remi who was grinning. He leaned his forearms on the table and stared at her. "Let's go get out of this armor and get a shower at least before you get too many ideas. I want to get cleaned up after the afternoon we've been through," he said. Trix grinned self-consciously, a little embarrassed that she had been so easy to see through. Ida seemed distracted and Trix was hoping that she was contemplating the new possibilities that her revelation had created. The command vehicle had been fully deployed at this point, so they stowed their dishes in the receptacle and headed around the huge machine. The mess area was opposite their assigned sleeping area, which was actually really nice. Trix had been enjoying the evening walks to their cramped quarters after a meal, something about the activity helping to clear her mind and settle her stomach. Not that the food was bad, it just wasn't quite the quality that she was used to. Her stomach had already been tight before taking this contact, but the last few days of physical activity and change in diet had hardened it up fully. Trix felt her muscles shifting under her priming suit and smiled to herself, liking the feeling. She had never had any extra weight to speak of but getting toned up like this was something she could get used to. She had noticed Remi spending more time rubbing and licking there too. Lights snapped on above her, making her look up suddenly. The command bunker had extended and its lights activated with the coming twilight. The phallic shape of the thing had her mind distracted as she followed after Remi and Ida. Trix ripped her helmet from her head as soon as they got close to the showers, her right hand sliding along her left forearm. The motion exposed a small panel which had various buttons and a very small readout. With a few keypresses, she had her armor trans-matting to her storage port on the bird. It used to be so much easier when you could just think it and it happened. It did serve to remind her daily that she was here in the flesh and not as a construct. She never sought out pain while in her construct, but knowing that at a certain threshold it would stop and she'd just wake up had been reassuring. The controls were pretty slick and the armor was highly functional, so there was no reason for any real complaints. Trix looked around and didn't notice any other mercenaries in the area, so she popped the tab on her priming suit and shimmied it off of her shoulders. She was only a couple meters from one of the showers and danced forward, spinning once she reached the security of the doorway. Her small hands ran up her torso boldly, cupping her breasts. Ida and Remi paused and Trix let her right handful go long enough to jab her finger at Ida. The construct smiled at her and stepped forward, dissipating her own armor. Remi snuffed and headed for the cylinder next to theirs. Ida glanced over at him before joining Trix, but didn't object to him showering alone. They normally did, for speed, but also because they had private quarters for other things. It was a little cramped in their cube and they had some awkward moments, usually when only one of them was with Remi and the other walked in. Remi had actually been the one to solve that issue, sitting down with both of them for a long talk which had lasted for most of the night. They had shared their feelings and compromised on a few things but Trix found that she was quite amicable to the idea of sharing him with Ida. Instead of trying to keep their sex a secret from the third party when they weren't all involved, they'd decided to just notify first. In this limited space situation, it had worked out quite nicely so far. Trix watched as Ida slipped out of her priming suit, letting the clinging fabric hang from a peg outside of the shower. She joined her quickly and Trix slipped the door shut and locked it. Ida was working with the controls, getting the water pumping and warm. They both shivered for a few seconds as a burst of cold water hit them before it warmed up properly. Trix had been excited to learn about this feature of the command vehicle. The thing needed to stop every now and then to take on more water, but it had a little treatment facility in the depths of the machine which provided fresh water for more than just drinking. She sighed as the beads struck her hair and skin, the blue strands getting darker as they fell into her face. Trix had started wearing a ponytail most of the time to keep it contained under the helmet and when they were done for the night, would just tear it out and let her hair hang free. Ida kept her back to her, taking her time to lather her face and breasts without being directly under the flow. Trix languished in the warmth, not pressuring Ida to swap positions so she could wash. Soon enough, Ida turned and met her eyes. They were of a height when naked and Ida's shining green irises looked quite pretty through the water. Trix was hoping that she would be able to go back to her original coloring once they got back to the city, but for now, she was enjoying the green eyes and light hair. Ida boldly stepped forward, pressing her nipples into Trix's skin. Surprised, Trix wrapped her hands around Ida's waist for support. Ida's mouth found her neck and the woman, well, construct technically... grazed her shoulder with teeth. Shivering at the touch, Trix pressed closer, letting her hands drop to cup either side of the construct's firm ass. "I thought I was going to have to seduce you," she breathed. "Did you? I had assumed that you wanted to feel this," Ida responded. Trix's eyes widened as she felt Ida's erection suddenly. When she had entered the shower, Ida had definitely been female. She knew she shouldn't be surprised, but the shock of embracing two warm breasts and a very curvy body, then feeling a hard rod of flesh pressing between her legs was shocking. Trix backed away and held Ida at arm's length, looking down through the curtain of water to inspect her. The new member was distinctly masculine, but the lack of testicles was an interesting contrast. "We haven't really had any time together, alone..." Ida started. "I didn't know you wanted to, without Remi." "If we're going to make this work, I think we need to care about each other. What I feel for Remi is exciting and new to me, and I like you too. I want to be with him, and you, if you want me," Ida said, her look imploring. It was the most human sounding thing Ida had said since Trix had met her. She couldn't help smiling and leaning in for a quick kiss. Ida returned it urgently, her soft lips warm and inviting. Without a word, Trix broke the contact and slid down her body. When she was in range, Trix opened her mouth and took in the head of Ida's hard dick. She flattened her tongue and used it to rub the underside of the head. Ida shook and gripped her shoulders. Encouraged, Trix went further, grabbing a handful of Ida's ass to help plunge her thickness deeper. When she felt the head strike the back of her mouth, Trix moaned and sucked, pulling back halfway. Her tongue worked the underside, eliciting groans of pleasure from the construct. Her index finger teased along Ida's ass, rubbing in small circles around her opening. "Wait, I don't know how much I can handle," Ida said throatily. "Mmm," Trix let the shaft bounce free of her lips. "What do you want to do?" "We need to get you clean," Ida said, looking down at her with a sexy, domineering gaze. "Then, I'm going to have a talk with Remi." "Oh?" "Then, we're going to take you from either side. I want to test this out properly." "Oh..." Trix said, popping back to her feet. "I like that Ida-ea." Ida giggled happily at the pun, making Trix smile, her teeth flashing. "Let's get soaping!" Terra-33 Ep. 06 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. ***** Terra-33 Episode 0.6 "What's the word?" "Our buggie is down for another few hours while they repair the nest," Remi said with a wink. "So, we have some downtime..." "Why the big smile?" Trix asked, cocking her hips and raising an eyebrow. She had a pretty good guess as to what was making Remi grin, but it was still fun to feign ignorance. "Ida had a little talk with me." "Oh, I'm sure you'll fill me in sometime," Trix said, unable to resist the setup. "Sometime soon, I hope. Ida mentioned you'd be interested in some group activities tonight and that I should lead you to our cozy quarters whenever you're ready," Remi smiled, clearly enjoying the situation. Trix held out her hand in response, not bothering to reply. She had stayed in the shower for a while after Ida stepped out to talk to Remi. Afterward, she donned her priming suit which covered her from ankle to wrists to neck like a second skin. They had special shoes that went with their feet armor which were little more than a thin layer of material that went over each toe, the bottom with a little tread. She liked the feel of them, able to walk almost barefoot when not in her armor. Remi was quiet, holding her hand for the short walk to the their quarters. The night was already getting dark now that the suns had sunk beneath the horizon. Terra was quiet at night, outside of the city. Trix looked off to the mountains and watched the darkness creep over the peaks, slowly killing their color. By the time they were near the ramp, the purples and blues had been replaced by black and shades of gray. Terra-33 had a moon very similar to Earth's, but the illumination provided by the sun's reflection seemed to be dampened somehow. Trix noticed that effect now as the brightly lit campsite contrasted with the lurking night surrounding it. She wondered how much of it was the glare tricking her eyes but it couldn't displace the feeling of quiet malevolence that seemed to creep over her. Even after over a week in the untamed wilderness, nighttime caused a visceral reaction in her. It made her glad for the low-light optics built into her visor, not that it helped her now when she was without. When Remi gave her a gentle push, she realized that she was hanging on the edge of the ramp, staring out into the darkness. She had revealed her fears to Ida and Remi, who had each had similar experiences with different personal reactions. Ida had been frustratingly scientific about it, rationally providing facts on the surface reflection properties of Terra's moon. Apparently, even with two suns, this moon reflected less than 8% of that light. Trix had been subjected to an unrequested lesson and now knew that Earth's moon reflected only about 12-13% of Sol's light, even when full. Remi had grunted and asked Ida if she downloaded an electronic encyclopedia. She told him that she had done just that and Trix had lunged across the small room to prevent further lectures. Her groping and fumbling in their cramped quarters had led to the second occasion where all three of them had participated and the memory made her shiver. She preceded Remi up the ramp and down the small hallway to their door. Not bothering to knock or check the lock, Trix pushed down on the handle and swung the door out. Remi was forced to try to lean past the edge of the door and her shoulder to get a look inside when Trix didn't immediately enter. The reason for Trix's pause was reclining against the wall opposite the door. Ida was covered in diaphanous fabric that clung to certain areas of her body while wisps of it stirred in the air displaced by the opening of the door. Her lips were parted and Trix could see her hooded eyes, an uncharacteristically wanton lust floating in them. The black tendrils of fabric contrasted with her new, paler skin. Trix saw her left nipple and half of that breast as her gaze traveled lower. It came to rest on the bulging object between her legs. Ida held it clutched in her hand, her slender fingers rubbing languidly along the shaft. Trix stepped into the room when she felt Remi push on her lower back once again. She felt him enter behind her and heard the door click shut and the manual lock-bar fall into place. "Come here," Ida commanded. This time Trix didn't need Remi to push her. "Touch me," the construct said, her voice firm and authoritative. Trix did. As soon as her palm touched the head of Ida's dick, she moaned and leaned forward. Remi was fumbling with the fastening on her one-piece suit and Ida moved to help him, grabbing a handful of Trix's breast as soon as the fabric had cleared her shoulder. Trix's eyes closed and she lost herself in the sensations for a moment. Her right hand was exploring Ida's rigid erection while Ida played with her left nipple and abdomen. She felt Remi sliding the suit down to her knees, his fingers following it while his tongue stopped at her ass. His long, slow lick along her spine had been more than enough to make Trix clench her cheeks and she felt his tongue run along the hard flesh, then down, licking the crevasse between her thigh until he reached her hip. Without speaking, Ida pulled her closer. Trix followed lazily, still a bit stunned by the situation. She had been anticipating something like this but the reality of it was entirely different than any speculation. Remi's strong palms struck her shoulders and she groaned as his fingers wrapped around, rubbing her deeply. His thumbs dug into her back as she stepped onto the bed. Trix looked down and saw that they had shoved two of the cots together to form one decent sized little nest. It looked like they had piled the other mattress over the two in order to get rid of the gap. Dismissing the random observation, she let Ida guide her onto her dick. She had let go with her hand at some point, but Ida kept her own grip on the base, angling the head to strike right at Trix's opening. She wasn't fully wet because of the abruptness of the situation, but she ground her slit against the bulging head, opening herself as well as providing some lubricant for entry. When Ida was finally able to get inside, she buried herself halfway immediately until the lack of fluid stopped them. They both moaned at the sudden insertion and Trix took the lead, rising up and down in a rocking motion to get more of it inside. Remi was still massaging her and the effect was relaxing, which was probably his intent. When she slammed down on the warm dick fully, Trix giggled as her breasts pressed against Ida's. She moved her upper body back and forth to feel her nipples glide along the exposed skin with its flimsy covering. Ida's bright green eyes were full of lust when Trix looked up at her but there was a trace of a smile was on her lips. Trix thought that her lips looked pretty and that it would be a good idea to taste them. While they kissed, instead of going hard, Trix just moved slowly against Ida's hips. She let her knees grip Ida's outer thighs and the construct thrust up a little when her legs came together. With a gasp, Trix felt Remi's tongue again, this time between her ass cheeks, which must have become quite a tempting sight in her current position. She felt Ida's shaft graze her clit as it worked deep inside of her and shook a bit when Remi's tongue penetrated from the other side. His hands had moved to her hips, thighs and stomach, gliding and pressing and squeezing. He pushed his tongue in and out for a few seconds while Trix grinded Ida then she felt him move away. She lost herself in the motion again, watching Ida's large breasts droop a bit as she slouched. Reaching out, Trix had just gotten a handful of the partially exposed left side when she felt Remi return. "Ohmygod!" At least one of his fingers was inside of her ass to the second knuckle. "Too much? I thought the lube would be nice..." "Just, unexpected," Trix panted, trying not to dislodge the finger with her motion. She felt Remi's tongue on her lower back this time as his finger moved in time with her. Ida seemed content to lay back now and was cocked at an awkward-looking angle but Trix didn't want to move back right now and risk surprising Remi. This was a first time for her and already the pressure of two things in either of her holes was a little overwhelming. She gasped and closed her eyes when he moved his finger back, then inserted another with it. He had definitely applied some kind of lube to his fingers and they slid easily into her once she relaxed enough to let them. Remi didn't rush it, letting her control the pace. Ida's shaft was rubbing just right on her clit from this angle and the construct was doing most of the work at this point, pressing herself up at a steady rhythm. Trix sighed and pushed back on Remi's fingers. When he removed his fingers, Trix thought she knew what was coming next and tried to prepare. With Ida's shaft stretching her pussy and Remi's pushing at her back hole, there wasn't much she could do but relax and let them do the work. The head of Remi's dick felt huge as it penetrated her slowly, stopping just inside. He worked it back and forth, adding a little more at a time while Ida stayed fully embedded. Ida was leaning even farther over to watch Remi behind Trix and it appeared that she had forgotten to thrust. When she felt like she could handle it, Trix surprised them both by slamming her body backward, impaling Remi's dick completely and causing Ida's to lodge right along the front of her opening. She groaned at the simultaneous sensations, her clit pulsing with every small motion of Ida's shaft. Trix saw Ida exchange a look and a smile with Remi and she couldn't see his response, but she felt it immediately. His hands were on her hips and he gripped hard, pulling himself back before pushing deep again, gaining a rhythm. Ida slid down more and Trix felt her begin to fuck as well, both of them penetrating her fully in unison. The combined sensations were almost too much for her to handle and she collapsed on Ida's chest, breathing heavily into the side of her neck. They continued their rhythmic thrusting while Trix bounced against Ida like a ragdoll. As she licked Ida's neck occasionally, she began to see the signs that the construct was struggling not to orgasm. Being as full as she was, Trix was distracted from her own orgasm and thought that it might help to make Ida come and soften up a bit. Her lips moved up to Ida's ear but she was only able to moan when Remi slammed particularly hard into her ass. When she recovered, she licked around Ida's earlobe. "Ida, I want you, to come, inside of me," Trix said, her words staccato with the rhythm of their sex. "I can?" Ida asked, seemingly surprised. "Do it," Trix commanded. With that, Ida closed her eyes and Trix watched her face from the side as she let the sensations build. In a few seconds, Ida gripped her waist above Remi's hands and thrust deep, screaming incoherently. Trix shook with the friction and when Ida fell back to the bed, she stayed on top of her. Ida's shaft was softening and Trix already felt like she may be able to come soon herself. Her fingers shot between their legs and she used her index and middle fingers to massage her clit, occasionally feeling Ida's shaft still partially inside of her. When it finally slipped free completely, Trix gasped and frantically rubbed herself as she felt Ida's fluid leaking onto her fingers. In moments, she was coming. It was immediate and euphoric, her body gripped by an uncontrollable surge that clenched all of her muscles. She heard Remi's quickening breathing somewhere in her subconscious and felt him bury himself again but she was still shaking through another wave of satisfaction. Trix heard someone screaming in pleasure and as the last of the powerful orgasm subsided, she realized it was her. She shut her mouth with a little click, slightly embarrassed at the level of noise she had been making. Remi was not thrusting, just slowly falling out of her. When he did, Trix let her hips fall back to the bed and rolled off of Ida. She saw Remi standing there, cock dripping, with an expression of stunned contentment. While it hadn't been his first time inside of her ass, it looked like this had been the best. "Are you well, Engineer Remi?" Ida asked coyly, amusement in her tone. Remi frowned in reply and seemed to become aware, his eyes briefly searching out Ida on the bed. "Hmm," he replied. Trix and Ida watched as he turned slowly and went to their small sink. He washed quickly then returned to the double cot, collapsing in the middle of them. Trix scrambled out of his way as he went face first onto the bed with his arms outspread. He caught her shoulder and pulled her back down. The three of them pushed and shifted until they were reasonably comfortable and Trix smiled happily, even though she had been pushed into the wall. "I'm not normally one to deny a cuddle with such hot companions," Trix began, letting the words hang in the air. "But I'm going to need a shower before we sleep. And some food, maybe lots of food..." "Bring me some," Remi mumbled into the mattress. "Do you need assistance?" Ida said, her diction precise even if her tone was dreamy. "No, you two sleep. I'll be back before you know it and stealing your blankets!" Trix ran over to the small sink and cleaned up a little. She dressed quickly and stepped into the hallway, shutting the smooth, metal door behind her. Trix leaned against it, sighing and soaking in the physical bliss that her body was floating in. She felt like she had been working out but in the best way possible. Both of her holes felt a little stretched and were tingling, making her shiver with remembered pleasure. Her eyes were closed and she knew that she had a ridiculous smile plastered on her face. Not that she cared, no one would be around anyway and if they were, why should they think poorly of her for being happy? With a final, longing thought for the throbbing between her legs, Trix kicked off the door and walked down the little hallway toward the exit. The command vehicle had two personnel quarters, both identical and at right angles to each other. Each room was only a few square meters, enough room for cots, a few personal grooming items and a mirror. They were in a big, rectangular box with shiny hallways of helot or coated steel, she wasn't sure. The whole thing was armored on the outside and very basic in design, no variation or aesthetic considerations were apparent. Trix didn't mind it too much for now but each time they got to bunk on the bird, she was thrilled. The anticipation of a soft bed with clean sheets and some space around her was very appealing. The beds were big enough for all three of them to relax easily without having to jam two together like they'd done tonight. Fantasizing about their scheduled downtime tomorrow night, Trix walked out of the hall and down the ramp. She was glad to have a fresh priming suit on, but wanted to keep it that way and knew she needed to take another shower. Plus, all that activity had worked up her appetite and the mess area was nearby. The cook left various dried and preserved foods for anyone to access and there were packaged snacks, sandwiches and the like in a refrigerator. The thought of taking her time to select just the right snack, in the right combination and proportions made her stomach growl. She approached the nearby shower area and slipped into one, not noticing any other people nearby. Still, she got fully inside before reaching her arm through the door to hang her priming suit outside the cylinder. Taking her time for the second time of the night, she lathered up and washed all over. Her thoughts bounced around, finally settling on the unpleasant fact that her period would be coming soon. Even with modern birth control reducing the experience to only a couple of days, it was still an annoying thing to deal with. Especially in the middle of a pseudo military operation. The showers had a warm air-drying option if you didn't want to go the towel route and when she was done, she let it blast her body. Snaking her arm out of the door again, she dressed quickly and brushed her fingers through her hair. Trix wondered what Remi and Ida were talking about right now as she walked to the mess area. They had both seemed tired, but she knew from previous experience that Remi would talk if she did at night. It was a fun, nostalgic thing that reminded her a bit of camp as a kid. The lights would go out and they would share stories which wouldn't be spoken of in the morning. Not that they were all bad, it just seemed that the things they shared had a bit of a secret quality. Trix also thought that Remi was more open and honest when it was dark. She could tell that he kept some memories of his past from her and Ida, but he did seem to open up a lot and had even talked about the things he'd done in the last few years. She mused about it while assembling a plate of fresh pear slices, half a cold sandwich, a little box of crackers and a brownie-like dessert item that Harris called a mudball. He was pretty eccentric, although she hadn't known many cooks and thought that maybe it was a common trait. There were a few scattered late-night snackers, but no one she knew very well. She opted to sit on her own, her back to the support beam and wall so she could see who came and went. Johnny and his counterparts from the other technical filtered in after a while, the married couple grabbing food and heading out immediately. She thought their names were Isaac and Kara but wasn't sure. Johnny saw her and smiled, looking for a second like he was going to come over before shrugging and making a sleeping pantomime. Trix waved and he left with his team. As he was clearing the ramp, Trix saw Thor's bald head bob into view. The mess area was attached to one of the support beams, like most of the command vehicle's facilities. It was raised off the ground but open to the night on the sides, with a ramp for access. All of the food was sealed up but you could enjoy the night from the benches and stools. It seemed like he locked onto her immediately, cutting through the small crowd to focus on her. She hunched over a bit unconsciously, not liking the way his eyes glittered when he saw that she was alone. It was the first time that had happened since they started traveling. He was a few inches taller than Remi, probably 6'3" or 6'4". Oh, right, metric... almost two meters then? Trix thought. She was still getting used to the conversion, having grown up using American Standard even though her parents were first-generation German immigrants. He walked up to her without getting any food, taking the seat next to her instead of across. His forearms were corded with muscle and exposed by his short sleeved, tight-fitting shirt. The black hair was distracting to her and she stared at his hand as it touched her own forearm. She tensed and felt her legs coil, ready to spring up and sprint out of the now cramped mess area. Thor's hand clenched down and she knew he was looking at her but she didn't want to meet his eyes. When she tried to stand, he forced her back down with a hard squeeze as his elbow dropped, causing her to moan with discomfort and sit. Terra-33 Ep. 06 "You've been avoiding me," he rumbled. When she stayed silent, he continued. "I just can't seem to figure out why. I'm a nice guy, right?" "Super nice," Trix deadpanned. "That's why you're bruising my arm." He sniffed and let go, gripping her shoulder instead. The pressure he exerted made her look at him finally. His eyes were hard and Trix could see the predator in them. When he had come over to chat them up back in the Burg, she had sensed it. Since then, she'd kept her distance and always been around Remi or Ida. Their recent activities had distracted her from that completely though and now she needed to find a way to escape. He stroked his beard, apparently content to stare at her and wait for her to speak again. "What do you want?" she asked with as much coldness as she could muster. "Plenty of things. World peace, bunnies, unlimited credits." "What do you want with me?" He smiled his shark smile, teeth bright against his black mustache and beard. "I'm sure you can figure that out... For now, I just want to talk. Get to know you a bit, that kind of thing." "I don't have time for that, sorry! Got to get lots of sleep so we can take our patrol shift this morning," Trix responded, trying to stand again. His hand on her shoulder was enough to keep her from going too far. Sighing, she sank back onto the stool. "I've got that covered, don't worry. You guys deserve a night off after the job you did this afternoon. I was really impressed by your effectiveness, Remi's too. Hell, the whole lot of you are my best technical team already." "That makes sense, we're good at what we do," she agreed slowly, unsure about Thor's new conversational path. "How long have you known each other? Must be a pretty tight unit to work so well together..." "Long enough," Trix replied guardedly. She was getting more and more uncomfortable with the situation, even if he hadn't really said anything overtly threatening. Just keeping her seated was enough to put her on edge. The way he looked at her right after both of those times had given her a lot of insight too. The hard gleam in his eyes had been brighter, gleeful while he exercised his physical power over her. It looked like he'd just been doing push ups too, his muscles bulging on his chest and shoulders. "I did some looking into Remi, with the comm-link to Trajectory HQ. They've got full access to the New Bernburg network, did you know that? Pretty fancy stuff, really good search features." Trix shrugged in a sarcastic way, her eyebrows asking him why she should care. Thor glared at her for a second and looked like he would try to touch her again, but kept his arm on the table, where he had dropped it after forcing her down the second time. "Turns out, he's wanted by the local dicks for questioning. Something about a construct going missing and being the last person to have contact with it. The investigators didn't post a reward so it looks like nobody is all that concerned about it. I would hate for T-Up to find out though, they might want to hand him over," he said the last while looking at her neck, his voice low and menacing. The back of his hand brushed her hair over her shoulder, making Trix shudder a little. She didn't want to show any weakness, but his physical looming was getting to her. She hated being in weak positions like this, without weapons or advantage. "I bet you can keep that to yourself," she said, defiance in her voice if not her body. "Oh, sure. I can do that, no problem," his hand gripped the back of her neck, pulling her face close to his. "I don't work for free though. Keeping things from my employer... I don't know how well that sits with me without proper -" he interrupted himself by running his bottom teeth and the tip of his tongue up her neck. "Compensation," he finished, breathing the word into her ear. "Fuck you, Thor," Trix said, inflecting the name like an insult. "You wouldn't know what to do with a girl anyway, you look like a real cock man. I bet that you could show me a thing or -" Pain exploded in her head. Trix's vision swam, her tray fuzzing into two separate images as she looked down at the table in front of her. She still felt Thor's hand on her neck, pressing against the skin firmly but not enough to hurt. She thought that he had jerked her head back into the wall behind them but couldn't be sure right now, still reeling from the shock of agony. "I can show you a thing or two, bitch," he growled. "Just wait. I'll let you know when I want to talk about our little arrangement." With that, he stood abruptly and released her. Trix breathed a huge lungful in and tried to settle her vision on him. Pissed now that the pain was fading, she shot to her feet and speared a finger at him. "Better be careful, motherfucker! I'll be waiting, and I really like guns and sharp things," Trix snarled at his scowling face. Her hand had found the knife on her tray, not a combat weapon but enough to slice and stab. "You've got a big mouth for such a skinny slut," he said, making a move like he would step toward her. Trix dropped into a combat crouch and fisted the knife in an icepick grip. He stopped short and turned from her. "Can you believe she thinks she could take me?" he asked loudly, looking around at the few mercenaries still eating. Until now, he had kept his voice low and Trix hadn't noticed anyone staring. "I've got more important things to do than scuffle with a scrawny, blue-haired merc with something to prove." There were a few laughs but no one spoke up. Thor turned and walked down the ramp. As he left, Trix realized he hadn't gotten food before or after accosting her. He must have been watching her, waiting for a time to catch her without her companions. Her angry eyes snapped from person to person, causing them each to look away with the force of her emotions. The knife went up her suit's sleeve without a conscious thought. Trix followed him out into the night, the metal canopy falling away to cool night sky as she went down the ramp. She stayed at a safe distance, keeping his back in her vision. When he went into the command section without as much as a look over his shoulder, her rage came screaming up again. "Fucker!" she shouted, slamming the meat of her fist into the side of the metal support to her left. Immediately she knew it was a mistake, the pain in her hand even worse than her recent head trauma. Trix fell to a crouch, cradling her hand to her breasts, careful not to cut her other forearm with the hidden knife. Shit, shit, shit, what am I going to do? "Hey," a female voice said quietly behind her. Trix spun, the awkward movement causing her to drop one knee to the grass. "I'm Carol," a slender blonde woman said, standing a few feet back from her. "The medic?" She had met the two doctors briefly when they'd tested the hotdogs. "That's right," Carol said, extending her hand. "Let me help you up." Trix put her right hand out, hoping she wouldn't need to use the knife up her sleeve. Just one interaction with Thor alone had her back in paranoia mode, suspecting even this innocent-looking doctor of collusion. Carol helped her to her feet, her eyes taking in Trix's disheveled state. She knew that she probably looked like crap, having suffered a few painful injuries to her body as well as her pride. "Beatrix Unterbrink, correct?" "Why do you know my name?" "I pulled your file from UEC," the woman responded, maddeningly calm. "Why?" Trix pressed, annoyed at the half-answer. "I suspected something like this was going to happen." "Like what?" "You ask a lot of questions, you know?" Carol responded with exasperation. "Come on, we can't talk here for long." "Depends on where we're going," Trix said slowly. "The bird, I need to scan your hand to see if you've broken anything." "I'm fine," Trix said. "But ok, I will go with you. I need to stop at my pod first though." Instead of responding, the medic turned and pulled her toward the landed plane. After a few steps, she dropped Trix's hand and led the way. The huge bird loomed swiftly, grounded fairly close to the command vehicle and APCs. Trix looked over her shoulder one last time as they stepped onto a deployed staircase. Thor was nowhere to be seen, nor were any other humans. She heard an engine revving in the night and was glad that at least they wouldn't have to go on patrol. The night itself was hard and dark, almost a physical presence assembling on the edges of the mercenary camp where the light was faintest. Trix shivered and turned back to the open door of the ship and the concerned face of Carol the medic who was extending her hand again from the top of the staircase. "Coming." Terra-33 Ep. 07 Copyright 2015 © Objurgation All content created by Objurgation and used fictitiously. All characters, companies and places are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or business entities, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Objurgation. ***** Terra-33 Episode 0.7 "What did you think was gonna happen?" Trix asked the medic after they reached the exam room which contained six of the Med-eVac hot dogs. She was currently perched on top of one, the step at the base of the unit making for a nice footrest. The comfortable weight of a gun belt around her waist with a pistol on one side and a couple of reloads on the other made her feel much more physically secure. She had forced Carol to stop by the lockers, refusing to go with her without arming herself from her storage cube. "That Thor would find a new target." "That is one of his jobs, finding targets..." Trix decided to play dumb for now. "You know what I mean," Carol said, flipping her hand in an exasperated gesture. Trix raised her eyebrows and shrugged, wanting to see where Carol would go next. "You," Carol said the word explosively. "You are his new target. He wants to hurt you, probably rape you, but he wants you in pain. That's what he likes, I think, girls in pain." Trix watched the doctor shiver almost imperceptibly, but it was there. Carol turned away from her and began pacing. Trix wasn't sure what to say, so she just stayed quiet, watching and waiting. It was obvious that Carol had something to get off her chest. Her hand was throbbing but she didn't want to bring that up just now. "Thor... 'Fucker' is an apt descriptor," Carol was still pacing and gave another fling of her arm. "But he's the boss here, his words hold a lot of sway with the Earth mercs. He uses that to get to you, knows that you won't find any sympathy there..." Trix thought she knew what was going to come next. Carol looked a lot like her, very slender and almost fragile. Trix knew she was tough and strong for her size but she also knew her physical limitations. Carol's hair was blonde and short and she was darker in color but there was a general resemblance. The woman finally stopped pacing and looked up at her before speaking. Her eyes were hard and Trix saw pain warring with determination. "Until you showed up, I was his target," Carol revealed, confirming Trix's suspicions. "I appreciate being delivered from his attentions but I don't want you to be hurt by him. Beatrix, we need to come up with a plan here." "First, don't call me that," Trix said quickly. Carol waited for a moment then leaned forward and shrugged, shaking her head in confusion. "What should I call you then?" "I was hoping you'd ask!" Trix jumped down from her perch. "I'm Trix." Carol shook her hand slowly, still a little put out with her behavior. Trix knew she was annoying the doctor and probably shouldn't because the woman obviously cared enough about her to approach her with this. It was hard to resist though. "What kind of plan did you have in mind?" "I poisoned him," Carol let the words hang for a moment. "It was a while ago now. That's one reason he leaves me alone, mostly." "Let's just do that again, then no more problem," Trix thought about what she had just said. "Wait, why is Thor still alive if you poisoned him?" "It wasn't a fatal dose, enough to put him down long enough to get him in my exam room. When he was on that bed," Carol pointed, "and very out of sorts, I threatened him with a scalpel. In a very specific place." "He's scared of you then? Why does he let you stay?" "I'm the best field surgeon on Terra-33." "And so modest," Trix grinned at the doctor's expression. "Statistically speaking, there is no better field surgeon." "I didn't argue the point..." Carol sighed, exasperated again. Trix was thinking that it must be a regular emotional state for her. "He hasn't tried to rape me again, but I think it would hurt his pride too much to just fire me. Also, Philip would protest and possibly quit. Then he'd be without a medical staff." "Why do you stay?" "The money. Someone I care very much about is very sick. The treatment is expensive and this is one of the best paying jobs in the medical field without highly specialized training." "I thought all doctors made tons of creds wherever they were," Trix said suspiciously. Carol laughed abruptly, then realized that her patient was serious. "No, they don't. Hazard pay for being on a colony alone adds percentages. Then there is the fact that I'm attached to a combat team which adds more. You get the idea. Give me your hand." Trix extended her arm and let the doctor grasp her palm and rub along the bones of her hand with her thumb. She paused for a while at the small finger and wrist, feeling around more carefully when Trix winced. Carol rummaged around in a cabinet and removed a syringe, filling it from a little vial. "What is that?" "Corticosteroid and a local anesthetic, want to see?" Carol held out the vial which Trix took and read the unknown medications listed. "It will reduce the pain and swelling and provide a little pain relief tonight. You didn't break anything but your hand is going to become hard to use for a few days without treatment." Trix handed back the vial and presented her left hand again, closing her eyes as the needle came arcing down. The puncture was brief and mostly painless and when she opened her eyes again, Carol was dropping the needle from the syringe into a container. "What are we going to do about Thor?" the doctor asked without turning. "I wasn't going to do anything for now. I'm going to stick to Remi and Ida so he can never corner me alone like that again. If he tries something, I'm just gonna shoot him in the dick," Trix removed her pistol from the holster and brandished it for effect. "With this." "That won't work, most likely." "What do you know about guns?" "I know that it has a remote trigger lock," Carol indicated the Safe-T logo on the small addition to Trix's backup weapon. "You think he won't turn your guns off before he tries something?" "There's a manual override," Trix said doubtfully. Carol just raised her eyebrows in response and turned back to her cabinets. As Trix looked down at the gun, wondering if Thor had somehow sabotaged the weapon fully, Carol came back with a little scanner. She began running it up and down Trix's body, pausing here and there while looking at a display on her side of the unit. Trix waited semi-patiently, tapping her foot against the floor. When Carol paused at the crotch of her priming suit and raised an eyebrow, Trix just smiled, wondering how much the doctor knew. "You seem alright except for the hand. There is some tissue bruising here and there but nothing serious. Do you know how to operate one of these?" Carol asked as she handed Trix a silver cylinder about the size of her index finger. She stared at the tube for a moment, seeing a hinged cap and a button on the other end. "Nope, never seen one of these." "If you need to, flip the cap away. There is a flat surface which you will press against the target. Try for full contact with flesh, an area like the arm or leg is best. Depress the button there once contact is made and a spray will inject the target. It works very quickly, entering through the pores and penetrating the bloodstream. In a few heartbeats, he will be asleep for at least an hour." "He being Thor?" "I can't think of any other target here, can you?" Carol snapped. "No, none of the other mercenaries seem to be interested," Trix said with a wistful sigh. The doctor frowned at her and motioned for the door. "Hey doc, what is your last name? Don't you MD types like to go by doctor so-and-so?" "Dr. Myers." "Ok, Carol, thanks for the meds," Trix said, hefting the spray injector in her much more comfortable left hand. The syringe that the doctor had shot her up with was already making her feel a lot better. "See ya!" Trix didn't let the slim doctor get another word in, but skipped out of the room and down the main passage of the ship. A few people glanced her way but most of the mercenaries were asleep and the ones who weren't didn't seem interested in talking to her. She sprinted across the scrubby grass, dodging the occasional sharp-looking rock. In her right hand was the pistol in its holster and in her left was the injector. Her head snapped back and forth but she hadn't seen another person by the time she reached their quarters. Slipping in, she barred the door again and snuggled into bed next to Remi. He and Ida both groaned and shifted but neither woke. As soon as she laid down and got comfortable, Trix realized she needed to pee. § The next day, under the bright glare of the dual suns, Trix felt much more secure in herself and the world. The uneasy feeling that came over her the previous night had faded and meeting a new friend helped. The spray injector that she had tucked into a waist pouch of her armor also made her feel secure. Even if Thor was able to remotely disable her triggers, she would be armed and would have Remi and Ida as well. The mercenaries were deployed in a long line, led by buggies with one of the large command APCs on either side of the headquarters vehicle. Thor assumed that if the slumpers attacked, they would be better served to be well spread instead of clustered. The order had come down early in the morning and Trix had been happy to jump up into the machinegun nest and hunker down to sleep more. Even with the rough ground, Ida's driving skills allowed her to sleep with only the occasional jolting scare. Now that it was mid-morning and they'd been rolling for a couple of hours, she was alert and munching on some travel rations Remi handed up through the hole in the roof of the buggy. She could barely make out the command vehicle in the dust of their passage, far behind them. "Did you get enough sleep last night?" Remi asked. He had looked her over a few times since they decamped and Trix suspected that he suspected something. "Maybe," she said cautiously. "I had a lot on my mind, plus, I was pretty sore..." Remi smiled broadly in response, turning away to tap at his little console. Trix made a game of spotting the occasional tree in the scrubland. Now that they had passed the last forested area, the land was a uniform yellowish-brown color. The rare trees looks fairly unhealthy. Jagged cliffs were even more prevalent now that there was nothing to break up the landscape. They rose against the horizon line to the west, menacing the vehicles a little more with each kilometer. "Water soon," Remi observed. Trix looked down over his shoulder and saw that he had a map on display over most of the screen. "There," Ida said, pointing her left hand to the east. Trix looked over the top of the buggy and saw a huge expanse of blue just beginning on the horizon. Geologists had suggested that the desert and the ocean that bordered it shifted regularly based on time-lapse studies they had performed with the current data. As they neared the large equator, the command vehicle would be actively mapping the terrain for the cartographers, geologists and myriad other environmental scientists. Trajectory^Up's mission plan was to travel south until they reached impassible ocean then parallel the mountains as they returned north in search of a defensible site with arable land. Once found, the team's engineer and mechanic would assemble the command vehicle's artillery into stationary units set into the cliffs. Once the site was secure, the team would return and escort volunteer pioneers back to the new city. That was the plan at least. "It looks like a lot of water," Trix commented absently, half distracted by her own daydreams of injecting Thor with doctor-prescribed roofies and kicking him, a lot. "Yes, I think we may be turning back faster than anyone anticipated." "Ida, break off and move southeast, 45 degrees from current heading," Remi said, inputting trajectory commands into his map. The whole thing was linked between all of the vehicles in the convoy and they'd been given free reign for the time being. It didn't take long for them to reach the coast, and Trix could see that it was in fact a coast, not the edge of a lake. In the distance, blue water faded all the way to the shimmering horizon. She had noticed the air temperature rising in the upper left of her HUD but hadn't really paid attention. Their armor had internal cooling and warming mechanisms and would keep a human body at a tolerable temperature for days if the systems weren't damaged. It was a little disconcerting to be walking around with flammable lithium-ion batteries in various places throughout the armor, but the benefits far outweighed the risks. The suits had been tested and retested, armor reinforced in places where it was needed, and overall, state-of-the-art combat gear would hold up far longer than the body inside of it. You could be dead five times over before a battery burst its fuel cell and lit you on fire. Not as reassuring when you think about it that way, Trix mused. "It looks like there's nothing but ocean as far south as we can see," Remi said thoughtfully as Ida tracked along the coastline. "Aerial, what's it look like from up there?" Trix perked up, curious if they had finally reached the turning point. "Same as you can see, no land for miles, if at all, before the landmass south of the equator. There are some odd rock formations that run straight down into the water. They don't look natural." "Tech-8, this is Isaac in APC-2, come alongside while we reposition." "Aerial is deploying automated scouts," the co-pilot's deep voice cut into the comm. "All ground units, close formation," Thor growled, "Headings uploaded, we're going to get closer to the mountains for the return trip." "Faster than I expected," Trix commented as Ida spun the wheel to return to the main body. They were still a kilometer away when the first landmine erupted beneath the buggy on the farthest western end of the formation. The comm exploded in orders and chatter, Trix switched immediately to their fireteam channel, not wanting to get distracted. Ida let up on the accelerator and they glided along the tightly packed dirt and sand. When another explosion ripped through the afternoon, Ida braked completely. Trix watched as fire engulfed two of the technicals in the distance. They were fairly close to the unnatural rock formations, and now she saw what the pilot had been referring to. Each rock was spaced about two hundred meters apart and they were fairly uniform in size and shape. They sliced up through the horizon like miniature Washington monuments, obelisk-like in appearance. Suddenly, as if following a coordinated order, the bases of the nearest ten pillars slid up. Ejecting from each, fast-moving land vehicles swarmed around each other before revving toward the human convoy. "Shit!" Remi cursed, readying his grenade launcher. "Aerial, come around and strafe them, now! All technicals free, fall back with command team. Form up and prepare anti-vehicle armaments," Thor bellowed on the comm override channel, his voice reaching every helmet that was still active. Trix checked her magazine and cleared the bolt, just in case. She quickly swapped out her Sharps for Drills, hoping that she had enough armor-penetrating ammo to deal with this many vehicles. They had primarily loaded Sharp and Burn, thinking their main enemy would be infantry. Previous encounters with the aliens hadn't indicated that they had any advanced mobility options. The vehicles screaming toward them were small and sleek, a main shaft with curving arms on either side. She wasn't sure how they were propelled, but it looked as if something like jets gave them lift, with a main propulsion flaming behind each. They streaked along only a meter or so from the ground, forming into little clusters of four or five. When they engaged the trailing APC, Trix saw larger versions of the ground weapons they had already utilized. As Ida creeped up to rendezvous with Isaac's APC, Trix saw four of the slumpers loose weapons on the other armored carrier. Three of them fired chunky kinetics, the reports thumping over the growl of engines. The other stopped in midair and an array of tubes extended before popping mortar rounds into the sky. The APC's automated defenses snapped into action, little red lasers streaking into the air to intercept the mortar shells before they could land. Trix was distracted by a series of airborne explosions like fireworks as they connected. The APC and technical nearest it had engaged with their own weapons and two of the slumper vehicles took huge swathes of machinegun fire across their main cylinder. The kinetic weapons they had fired rocked the APC in quick succession. Trix could see that they hadn't penetrated the armor when the dust settled, but they had to have done some damage. The hit slumper vehicles wobbled out of the air, slamming down in the dust. She barely had time to process the implications of that brief encounter when a cluster of little ships streaked into range. Trix held down the trigger and let her compensators absorb the recoil as she led the nearest one, finding her range and then her target. While the slumper she hit went nose first into the dirt, the others scattered, spinning in different directions with hugely superior mobility. Ida was in full defensive mode now, accelerating to at least sixty kilometers per hour and making random movements to avoid incoming fire. Trix hadn't heard any weapons reports from their attackers yet, but it had to be coming. She heard Remi's grenade launcher burping below her as he peppered the ground with proximity charges. A slumper vehicle unlucky enough to try to get behind them ran over one and then went up into the air in two pieces as the grenade split it in half. The comms were oddly quiet and Trix was lost in her own world of cracking machinegun fire, explosions, and the roar of engines. She rotated the turret to the right and tracked another airborne enemy, letting a stream of heavy rounds loose in its path. It ate most of them, flipping end over end as some critical lift component failed. "Ida," Remi yelled, "It looks like they are the same type of design as old, Earth fighter planes, weapons only deployable from the front or above. I bet they can't hit us accurately with mortars if we keep moving like this, try not to let any get a clean angle on us though!" As he spoke, Trix watched another slumper vehicle slide into place directly behind their buggy. Her HUD beeped as Ida spun a sharp 90 degree turn. Trix's aim was fouled and she let up on the trigger, her muzzle searching for another target. "Mortars!" Ida warned, braking completely. As the buggy skidded around, anti-lock brakes trying to get traction on the dirt, Trix hunkered down. A roaring series of explosions slammed her around like a ragdoll but no debris or shrapnel hit her, and their technical seemed functional. When she looked up, a series of craters dotted the ground only meters in front of them. Trix found the offending slumper quickly, its tubes still deployed as it hovered near the coast. Right as she loosed a burst, she heard Remi's launcher burp and clenched her eyes shut at the result. When she looked again, the vehicle was slagged debris, flames igniting auxiliary explosions as the vehicle's own munitions burst. Terra-33 Ep. 07 She spun in the turret, taking a quick stock of the remaining human forces. Three buggies were twisted, smoking metal, leaving only five still active. APC-1 was bogged down, either because it had lost propulsion or it had simply suffered enough damage that the drivers were dead. The turret on top still hammered away. Thor's command vehicle had come to a complete stop now and began extending its upper section. Trix saw the telltale glow of energy whips charging. As she bounced along, she tried to get an accurate count of the slumper vehicles and lost track, not able to keep the fast-moving hovercrafts separated. Her overall impression was that they were outnumbered at least two to one. "Ida, start rotating around APC-2. At least we can use their anti-air lasers to defend against the mortars," Remi ordered. Trix's HUD displayed a lead indicator and she began moving along it, biding her time until she had reached the correct speed. When the slumper was locked in, she let another stream of armor-piercing rounds go. As the bolt clacked up on empty, she saw the slumper vehicle falter. Ida's yell was the only warning Trix had. A burst of flame suddenly roared up the opposite side of their buggy, making Trix instinctively duck down. The buggy swayed sideways and for a gut-lurching second, she thought it would topple over. Ida somehow righted the vehicle and had them screaming toward APC-2 when Trix regained her perch. "Engineer Remi, if one of those hits us directly, we will be destroyed," Ida stated, her clam diction betrayed by a worried tone. "I know, but — " "All eVac chambers are full!" Carol's shout filled the override channel. "We can still mat-trans but we no longer have medical facilities to manage further casualties." Trix looked up in abject fear, the reassurance that she could be popped up into a life-saving hot dog now shattered. If she suffered a serious injury now, the best that would happen is she would get transported up to the bird to bleed out. The huge bird was thumping out heavy shells, smashing the slumper reinforcements before they could get across the battlefield. The sight didn't hearten her much, there were still plenty of enemies directly engaged with their dwindling team. "Maintain your fire!" Thor's command reminded her that she should be looking for targets. Ida was careening around APC-2 while Remi cracked off grenades from the passenger seat. Remembering her empty magazine, Trix scrambled for another set of Drills. Pulling the last one from her stock, she loaded up and resumed firing when she had a target. The command vehicle's energy whips snapped into the ground nearby, lighting up at least ten of the enemy ships in a white glow. Trix watched them melt in various sections, all dropping to the ground. Almost as if taking a cue from that, every remaining slumper vehicle that was still moving spun and began streaking back toward the pillars. Fully half of them had been destroyed but the humans had suffered heavy losses to metal and personnel. Trix watched the horizon, glad to see the flames of the enemy's propulsion units becoming smaller and smaller. As she watched the pillars, she saw the tops of two begin to bud open like a flower. "Fuck! Prepare for incoming strike," Remi shouted. "What is it?" Trix screamed, watching as a slender, conical head extended slowly from the top of each. "Some kind of missile? Aerial, get out of here!" Trix didn't recognize the voice on the override channel, all semblance of military operation now gone as the survivors waited for this new attack. Ida gunned their engine and began streaking away toward the northeast. "Tech-8, maintain position around me," Isaac's driver cut in on the fireteam channel. "Negative," was Ida's terse response. "Fuckers! Get back here!" Remi pushed an icon on the screen and Trix's comm fell blessedly silent. "Where are we going, Ida?" "Away," the construct stated firmly. "I'm with her," Trix said, sliding down from the machinegun nest and securing the little roof hatch in place. She poked her head up between Ida and Remi, trying to get a look at Remi's console. "They just launched," Remi said, his voice flat and emotionless. Trix watched Remi's feed from the cameras of the bird, the two clearly missile-shaped objects now fully exposed. They trailed white exhaust, streaking far up into the sky. "Are we too far to trans-mat?" Ida asked, glancing over at Remi. "Half a klick and we will be." "Load our cargo bay: food, fuel, ammo, in that order." Remi didn't respond, but minimized the camera feed and began clicking icons to request supplies. The system was automated and no one had thought to disengage it, so Trix watched with her heart in her throat as Remi queued up his order. Ida had slowed momentarily and when Remi hit OK, she resumed her speed. "Check it out, Trix," Remi ordered, not meeting her eyes. She spun in her seat and opened the inner cargo hatch, seeing the six cubic meters completely stuffed with boxes of supplies. "We're good," she replied, spinning back to the front. "How far from the command vehicle?" Ida asked tersely. Their technical was roaring along the coast now, going faster than Trix had thought the machine was capable. She checked the indicator and saw they were traveling at 200 km/h. "Looks like fifteen kilo — " Remi was interrupted by a detonation louder than anything Trix had ever heard. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the blank camera feed. Remi was frantically clicking through each command vehicle and the bird's cameras and they were all blank. She spun again and looked out the tinted side window, craning her neck to get a better look. "The bird... The bird is... just gone," Trix choked. "What about the rest?" Remi asked, poking his head over the back of his seat. "They're still on the ground..." "Shockwave incoming!" Remi shouted. As soon as she heard his words, she saw it was true. A burst of dust at least a meter high was rocketing toward them, ballooning out from the other vehicles. Trix turned in her seat and buckled into the harness, hoping it wouldn't reach them. She saw Remi scrambling to do the same when their buggy was lifted and punched forward. The brief stomach-dropping sensation of being airborne was replaced by heavy impact with the ground. Trix's helmet smacked against the cushioned seat behind her, hard enough to make her see stars. Suddenly, the cab went dark. "What's happening?" Trix shouted. "Help me! Ida isn't responding," Remi said, reaching across his seat to shake the construct. Trix knew that her foot was still on the gas due to the whine of the strained engine. Something must have been wrong though, because the vehicle wasn't moving. She unlatched her harness and sprang forward, grabbing Ida's knee and pulling with all her strength against the dead weight. Finally, she got the girl's foot off of the accelerator and an eerie quiet descended. "Remi, what's wrong with her?" "I don't know," Remi said, frowning at the dead console set into the dash. Trix hadn't noticed until now, but as she watched Remi pulling Ida out of her harness, she realized her HUD was not enabled. "Remi... I think something disabled all of the electronics..." "Oh, shit," he began, eyes widening, "Ida's brain is partially electronic..." Trix had come to the same frightening conclusion and as Remi spoke it, she knew that the aliens must have unleashed some sort of pulse weapon. That would explain the dead electronics. The bird must have taken a hit from a standard missile so it couldn't return to the Burg and warn the other humans. Now, they were sitting here, in a disabled car, with a comatose driver, waiting to get captured. She spun frantically and looked out the window but was unable to see anything through the cloud of dust that had risen all around them. "Help me move Ida," Remi said, struggling to get the construct across his lap. Trix put her hands under Ida's arms, for once not trying to cop a feel. Remi took the driver's seat quickly after they had shifted her over. Trix wasn't sure what to do, so she popped the hatch on the machinegun bay and squeezed up into the nest. Looking to the west, she saw five fast-moving spots heading in their direction. They were still long kilometers away but they would close the gap quickly, and when they did... "Remi, we have a problem," she trailed off, sliding down inside the cab. "More than one," he grumbled, fiddling with some now exposed wires around the steering wheel. "Five, actually." "Five problems?" he paused to look in her direction. "Yep," Trix said, meeting his wide eyes with her own, "They're coming this way, fast."