Life in space was not what it had been cracked up to be.  

Ariel stared at the ceiling above her cot, the back of her hand resting on her forehead, her blankets thrown aside to leave her sweat soaked body chilled as the air recycling ducts did their work.  With her shot tank top askew and nothing more than panties, she still felt overheated.  A shower would have been nice, except that the only shower there was used sonic scrubbers and did nothing more than remove dirt and sweat instantly.  If she had been less worried about waking up her sister she might have used a sponge bath.

After deciding on giving herself half of an hour to try and get more sleep, Ariel rolled over and faced the wall, staring at that grey expanse instead of the one above her head, giving more of her body to the room's air recyclers.  Perhaps she'd acquire some paint markers and ask her sister to draw something for her on the wall and ceiling.  The lack of paper products and easily accessible films to decorate with made painting on the walls and bunk her only real options, since they could be removed with ease.  

“Nightmares again.”  Her sister's voice, floating from the upper berth.

“Mmmn.”  Ariel didn't make any other response, nor did she bother with further conversation.  Not that anyone could have understood a word they said.  She didn't like how her voice sounded now.  The doctor said it was purely psychosomatic, as was the fever, but the doctor's only real job was to make sure she was stable and sane enough to pilot.  Those tests showed her in peak condition to operate as Cortex for the massive monster she and her twin sister piloted, so the other issues were quietly ignored.  The monster in the back of her mind was swimming around in her head lazily, awake and sharing her awareness faintly.  

A soft shuffling of blankets above and a soft thump below and behind her told Ariel her sister had rolled out of bed.  Literally, done so, as there wasn't enough room to do otherwise in either cot.  The room itself was not nearly so cramped.  She waited patiently, and then felt her sister's calloused, gentle hand sliding through her short hair, stroking her scalp lightly.  “I'm so sorry they cut your hair.”  

“It's all right.  I told you to take the hit.”  

“It's not all right, it is going to take a decade to grow it that long again.”  

“That's awfully optimistic of you, and not typical.”

“I miss it.”

Ariel had no response to that.  

Uriel's hand slowly slipped from her short hair to her exposed neck, then her upper back.  Ariel felt the tension leaving her muscles, felt the phantom heat starting to fade.  The light, gentle touch slipped over the damp pseudo-silk of her shirt, to her lower back, tracing the invisible lines of where her skin met with the new skin.  She didn't have to tell her sister where they were, Uriel simply knew.  The cloned skin was as much hers as it was her sister's.  It might have been either of theirs, save that there were indicators on the genetic level that could be spotted by the right person.  

Uriel's hand moved away even before she started to roll over onto her back and her blue eyes met with her sister's equally blue eyes.  “It's not like you.”  Solicitous, concerned, reminiscing, hesitant.  Uriel was the mover, the doer, the Driver.  Before, she would have simply started, rather than tested the waters.  

“You didn't see.”  Ariel had to give her that.  

“Bad?”

“Worse than Him before they replaced his armor.”  Ariel grimaced; the monster inside her head was the same monster inside her sister's head, and He was truly a monster compared to the new models they claimed were better.  New human tech, instead of alien tech from across the Empty.  He was more alive than mechanical, though it took an engineer to appreciate that. 

Or His pilots. 

Uriel leaned over, absently pulling her hair to the side and drawing it away from her sister as she placed her head against her sister's breasts.  Specifically, over her right breast, so she could hear her sister's heartbeat, on the opposite side of her body from where Uriel's own heart lay.

It had been a calculated risk.  Their opponent had many more pods and much more power to waste, and its armor had been impenetrable.  Ariel had judged the semi-amnio fluid she had been floating in would conduct less of the heat from the beam than the shielding around her sister's waldo unit.  The cool liquid had contained an anesthetic, so even if it didn't she wouldn't feel anything that did transfer over.  Taking the hit left the opponent’s weapon chamber open and it was the only time at which a predictable and clear line of attack would be provided, and Uriel had made the fatal shot using their bioborg's tessellation cannon before teleporting back to base.

To her credit, Ariel had been correct about the heat transfer – if the shot had passed under Uriel, she would have been incinerated by the heat transfer into the air of her chamber.  What she had not been aware of was how the semi-amnio reacted to being boiled, which was to congeal into a resinous solid afterward.  The rescue team had to cut her hair and remove large sections of her back skin and muscle, skin from the undersides of her arms, and much of the skin on her calves to remove the lump of post-gelatin from her scalded flesh; her lungs and throat had been scalded but the semi-amnio hadn't solidified in the upper half of her chamber.  Her injuries were nothing that couldn't be replaced or repaired, except her hair.  Ariel had felt nothing of course, merely passed out when her brain had nearly cooked along with her body.  

Ariel's hand stroked her sister's long, long hair, bright copper that reached their thighs.  No, her, Uriel's thighs, now.  Her own hair didn't even reach to her neck any more.  It didn't bother Ariel nearly as much as it bothered Uriel though.  

“Couch?” Ariel offered.

“Table,” countered Uriel.

“Table,” Ariel agreed.  The table would be cool.  Psychosomatic or not, she was starting to get hot again.  Not the nice kind of hot her sister wanted to share with her.

Uriel lifted her head, slipped her arms underneath Ariel's back and legs, and slid her from the cot.  Only when she was safely free of the claustrophobic bed-space did Ariel curl up and wrap her arms about her sister's neck to accept the princess-carry.  Training in 2.0 G and living in 0.9 G made every pilot stronger than they appeared, and Ariel was unconcerned about hr sister dropping her. 

Laid out on the shockingly cold coffee table, Ariel gasped softly and Uriel smiled, that wicked, mischievous look that had given her laugh lines and crinkles about her eyes that her sister did not share.  Only another bioborg pilot would have noticed – their augmented brains had to deal with volumes of information a normal human mind couldn't even comprehend.  No pilot ever mistook one twin for another, and all pilots were twins.  Mirror twins didn't look that much different on the outside to other people.

Uriel gently worked her sister's panties down and set them aside.  Ariel sat up only as long as it took to allow her sister to pull off the square necked tank-top then lay back down, enjoying the intense coolness of the transparent plasticrystal table.  Uriel crawled away on hands and knees as her sister relaxed, only to return a moment later.  

Ariel's eyes were closed, and she was thoroughly relaxed.  “Mmm?” she queried softly as her sister crawled to straddle her.  She felt the unseen shimering silk of Uriel's hair fall over her arms and sides as the Driver lowered her head to kiss Ariel's throat....which brought a sharp cry of surprise from the young Cortex as the melting ice slid up along her throat to her chin.  

Alien amusement trickled through both their mind and in unwitting unison they told Him to shut up through their semi-telepathic radio linkages.

The melting ice left a trail of water spilling along the sides of her neck, and then the ice, carried in sharp white teeth, was slowly applied like the soft, hot tongue would have been:  trachea, carotid, jugular, hollow.  Her upper breasts, making Ariel squirm.  Nipples, circling slowly, the pleasure of the caresses as sharp as the bite of the cold.  Underside of the gentle slopes, the shallow valley between.  Not well endowed were the Vaux twins.  

Uriel slid down, hr hair caressing her sisters body, clinging to the trails of wetness she left in the wake of her travels.  Ariel spread her legs, but Uriel painted the soft skin along the underside of her ribs, the softly suggested abdominal, circled and slipped the ice into her navel.  That brought a startled arch and Uriel laughed, dropping the worn ice.  It slid along Ariel's lower belly, the crease of her groin, fell off her hip.  

Squirming, excited, and thoroughly surprised, Ariel did not complain when another piece of melting ice was taken between her sister's teeth and warm hands gripped her thighs.  The ice painted another thick, wet line of cold along her lower belly, towards her bare sex.  That had been another enforced difference, one Uriel had corrected upon herself.  The ice caressed her thick outer labia, traced the edges of her slightly exposed inner.  Ariel squirmed, made a plaintive noise, and then gasped and undulated on the table.

Soft hot lips and a cone of icy cold moved against her sex, in the channel of her vagina.  Tiny painter’s strokes, up and down, her hottest flesh caressed with precision and detail.  Ariel clutched at her breasts, then grabbed the table, her legs coming up involuntarily as Uriel circled the soft, burning nub with equally intense burning cold.  Letting go of the ice her long-haired twin played with the ice using only her tongue, chasing it, pressing with it, trying to keep the rapidly melting cold from escaping.  

The sensation of wetness spilling from her slit, her sister's burning, clever tongue, and the chilling caresses of the melting ice brought her to a sudden, intense climax.  It was nearly a surprise, the peak quick and the waves of pleasure short and intense.  Ariel's sister kissed, sucked – the ice was gone, and then soft, warm kisses in its place.  Ariel's chest heaved as she relaxed, the heat of her body dissipating slowly, and she was certain the cooling trails of wetness were steaming.  

Uriel crawled up her body, and Ariel wrapped her arms about her mirror image and kissed her fiercely, heedless of the taste of herself or the coldness of her sister's lips, which had felt so warm between her legs.  Uriel melted into the embrace, ignoring her tangling hair and the wetness along their bodies.  

“Better?”

“Better.”

The biomechanical monster sharing their consciousnesses agreed.  Maybe he'd get some sleep too now.  Human nightmares were so ~active~!

~XS