Chapter 16

“You know I was on this ship with two other women, one of whom you hardly know,” Tammy said to Sol. She was annoyed about having to be babysat by the android. “If I’d wanted to do something, I would have by now.”

“I admit that you’re absolutely right,” Sol said. “You’re still not changing my mind.”

He’d come to give Erinys the location of their meeting tomorrow. They’d walk into room staggered, just like they were arriving at Piso. The plan was for Sophie to be waiting for the Revenge to dock when they came in, and to escort them directly to the room. Everyone else would already be there.

Star would come with Elayne tomorrow. Though Sol had told her that she could do whatever she wanted to on Piso – and would even be able to with the help of the hijab and abaya – she preferred to stay on the ship. Elayne kept to herself. If she left or not, Sol probably wouldn’t find out, and he sure didn’t care. Part of him felt that he should check on Star. He felt bad for leaving her on Sinaan Reis. But she didn’t seem to mind, and, truth be told, he was happy to be free of her for a day. It was hard to care about people.

And he felt bad for telling Tammy that she couldn’t go anywhere without Sophie. Realistically, she’d had plenty of opportunities to make real trouble for him and she never had. But being loose in a small space station was a different story. It was better safe than sorry. More importantly, trust her however Sol did, he knew that Fortuna still wasn’t convinced they’d done the right thing by letting her live. It was enough that she wasn’t being held captive in a makeshift brig. If she found out that Sol had let her wander around, she might not hold her tongue. He enjoyed himself more when he didn’t have to make decisions like this, but there it was.

Sol turned to Erinys. She looked beautiful. She’d put on a black dress that Sol hadn’t seen before. It tied around the back of her neck and showed off more of her cleavage than nearly anything he’d seen her in. It also showed off the beautiful curves of her back. The material clung to her skin, emphasizing her hips. It was nice to see her dropping her inhibitions, coming out of her shell.

“Want to get a drink?” she asked him, putting out her hand.

“I already hit the ‘cuda. Want to find somewhere nice?” he asked.

“Does that exist here?” she asked Sol.

“There’s supposedly a nice lounge that overlooks traffic coming in from Naxos. Its dimly lit, there’s mood music, and there are plenty of drinks. At least that’s what I’m told,” he said. “Perfect place for a date – such as it is – and I can’t wait to show you off and make the other men jealous.”

She smiled and blushed.

A short walk later, they entered the Lounge at the End of the Universe. It was a tiny little place, and the view was exactly what most of its customers had long grown tired of seeing – lots of outer space. But it had better ambience than the Barracuda by far. The drinks were also pricier. They found a seat next to the window and sat down, kitty-corner from each other. As they talked, Erinys looked out the window at the blackness and stars beyond. Every now and then, a ship came into view then disappeared below them as it docked with the port. Every now and then, a ship could be seen leaving and heading in the direction of Naxos or elsewhere. Sol had one, then another, then another whisky. Erinys had a rum. Over the course of the evening, she got a couple more. But she drank slowly. Their conversation meandered. Sol described his frustrations at the failure of their last sortie, Star’s brush with death, and the fact that Sophie had found the nanites in her bloodstream.

“What are we going to do about that?” she asked.

“I think we’re going to bring her to Doc,” Sol said.

“She’s willing to go?” Erinys asked.

“Yeah. I think she understands why its necessary. I need to know – we need to know that she isn’t a liability. And if she is, Doc is the best guy out there to figure out what to do about it,” he said.

“What’s his deal? He fixes ships and people?” she asked. A fair question.

“He’s an engineer. He was drafted by the federation to deal with some of their complicated systems. That’s why they had him on Kithira. He was far from combat working on engineering. He spoke about his work here and there. I always knew that he was involved in some pretty high-level stuff. They had regular engineers for the nuts-and-bolts shit. They didn’t need to draft anyone for that stuff. The pay isn’t bad,” he said.

“But still ... nanites?” Erinys asked.

“Put it this way: if Doc doesn’t know what to do, he’ll know who does” Sol said. “Besides, he’s the most technically knowledgeable person I know. If Sophie can’t figure it out...” He trailed off.

“How are you going to find him?” she asked.

“So this part is weird,” he said. “Sophie knows where he is.”

“Did he tell her where he was going?” she asked.

“No. He didn’t even tell her he was going. But apparently he embedded something in her that can find him if necessary. He more or less told me himself. But she confirmed it,” he said.

“How did he do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But I think it means that he programmed her. I mean, maybe he programmed her from scratch. Maybe he created her,” he said.

Erinys didn’t say anything.

“Also ... Sophie’s apprehensive about going,” he said.

“Does that make sense?” she asked.

The answer was no, of course. Sol explained what Sophie had told him. She didn’t say anything. She just watched as a ship a little bigger than Sinaan Reis docked with the base.

Erinys changed the subject. She told Sol about having sex with Tammy.

Sol was shocked. “I never pegged you for...”

She laughed and pushed him away. “I’m not. Don’t worry. But you know, it gets pretty lonely out there, and there weren’t any men on the boat.”

“Like if Tom or Stefano was with you, you’d take them into your bunk?” he asked, grinning.

“Don’t be so sure I wouldn’t – though I think Stefano is pretty happy with Jamie,” she said.

“And Tom?” he asked. Tom had joined them recently. He was great with a gun, and his boyish smile had undoubtedly won him the affection of more than one of Eliza’s pirate lasses.

“I doubt he’s any older than Jamie,” she said. She was right

“So?” he asked.

“I don’t want to have to show him what to do,” she said, grinning.

“So how was it?” he asked.

“It was really good,” she said, perhaps a little too emphatically. “She knew exactly what I wanted.”

“I know exactly what I want, and yet my hand isn’t anywhere near as good as...” he trailed off. There was no need to finish the sentence. Erinys laughed out loud.

“You won’t have to use your hand tonight,” she said.

“I guess you want to see the room then?” he asked.

“I’d love to see the room,” she said. “Is it nice?”

“It’s a room. It has a bed,” he said.

“Sounds wonderful,” she said.

Sol bought a bottle of wine on the way to the room. It claimed to be ‘made of natural ingredients,’ but most wine in the galaxy was synthesized – this wasn’t likely to be an exception. Sol didn’t care. When they arrived at the room, Erinys put on some music – she found a station that played meandering romantic songs. After a cup of the wine – it was almost too sweet - she looked at Sol and said “want to dance?”

He smiled at her and put his arms around her waist. She draped her arms around his neck. He traced a line up and down her spine. She kissed his neck. The kiss lingered. She put her palm behind his head and kissed his neck again. Within moments, the pretense of dancing was gone. He kissed her mouth, tasting the sweet wine on her lips.

“Sol, I want you to take my dress off,” she said, almost at a whisper.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you in it,” he said.

He untied the knot behind her neck and let the dress fall away from her breasts. Beneath it, her breasts were bare. He pulled it down the rest of the way off of her. Beneath it, she wasn’t wearing anything. Sol grinned at her. She bit her lower lip then grinned back.

“Do you like?” she asked.

“So much,” he said. The alcohol and the sight of Erinys’ bare body made him dizzy. He lifted her up onto a counter next to the wine and knelt down in front of her. She poured herself another cup and spilled some of it on her body. The little rivulets made a line down to her sex. Sol lapped them up. Erinys grinned down at him. Sol grinned back up and kissed her labia. They were sticky and tasted like the wine. He pushed her legs further apart and forced the tip of his tongue between her lips. She gripped the counter with her hands and let out a soft moan. Sol reached his hands around her and grabbed her rear, pulling her into him. He continued to explore her with his tongue. She put a hand on his head and played with his hair. As he brought another moan out of her, he felt her hand shake. He glanced up to see that she was squeezing one of her nipples with the other hand.

“Sol,” she said. “Take me to the bedroom.”

Sol smiled at her and picked her up. With one arm under her legs and another under her shoulders, he carried her into the bedroom, the only other room in their small unit. He put her down on the bed, stumbling slightly as he did it so that she bounced when she hit the bed.

“Sol, I want to do so many things to you right now,” she said to him. She pulled his shirt off. “I want to take you into my mouth and suck until you can’t take it anymore.” She pulled his pants down, and his underpants with them. Sol kicked the pants the rest of the way off and kicked his shoes off while he was at it. “But the problem is that I just can’t wait. I need you inside of me right now.”

“You can’t wait?” he asked her, grinning.

“No,” she said. He climbed between her legs and kissed her torso. Then he made his way up her body, kissing her breasts, then kissing her chest, and finally her mouth. He put his tip against her and nibbled on her upper lip. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him towards her. He felt himself slide into her warmth.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, through a moan.

Sol pulled himself out slowly. “Just like that?” he asked.

She exhaled sharply instead of responding.

He pushed himself in just as slowly. She reached down and started rubbing her clit. He felt her knuckles against his skin. He also felt his desire well up within him. One more time he pulled himself out slowly. “Do you like it like this?” he asked.

“Or like this?” he asked again as he pushed into her forcefully. She reached her hands around him and grabbed his ass. He kissed her lips as he rocked against her again and again. The climax came quickly. Perhaps it was a function of Sophie having prepared him before. Perhaps he was just too turned on by her need for him.

When the rocking slowed, she told him to lie down. He did and peered at her quizzically. She climbed on top of him and slinked down his body. His manhood was still hard, but it was softening. She didn’t let it. She grabbed him and put him in her mouth. Within mere seconds, he was hard again. She took him all into her mouth. With increasing ferocity, she sucked him off. The second time, it took longer for the desire to well. And as she brought him to the precipice, she also worked her clit with her free hand. As she came to her own climax, he felt her moan. A moment later, he grunted as well. “I’m going to cum,” he told her. It sounded like she was trying to say something to acknowledge him. But with her lips around him, it was impossible to tell what. All Sol knew was that the feeling was incredible. By the time she was done, Saul felt like he’d been drained entirely. She got up on her knees and looked down at him. Her body glistened with sweat and with both of their juices. She was a masterpiece, Sol thought.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“So are you,” She said.

He put his head down and thought to himself. He heard her turn the water on in the tub adjoining the bedroom. The next thing he knew, she was asleep next to him. It had to have been hours later. He put his arms around her naked body. She snuggled closer to him in her sleep. The next thing he knew after that, it was the next morning.

The meeting had been predictable. Nobody was particularly happy about the arrangement. Sol couldn’t afford to take two ships out of commission, and Sophie had seemed awkward about the idea of taking more people than necessary to Doc. She still hadn’t told anyone where they were going, which Sol now understood to be a function of her programming. Fortuna objected to Sophie being separated from Tammy once again. Tammy objected to being defamed by Fortuna. Erinys didn’t like the idea of being put in charge of a ship once again, though she’d deftly dealt with the Tammy issue by stating that she was more than capable of tying her down if needs be – earning a smirk from Tammy and a grimace from Sol. Nobody liked the idea of the captain and commander taking the smallest ship and abandoning everyone. Only Tom and Elayne, who had been with them the shortest of anyone, held their tongues. They’d adopted a certain dispassionate approach to a heretofore short life that had tossed no small number of changes their way.

At the end of it all, Sol pulled rank. “I don’t think anyone here will argue with me when I say that we can’t continue to have a known potential liability among us without at least attempting to determine whether she is, in fact, a liability. And Sophie is the only one who can take me where I’m going,” he’d said. “This is how its going to be. We’ll meet back here in three weeks.”

That had been three days ago. Now Sol sat in the captain’s chair of Vera looking out at the black of space. Sophie stood behind him, though she was the one piloting the ship. Apparently, Doc was out in the middle of nowhere. Sophie had taken the ship out of FTL a few times, all near busy ports of call. Each time she did so, she recalibrated then set a new course. A few times, the new course backtracked somewhat. She’d explained that the purpose of all of this was to make sure that if they flew in some bizarre direction, they wouldn’t be tracked for that reason alone. A couple of kids wandering into the woods looked suspicious, she said. A couple of kids keeping to the main road until nobody was looking looked less suspicious. They were near a small mining colony on a planet – nearly an asteroid – called Nea Liosia when Sophie announced that they had one more jump.

“Let me guess,” Sol said. “Nea Liosia doesn’t have tracking capabilities for incoming and outgoing ships?”

“Technologically, of course, it does,” she said. “But practically, it’s a private mining colony that retained its independence by being small, and by negotiating a license out of a Europan subsidiary. They have guards posted to prevent pirates from attacking them going in or out, and other than that, they keep to themselves.”

“Kithiran?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Anyone else would have done something stupid like objecting to needing a license in the first place to do something they’ve already done for decades.” She smirked at him as she said the last little bit.

There was another small mining colony just beyond Nea Liosia. Sophie gunned the engines for it, but dropped out of FTL only hours into the trip. They were sub-FTL for another hour or so when Sophie smiled and pointed to a small asteroid and declared that they’d found their destination.

The small asteroid was about as large as a medium sized city. Sophie navigated the ship to one side of the asteroid and piloted it into what was apparently a small opening. A large door closed behind them once inside. The landing pad was sizeable, with room for at least another ship. Sol looked up at her. She looked down and shrugged. “I guess this is it,” she said.

“You didn’t know where you were going all this time?” he asked.

“It was as if there was a subroutine running, telling me where to go. I didn’t know the destination, just what to do at each turn, and roughly how long it would take,” she said.

“Weird,” Sol said.

“It makes sense,” she said. “If I was captured by feds, and they asked me where Doc was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them. And I doubt I’d have been able to navigate here under those conditions.”

“Really weird,” he said.

Presently, a door opened up at the far side of the oversized room. Doc stepped out in a nondescript suit. Sophie ran to the hatch and opened it up. Sol followed. Star appeared from her room and walked after him. He got out in time to see Sophie jogging towards Doc and then take a fall. She didn’t get up.

“What the fuck?” Sol yelled.

“It’s a forcefield. EMP shockwave type of thing,” Doc said. “She’ll be fine.” Sol and Star didn’t approach.

“I have nanites in my body,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I even know who put them there.”

“Would it be unsafe for me to approach?” she asked.

“Likely,” he said. “Luckily, there’s a side door.” Doc accessed a door on one side of the room. It wasn’t immediately visible, but Doc apparently knew where to push on the wall to make it open. A few moments later, he emerged from a similarly hidden door just opposite Sol.

Sol spanned the space between them and embraced his old friend. “I don’t know what the fuck all of this is, but its good to see you,” he said.

“You too, Sol,” Doc said. He let go of Sol then turned to Star. “And this is?”

“Star,” she said.

“Its good to meet you. I’m James Macallen. People call me Doc. My guess is you have some questions for me,” he said. “Sol, you’ll be fine walking through the EMP field. Can you please pick up Sophie and meet me on the other side? I promise you, she’ll wake up in an hour with a robot’s version of a hangover. She’ll be fine.”

Picking up the lifeless body of the AI was surreal. It seemed, for all the world, like a dead body. Sophie didn’t reach for Sol, like a normal person would. She was, for all the world, dead weight. But she was light, so Sol had no trouble carrying her to the hidden doorway, now open, where Doc and Star emerged. A moment later, a man in a nondescript suit similar to Doc’s emerged from the doorway that led into whatever this place was, and took Sophie from Sol. Doc led Star and him down a corridor in the opposite direction. The hallways had been excavated from inside the asteroid itself, and they appeared it. There were no sidings on the wall to hide the rock. Lights hung from the ceiling, providing an artificial aura to the natural surroundings. The air was cool, but not cold. It felt very much like being inside a cave.

When they came to a doorway, Doc said “open sesame,” and the door opened into a much more conventional looking space. Here, the walls were flat and came to right angles. They were painted a dull blue color. Doors lined the corridor at the end of which was still another doorway. Doc opened one of the doors that lined the corridor and welcomed Star and him into what looked like a small mess hall.

“Can I get you anything to eat or drink?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Do you have beer?” she asked.

Doc smiled. “She’s a keeper, Sol,” he said. Then he tapped a com that was situated above his ear and said “Robert, can you please bring two beers?”

“Make that three,” Sol said. If everyone was drinking, he would too.

“Three beers,” Doc corrected.

He sat down at the head of a table and said “Sol, is there any reason we can’t talk in front of Star? I gather I’ll need to tell both of you my story, and its easier if I only have to do it once,” he said.

Sol blinked. Doc was always polite, but direct. If Sol had brought Star here, he obviously trusted her. And since he apparently knew more about Star than Sol did, there was no reason to warn him about the nanites. She could be trusted as far as Doc was concerned. Sol told him to go ahead.