Pixy VI: Blog

Three weeks ago I promised an update to 'Beth' that weekend. It didn't happen, apologies for that. Right, let's have another go, shall we...

................................ Scrapper

Damp hair plastered to his forehead, a loose strand tickling an eye lash irritatingly. Levi wiped a dirty rag across his forehead, sweeping the annoying hairy tuft out of the way, leaving a streak of grease behind. He was so looking forward to one of the chilled beers in the fridge. His mouth watered at the mere thought of the sweet nectar touching his lips and tongue. His wife was sitting at the table, staring intently at the data slate in front of her. Arabella looked up, her eyes burning with the intensity of plasma cutters, her jaws grinding together like the rollers on the Shredder.

Uh-oh… Whatever he had done wrong this time, and he knew that his list of possible contenders was quite extensive, he couldn't think of anything that warranted the impending explosion. He looked mournfully at the fridge, the much longed for contents disappearing further out of reach with every passing second.

Her eyes continued to bore into him, seemingly on a mission to melt his soul into oblivion.
No. He wasn't going to relent. Not this time. She wasn't going to win every argument. Just this once, he wasn't going to be belittled. Just. No. Just break first. Just this once let me win... The air burned between them with an intensity last experienced on their wedding day. Their wedding night. And for several days afterwards.

“Dad can I... woah!” Millie walked in, took one look at her parents and quickly about-turned one eighty degrees. “Never mind. I'll come back in, like, never...” There was a brief muffled conversation as their daughter spoke to someone outside. “I wouldn't go in there Ash, if I was you. Not dressed like that. Not enough thermal and radiation protection for a start.”

“That bad?” Asher asked.

“Depends on your definition of 'bad'…” The voices faded off as the distance increased.

“And just when were you going to tell me?” Arabella’s voice was as cold as environment outside of the station.

Don't say anything. Absolutely nothing. You might admit to something she doesn't yet know about.

“You have done some... very questionable things. But this? This is a whole new level of stupidity. What possessed you? Go on, this I really want to hear?”

The bait was dangled in front of him, and he desperately swam around it, struggling to avoid impaling himself on it. Words had never been his strong point He was more of the manual type, the accounts and paper work he left to Arabella, his wife and mother of his beloved three children. If this conversation was a chess game, he knew that he had already lost before he had even moved his first piece. Which he was about to do.. “What have I done now?” How could she rip him to bits over that innocuous statement.

“That you even need to ask, is bad enough… And not surprising in the slightest...”

Okay, maybe not.

She paused, obviously expecting him to fall onto his thermal lance. He managed to stay quiet but not stop his eyes flickering to the fridge. He needed that beer more than ever now.

“Well, since your small half inch nut sized brain is obviously struggling to comprehend the situation, or your folly, I'll give you a clue shall I?”

As if he had any other choice...

“I had a rather Interesting e-message from Proclast industries...” She carried on.

Oh shit...

“Oh, I see the light come on that thick skull of yours. “ Another moment of uncomfortable silence grew. “I repeat my original statement of 'Just when were you planning on telling me’..”

“I was...” He was so fucked and both of them knew it, which wasn't helping matters. “I was, just, you know, testing the welds, to see what the strength was like..”

She spun the data slate round. “There's 'testing the welds', and there is selling the entire hull for scrap, which, by the way, is what this 'document' is doing.”

“Look, love, we don't make that much money...”

“I manage the accounts, I know 'exactly' how much money we are in debt by. I have a better understanding of the situation than you have, I'd wager.”

“We can't go on as we are...”

“And you are prepared to throw all we have worked for, away for, what? Exactly?”

“It's a good price.” He tried to counter, lame-fully.

“Oh, It's a good price. A really good 'sign on the dotted line' price.. Except for the itsy-bitsy clause in paragraph four, subsection three. Which you will have, obviously, read.” They both knew that he hadn't. “Which I will quote..” She paused as she flicked to the relevant section. “ 'The final payment will be held on trust for one lunar year. And will be based in entirety upon the work carried out by the reclamation yard in that time....’ End quote.”

“So, we work hard for the year, make it look good.”

“Oh Levi…” Arabella leaned back, her shoulders slumping, tears forming in her eyes “How can you be so stupid...”

“I don't follow...” He genuinely didn't.

She rubbed the tears from her eyes. “Subsection twelve, ‘upon signature, the signee will vacate the premises and a transition team will manage the running of the facility...' Basically, what they will do, is staff our facility with a single caretaker and mothball it for a lunar year. Then they will turn round and say that it made no money in the transitory period and that they will be ‘doing you a favour' taking it off our hands. Knowing Proclast Industries, they will probably charge us a 'maintenance' fee as well....”

“They wouldn't do that...”

Arabella stared at him flatly. “Sometimes, your naivety is endearing. Sometimes it's not. Do you wish to hazard a guess as to which side your statement falls under? Fifty, fifty chance. Actually, don't even think of answering. I don't think I can cope with you guessing wrong at this moment..”

“We can't go on like this...” Levi repeated dumbly.

“No, we can't. And they've increased the rent again...”

That stopped him “Again?” She nodded “Why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine at this point.”

“I mean, it's not as if we can just move our station elsewhere. The cost of doing so makes it an immediate non starter.”

“I think you answered your own question. They want our station, and given that joke of an offer they dangled in front of you, they want it for nothing.”

“But why?”

“Because they can?”

Levi no longer had any desire for the cold beer. In fact, he wanted to be sick. He turned round and headed back the way he had come, impotent rage boiling up inside of him. There was really only one way of expending that rage and he made his way back to the remote rig he had just left. There were eight of the chambers in the station and Levi and his three children kept to the same ones. Levi and his son were next to each other, the two girls had their own the furthest away from father and son as could be managed, for the simple reason that both girls liked to sing as they worked, and whilst helmet mikes could be muted, the vocal echoes bouncing down the station corridors were harder to stop.

Stepping in between the frame of the gimbal, he reached up and pulled down the hooks and mated them to the rings on the torso of his suit. He moved over and picked up the VR headset, slipping it over his short cropped hair. Strapping on the joystick mounts to his forearms, he tested for comfort, satisfied, he switched the rig on and the cables retracted, lifting him off his feet slightly, the suit tightening around his body as it took the weight. The gimbal moved around him as he twisted his body in the air. Reaching up, he pulled the visor down. The remote's diagnostics popping up, Levi cleared the screen and took hold of the joysticks strapped to both arms, thumbs flicking off the safety's to both control sticks. The diagnostic screen was quickly replaced by a video feed showing a patch of space outside of his station.

His remote hadn't had enough time to recharge since he had docked it at the end of his shift, so he swapped to one of the spares. He pushed off remotely with his legs and the reclaimer unit undocked from its housing and drifted towards the half stripped hulk in the gantry.

He left the internals alone, the girls were much better than he was at stripping and sorting the internals, besides, he wasn't in a careful frame of mind. He wanted to rip and destroy. Letting go of the right joystick, he reached out and a claw appeared on his visor. He closed his grasp and the claw clamped at the edge of the hull. His left hand moved out, a plasma cutter stretching out on the screen, a flick of a switch by his left thumb activated the plasma system and his index finger squeezed the trigger, the plasma cutter bursting into action. Moving his left arm, the remote followed his actions from within the gimbal and Levi cut a large ten ton slab of armour from the hull and casually sent it towards the requisite storage bin with a flick of his wrist as he set to the next piece.

The work was steady, monotonous, and he only gave it a small part of his consciousness as he devoted the rest to the seemingly fruitless task of quelling the turmoil inside his head. No. Things couldn't go on as they had, but he was damned if he was just going to roll over and show his belly to the corporate bastards. He didn't bother looking at the time. He would finish when he had calmed down, or the remote ran out of power. Whichever came first.

Another ten ton slab of armour was slowly pushed away, a steady stream of armour slabs slowly floating through space. It would take each piece several hours to float to their destination, where a dumb AI program controlling robotic arms, would latch onto them and slowly position them into one hundred ton cubes, tac-welding each piece into position ready for storage and collection by the next scrap hauler to pass their way.

His HUD pinged an incoming proximity alert. He turned his head, the remotes vision feed matching the movement. While Levi and his son pretty much ignored their favoured remotes
other than for damage repair or maintenance, his two daughters had taken the opposite stance by painting their remotes with bright colours in intricate details. Neither Levi or his wife had prohibited or stopped the practice. Partly because it didn't effect the abilities of the drones in any way and partly because the facility was family owned and run, so the two daughters technically owned their drones anyway. It also served as a public display of their operator skill, as in order to paint and decorate them, they either had to suit up and physically go into space, which was both dangerous and a tedious process to boot, or they could do so using the manipulators of another drone. It was no surprise that they had chosen to do so using another drone.

The communications channel was quiet, but Levi knew which daughter was approaching by the drones exterior colour scheme and artwork. The new arrival moved into the hull next to him as he continued to peel back and remove the exterior shell. Normally he would chastise whichever child was working so close to him. The operators were in no danger, safely ensconced as they were in the main station, but the remotes could be damaged by operator error, either by a carelessly discarded slab of armour/ hull plating, or an incorrectly cut pipe that was either still pressurised or still held a combustible source along with the oxygen required for it to flare out. And out here, having to take time out to repair the damage, was both costly in materials and time. If the-damage could be repaired by them. Whilst they could fabricate and repair most mechanical components, they had to call a third party in to repair the engines or the more delicate electronic parts.

Like him, Millie was supposed to be off shift, but given that she was out here and this close when she knew his stipulations as to working distances, meant that she was quietly supporting him, in her own way. The love for his family cut through his anger and he felt his anger start to dissipate. Millie's remote turned as she skilfully wound up a length of fibre optic cable, there was some new artwork upon her hull. A big red heart with her name and the name of one of the young men on one of their regular supply haulers. She had tried to keep the burgeoning romance hidden from her siblings and parents, but she had made such an arse of it, even Levi had noticed.

He had been fully prepared to take the matter in hand and have a plain and forthright conversation with the young lad that involved sharp implements and a plasma torch, when his wife had stepped in front of him and quietly, gently, shook her head. He still wasn't happy about the situation, but his wife was right. Their daughter wasn't a child any longer and had to find her own way in life.

Given the location of the new artwork - in one of the remotes blind spots and the somewhat furtive behaviours of the other two siblings recently, coupled with their amused expressions whenever Millie wasn't looking in their direction, strongly implied that Millie had no idea as to the recent addition to her hull paintwork. He felt a smile start to creep across his lips at the mental image of her face when she finally spotted it. She was so.. not going to be amused.

Given the skill and artistry of the lettering, it was going to be obvious right from the word go, as to who was the graffiti artist. Millie’s sister Zoe.

The little bout of adolescent shenanigans drove home just how important his family was to him, and that any decision to be made was not his solely to make.

: Dad? :

: Hmm.? :

: I was speaking to… someone earlier today, and the Eastland is not coming back to re-supply and collect the scrap. :

: It’s not? : Levi was surprised but strangely, also not surprised, given all that had been going on lately.

: A company rep told captain Benjamin, that if he continued to supply us, then his flight permissions in Proclast Company space would be revoked. :

Pieces started to fall into place. Millie wasn't just out here to comfort him, but was seeking solace to her own problems, most likely the main one being that she would no longer be able to see the boy that had captured her heart. Levi was also a little pissed that after knowing Benji for the better part of twenty years, that the wretch hadn't the balls to tell him personally.

Levi sent the piece he had just cut free, gently floating after the rest and turned off the plasma cutter. : Millie, stop what you are doing and dock the remote. Family discussion. : As soon as the docking clamps turned green. Levi shut the remote down and released himself from the harness. He felt strangely energised as he made his way towards the communal eating area where his wife and other two children were sat patiently waiting. Millie was only a couple of minutes later in joining them.

Levi took a deep breadth. “As you know, work his strangely petered out lately and that we are struggling to make ends meet. It's a situation that's untenable, and involves all of us. So, I've decided that a decision must be made, and since it involves all of us, it must be made by all of us.” He took a deep breath and his wife stretched a hand out across the table and took his, smiling supportively.

He explained, as best he could, what had been going on, the offer to purchase the yard, the tactics being used to bully him into making a decision, one way or the other. He finished with what he had tried, to mitigate the situation, the avenues explored in the search for a way out.

“We can't move the yard?” Asher, his son, asked.

Levi shook his head and brought up the quotes on his tablet and showed them to his children. “ As you know, the yard only has positioning thrusters, nothing even remotely powerful enough to move the station any distance. That's why we have the tug. And yes, before you ask, I considered the possibility of using tugs, but it would take years for us to drag it out of Proclast Space and I can guarantee in that time, they would be charging us punitive transit fees the whole time. I could be done, but the cost is simply more than the yard is worth.”

“So we just abandon the yard and start again, somewhere else?”

“That is an option. A painful option, but it's more practical than trying to take the yard. For a start, we would need to split the yard into two. The habitation module and the yard. As you can see, there is not much difference in cost between two large freighters or four smaller ones. The added cost in splitting the yard into four for transit rather than two, actually counteracts the savings against using two.”

“Don't shoot me down, but is there any ship huge enough to take the entire station? I don't know, which is why I'm asking.” Zoe asked.

“I think there is. They are used for transporting broken down dreadnoughts…”

“So top tier corporate?”

“The very top. And I doubt they would be any cheaper than the options available to us. If anything, more expensive.” The room went quiet as everyone tried to think of viable options.

“What if we don't use corporate? What if we used free traders? If Corporate assets won't trade with us, why don't we just strip the station and sell it to free traders… We leave the habitat to last, then scuttle what's left? If we can't have it, then we deny it to the Corpo cunts.”

“We won't get as much for the parts with the free states as we would with the Corpo's.” Their mother pointed out

“But we would get something, yes?”

Levi slowly nodded, though after spending the better part of the last two decades ensuring that the space around the yard was free from hazardous debris, to then go and scatter dangerous objects to navigation in that very same space wounded his soul to the core.

“Would the free traders risk their Corpo space privileges?”

“We don't use traders with privileges to lose. As long as we strip quietly and load fast, we can be gone before they realise their precious space has been violated. And if they do spot the strip, by the time they organise a policing action we will be gone, If what they are after is the yard, then we deny it to them, make it all for nothing.”

Levi stayed quiet, letting his family have their say, as he had promised.

“We keep the suits and the drones and sell the tug...”

“Awww.. Do we have to..” Zoe said mournfully having formed something of a bond to the modified tug.

“Depends on what we get offered for her. If we get enough for her and the yard parts, it might be enough for a down payment on another yard, or part ownership with one. It means basically starting again, but it at least it will be with a boost rather than with nothing...” The discussion went quiet as they each wrestled with their thoughts.

“Okay.” Levi finally spoke breaking the silence. “Those in favour of taking the Corpo deal?” No hands were raised. “Those of stripping and running?” The hands of the three teenagers shot into the air. Levi looked at his wife.

“I go with my family.” Was all she said.

“Dad?” Millie probed.

He sighed. “I will miss her.” He sadly looked around the room.

“So, what now?” Asher asked.

“I don't know. Carry on as normal. Finish stripping the Marlin. Love, can you reach out, see who, or what will be available and willing to pick us up, and how soon? We need to know the tonnage cost and what we want to salvage. And then we need to work at where we are going to go. Any one any ideas?”

*****

Levi slipped into bed alongside his wife, who was quietly sobbing. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. “What should we do?” He asked her.

She took her time replying. “I will miss the yard.” She admitted. “But my family comes first. Always. As long as we are together healthy and happy, then I couldn't ask for more.”

“They are going to leave us sometime.”

“I know. But I'll still be happy for them. They will always be close in my heart, no matter where they end up.”

“I know..” He tried not to dwell on the potential breakup of his family, just so one manager could add an extra zero to his tally sheet. He felt his blood start to boil in anger and tried to think of something else. He failed.

*****

The Marlin was processed and the family turned their attention to their home. First order, was to bring up the blueprints of the station and work out what they wanted to keep, what could be sold and how much could be stripped without affecting the environmental systems too much. It took most of the day planning as they had to be careful not to sever any of the critical systems, and it was decided that after one final night in their home, they would start stripping the station. The kids went to bed and Arabella logged on to their business account to see if there had been any reply's to their requests for shipping and transport capability. Most were messages of unavailability, the timescale too abrupt, maybe in a few weeks’ time...? There was a message from Anya Industries. Arabella had never heard of them before. She opened it up and read the first couple of lines, her eyebrows rising.

Levi noticed the change in his wife s mood. “What's up love?”

“Have you ever heard of Anya Industries?” He thought for a bit. “No. Are they a mining or shipping conglomerate?”

“I don't know. I tried looking them up, but there isn't much about them. What little I could find, implies that they normally deal with stocks and shares.”

“Stocks and shares? Maybe they are trying to Diversify their portfolio?”

“Could be.”

“Why the interest in them?”

“They want to buy the station. Or at least invest in it.”

“Buy the station?”

“I'll send the message over.” Arabella tapped on her screen and Levi's tablet chimed. He pulled it out and opened the message, reading the content.

: …. we wish to invest in your station and experience. Utilising our small fleet of recovery vessels, we aim to retrieve abandoned hulls and transport them to your facility in return for a flat fifteen percent of the recovered materials. The ships will be sourced and recovered by us, your only participation will be in the dismantling and sale of the reclaimed materials. How you do so is your purview, which we have no interest in…. :

Levi looked up at his wife. “Are they for real?”

His wife shrugged. “They seem genuine'ish.”

“What about the rental situation with Proclast?”

“I don’t know, I'll ask.” Arabella Typed away on her tablet.

“Is it a viable offer? How long is the small print?”

“Unusually short. If we get to keep our station and they keep their side of the deal, we would be fools not to consider it.”

Levi rubbed his eyes. “I wonder what they get out of it, if it's not their usual income stream?”

“Could be they see the chance to disrupt the status quo.”

“A challenger company?”

“Possibly.” She lifted her tablet and read the incoming message. “The situation with Proclast Industries is in hand, apparently.”

“In hand? What does that even mean exactly. Okay. Let’s sleep on it and ask the kids tomorrow.”

*****

They sat round the table and mused over the offer as they ate breakfast.

“What ships are they using? “ Zoe asked. Arabella typed away and the Zoe’s tablet buzzed. She looked down at her data slate and opened the picture. “Those don't look creepy in the slightest.”

“Let's see..” Asher asked. Zoe passed over her tablet. He screwed up his face “Fugly.”

Zoe pulled her tablet back and went searching for more information about the ships, but no results came back from her enquiries. She uploaded it to some of the ship spotter forums she frequented. The responses were quick, all of a similar vibe. No one knew of their existence and all were finding them a little creepy. She laid her tablet down and turned her attention back to the conversation going on at the table.

In Zoe’s opinion, there wasn't really much to decide. It was either hand the station over to Proclast Industries, scuttle it, or take up the offer of Anya Industries.

Her parents though, seemed determined to complicate the issue. She looked towards her brother and sister, and could tell at a glance that they were in agreement with her as to what the decision was. Her parents were just re-treading the same arguments now, not bringing anything new to the table. Bored and rapidly losing interest, her attention strayed back to her tablet. One of her forum posts was attracting a lot of interest. It was drawing a steady stream of replies from people who were speculating as to whether or not the ships even existed. Several forum users repeating that they had been unable to find the ship design in any databases. Zoe was about to give it up as a dead loss, when one of the regular contributors posted several screenshots dated a week previous at another forum. It was several pictures of skeletal hulls in a shipyard, in the process of assembly. There was no doubt that it was the same ships. The topic of conversation there had been about what use the ships were going to be used for.

Zoe showed her parents the picture. With dedicated retrieval ships, a steady stream of hulks would ensure financial security. When Her parents finally decided on a vote it was a quick affair, resolved within a minute.

Arabella messaged Anya Industries their agreement to the terms. With no hulk to strip, and the plans of scrapping their home shelved, there wasn't much to do. Their mother was on a cleaning mission, and since Zoe hated make-work, she slunk off to the airlock with the excuse that her drone needed servicing. She hid outside for as long as she could get away with it.

Just before they went to bed, the proximity alarms rang throughout the station. The family congregated in the room that doubled as the bridge and watched the six ships approach. Levi tried hailing them, but with no success.

“That’s those fugly craft in the pictures. Looks like they have just left the shipyard. Not much to them though, can’t have a big crew.” Asher observed.

As they drew closer, their 'limbs' unfolded as they moved apart to take up positions around the reclamation facility. They latched onto the station with a series of audible 'clangs' that resonated around the station. Immediately, the positioning alarms sounded as the station started to move.

“Zoe screamed. “Mum, dad, what's happening!!”

“I don't know! I can't access the manoeuvring controls, somethings locking me out…”

Millie’s stomach lurched as though... “Did we just jump! But that's impossible!” Millie ran over to the navigation console

: System error. Re-calibrating :

“Come on you piece of shit..” The system rebooted and displayed a star map that wasn't the one she had grown up looking at.

Ooooo, so there is a blog length...

I was thinking about not posting the rest of it, but where is the fun in that...

Lucy (the remainder)...

*****

Daylight impinged on her senses. She had a headache and her mouth tasted foul. She hadn't had that much wine. Maybe it had been off. It was cheap shite after all. Something smelled off as well. A cockerel was crowing outside. A cockerel? In the middle of Leeds, England-shire? And what the fuck was with that hand and arm over her stomach that wasn’t hers. Lucy opened her eyes and looked at a ceiling covered not with plaster, but with rough timber planks and enough cobwebs to give an arachnophobe an instant coronary. “What the fuck?” Her duvet had metamorphisised into a rather scratchy blanket. And it wasn't the only thing that had metamorphisised. Lucy lifted her hand and pulled the blanket back, revealing a massively muscled and scarred chest that was missing what she jokingly called her two greatest assets. Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly together, counted to ten and opened them again. Nope, still not right. And then there was that other arm across her chest. It was actually attached to a body. She followed the arm back to its owner. A female owner.

Fuck, her head hurt. Lucy sat up, disturbing the... girl... next to her. Lucy could not help but look down. Her stomach was missing its flab, and had gained a solid mass of muscle. Lucy poked it with a large, slightly hairy finger. She felt the prod and the touch of muscle against the finger that was not her finger, but yet, somehow was. And if that wasn't bad enough, she had a cock. A decidedly manly hand moved the penis aside revealing two massive hairy balls.

“Well, that's a sight you don't see every day!” Lucy felt slightly hysterical. The bed moved as two feminine arms wrapped themselves around her stomach. A head was rested against her shoulder.

“Last night was awesome. I don't think anyone has ever made me cum as much as you did last night…” Said the strange girl. The hands dipped lower, fondled her... Cock.. If things weren't confusing enough she was starting to get... hard. A fact not unnoticed by the strange girl in bed with her. “Mmm.. Someone is hungry this morning..”

Hungry? Lucy stated to speak, but a slender finger was placed across her lips. “Shhh, let me take care of that for you...”

The bed - which was rather uncomfortable, now that she thought about it, moved as the girl changed position. Hair that wasn't hers tickled her hips and the strange head was above her groin and her cock (!?!) was sucked into a warm and very willing mouth. The sensations were weirdly confusing. Her brain insisting that she shouldn't be feeling what she was feeling. It was too much to think about and a lot easier just to go with the flow of things. Besides, why not, it was just a dream after all. Lucy fell back onto the bed as the unknown girl continued to suck and tease her exceptionally hard cock.

The mouth stopped it's manipulations and the bed dipped and shifted again. “Awww..” Lucy started to say, just before a different wet warmth wrapped round her cock. Lucy didn't need to open her eyes to know what was happening. The bed creaked and groaned under the girls movement. The feeling that was building up inside Lucy, wasn't the normal reaction she had to pleasure, which was just to relax and wallow in the body wide warmth.

Lucy needed that pleasure in that strange piece of anatomy. It seemed to demand satisfaction. Lucy rolled the girl over onto her back and took over. It took her a minute to adjust to the new body position and to find the position and angle that best satisfied the urge inside.

The girl moaned and thrashed underneath her. Lucy felt fingernails dig into her back, tear at her skin.

“Kiss me...” The girl moaned. It wasn't easy to do, given the disparity in their height, but Lucy found a way as her hips slammed into the girl. Her orgasm was quick, almost caught her by surprise. Muscles in her groin contracting as she shot her seed into the girl. The unknown girl moaned as Lucy's seed spurted into her. Lucy kept thrusting until the pleasure subsided, which wasn't long, A few seconds at most. The girl hadn't peaked. Lucy had been in that state enough times to spot it in someone else.

Her cock had gone flaccid and slipped out, so she lay down next to the girl and used her fingertips to bring the girl off. As weird as the whole situation was, it seemed the decent thing to do. The unknown girl wriggled and giggled, grabbing at Lucy's large hand with her two smaller ones.

“My breast.” the girl moaned.

“What about it?” Lucy asked, half amused, half bewildered and totally confused.

“Suck it. Suck it, please:..” Well, she had come this far. Lucy adjusted her position and sucked the 'girls nipple and breast into her mouth…

The girl let at another loud moan and convulsed, the wetness flowing onto Lucy's hand informed her that mission was accomplished. The girl gently pushed Lucy's hand away, and Lucy, hungry for a different sustenance, and a little embarrassed, stood. The wooden floor boards felt so real underfoot. Scarily so. Lucy needed to put on some clothes, but there wasn't much around to wear. There was a simple thin shift that Lucy picked up and automatically let drop again when she realised that there is no way it was going to fit over her new body. There was a leather harness and a furry leather pouch that was all too familiar, in that it was what her character wore in the game. It wasn't real, so why not.

Lucy stepped into the groin pouch and fastened its belt. She looked at the leather harness and had visions of butch gay men in shorts, chaps and police hats wearing the harness. Okay, maybe not the harness. And there was her characters axe, resting up against the wall. It looked huge. There was no way she could lift, let alone wield it.

Didn't stop her trying though.

She grasped the shaft and put all her strength into it, not expecting it to budge in the slightest. The axe shot up into the air as though it had been launched from a catapult. “Woa!” Lucy killed her swing before she did any damage and carefully set the axe back down. The damn thing had felt so light in her hand. There was a pair of fur topped boots next to the axe. Lucy pulled them on and left the room, as the girl on the bed was causing strange feelings within her. Disturbing feelings.

There was a cramped, narrow flight of stairs outside of the bedroom door. A door which she had just painfully bashed her head against the top of on the way through. Damn, did things not look weird from this height. At the bottom of the stairs was another doorway and another head bang. She couldn't believe she had just twatted her head again, right after she had just done so. The doorway led into a room. Straw covered the floor and tables and benches were dotted around.

It was mostly empty. Mostly. A few peasant types were dotted about here and there. Three hunched figures were huddled in a corner. Even though she couldn't see their faces, she recognised the clothes. “Surely not....” Lucy strode over, and because she was so bloody tall and conspicuous of the fact, she sat down next to the figure that looked remarkably like Polly's character. Minus the top hat.

This dream just gets weirder. Bowls of food and tankards of something lay in front of her three gaming friends, untouched. Lucy didn't know what to say. Did it even matter in the dream world. “Err.. Morning?”

The female mage looked up, revealing a face that looked as though it had not long bitten into a lemon. The dress was the same. Good quality, quite nice really. A bit wrinkled, not really sitting right. Remarkably like the mage wasn't used to wearing a dress.

“No. Before you say it. This is NOT a fucking dream!” The female mage with Kevin's male voice fairly snarled the statement out.

“Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.” Lucy remarked, somewhat hysterically. Her fellow gamers seemed remarkably mute. Lucy pulled over a bowl and tried some of the, broth, she thought it was. It was alright. A bit cold.

Toby was wrapped up tight in his green cloak, though Lucy could see the tips of his Elfin ears. He looked quite cute actually. In a female sort of way. He wasn't Looking at anyone and was kind of looking like a tortoise peeking out of his shell. Lucy took another look around her three mates and looked down at her breast free chest to the loin?... breach?... what did they call that thing? And burst out into loud laughter. Heads throughout the inn turned in her direction.

“What's so funny?” Polly eventually asked.

Lucy wiped the tears from her eyes. “It's just dawned on me that if we are our characters, then Toby has one very small tissue’s worth of clothing under that cloak.” Lucy burst out into laughter again.

Toby mumbled something that sounded remarkably a lot like, “Fuck off...”

Polly cast an appraising eye over Lucy's body with it's one item of torso clothing. “People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...”

“Yeah, but it's a pretty amazeballs body isn't it?”

Polly pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and nodded her head. She reached a hand out. “can I touch?” Lucy nodded and Polly touched her arm and prodded Lucy's chest. “Fuck me! It's like touching warm stone!”

Kevin groaned “Get a fucking room.”

Polly couldn’t help herself. “Is it you know, like the rest of you downstairs?”

“Like a fucking massive salami!” Lucy admitted.

“Oh dear god...” Kevin groaned and dropped his head into a pair of delicate hands, long hair falling down to touch the table top.

“What about you Polly?”

Polly shook her head sadly and held up her pinkie and wiggled it which caused Lucy to burst out into laughter again.

“This is fucking mad! Is this real? I really feels real..”

Polly reached out and dragged over a scroll that had been on the table next to Kevin. Polly stopped it in front of Lucy and nodded her head down at it. Lucy picked it up and unrolled it. There was the remains of a wax seal on it.

: Congratulations! Our fair play team has validated your run through the final dungeon and we can now grant you, your prize. Your in game time equates to your prize time. Should you die before the end of your allotted time in the secret level, you will respawn back in your bed on the morning after the day of defeating the final boss… :

“Shit! We’ve got months logged in on this game. How the fuck is that even possible? Is it like... “

Polly shook her head. “Don't even start Lucy. I've had over an hour of that shit already with that pair. I'm not going through it again. It's happened, were here, wherever the fuck 'here' is…”

The door leading to the upstairs rooms opened and the unknown girl appeared, dressed in just the thin shift and a pair of sandals. Heads followed her, as she walked through a beam of morning sunlight, her dark areolas becoming visible along with the dark hair of her pubes through the thin material of the shift.

“Well I never,” Polly said “Someone’s managed to wear even less than rabbit ears over there.” Toby didn't appear to have heard, still wrapped up in his misery. The girl came closer and closer still. She stopped next to Lucy and climbed onto Lucy's considerable lap. Kevin's female mage’s jaw dropped and even Toby seemed to surface out of his fugue.

“Err...” Lucy looked down over the girls somewhat gaunt and bony shoulder. The girl’s nipples were quite proud through the material, or the material really was thin, Lucy wasn’t really sure which.

The girl pulled over one of the other untouched bowls and got stuck right in. “What?” she said in response to the stares of the other three. “A night of fucking always makes me hungry...”

“Umm...” Behind the girl, Lucy felt the colour start to flood her face. The girl finished off the contents of the bowl, smacking her lips happily and turned slightly so she could wrap her arms around Lucy and rest her head against Lucy's bare chest.

“I've never had anyone make me cum as much as you have in one night. And this morning was just as awesome. Four times. Four fucking times!” The girl sighed happily.

“Umm..” Lucy looked nervously at the stunned expressions of the other three.

Polly gave her a sharp pointed look. “We need to talk. Alone...”

A new update for Beth was supposed to have been uploaded upon Sunday night, however, the four days attributed to the purpose of polishing and tweaking the initial draft went by without any of that being done (eye roll). So let’s try this again for next Sunday, shall we?

In the meantime….

Lucy

Two ham and cheese rolls were crammed onto a small plate in her left hand, a Thermos mug filled with fresh tea in her right. Lucy pushed her chair out of the way with a foot as she carefully set her load down on the desk, plate on the left, mug on the right. Sitting down in her chair, which creaked and groaned a little at her eighteen stone weight, she pushed down on her feet, scooting herself forward into position, angling her feet so that the bunny ears on her slippers, didn't get trapped under the chairs wheels. Now that she was sat down, Lucy loosened the belt of her fluffy dressing gown slightly. Underneath, she wore her worn, but comfy Marks and Sparks pyjamas.

The computer screen was already waiting patiently on the menu screen. Lucy took a large bite from one of the rolls and chased it down with a large slurp of tea. She glanced at the clock on her phone. It was almost time. Lucy logged in to Sinathem proper, appearing at the spawn point in Valhame, the main city.

Reaching out, Lucy lifted her headset and microphone from its storage hook on the side of her monitor. A key press on the keyboard muted her microphone as she slipped the headset over the top of her tangled hair, settling it comfortably in place. Swivelling the disconnected microphone clear of her mouth, she took another large bite of ham and cheese roll. She had a good feeling about tonight. They had been working up to this moment for weeks.

The last dungeon.

: Evening Lucy! :

Lucy moved her mouse and the screen moved to focus on a dapper male in a top hat with spectacled eyes and an impressive goatee and moustache combo. Lucy swivelled her mic back into place, swallowed and turned on the mic. “Hi Polly. Just us so far? “

“ Uh-huh. No surprise there. Kevin is still probably on Pornhub..... “ They both laughed.

Text appeared on Lucy's screen : Have you any loot you don't want? : A level five Tiefling was stood in front of her. Lucy casually unhooked her double headed great axe of sundering, (plus ten against undead, plus five against beasts, fifteen additional fire damage, ten poison and ten crushing) and embedded it in the Tieflings skull.

: Fuck you! You cunt! : The corpse collapsed to the ground, but abusive text continued to scroll across her screen. Lucy clicked on the players name, selected 'block' and the text vanished.

Polly’s tinkling laughter sounded in her ears. “Fucking Noobs..”

“Fucking Noobs.” Lucy agreed. If Lucy could grind her way up to the max level of one hundred without needing charity, then so could the bloody Noobs. She holstered the axe before one of the AI Wardens spotted her and chastised her with yet another point towards chaotic evil.

“ Yo! Evening ladies! “ A female elfin ranger appeared, long graceful limbs, large pointed ears, green cloaked and wearing the least amount of clothing the game would allow- something suspiciously akin to the outfit Princess Lia wore in those Star Wars films from 30 or so years ago- armed with a bow taller than the character, slung over a graceful shoulder, and a remarkably male sounding voice.

“ Evening Toby.” Lucy said

“Toby.” Polly added.

The new arrival looked around. “Kevin not here yet?”

“No.” The two girls said in unison.

Toby sighed. “I'll text him.”

Lucy called up her inventory screen, checked that she was fully loaded out with potions. “I can't believe Liam went behind Lisa's back!”

“I know,” Lucy agreed, “such a shitty thing to do. I would so dump his admittedly hot arse for that.”

“So with you on that Lucy.” Polly agreed. “And with Sapphire of all people! She is such a bitch... And that dress she wore? So didn't match her complexion, she would have been better with a more muted bl.. “

A new male voice sighed over the com. “I thought we all agreed, no Reality TV talk during the game...”

“Glad you could join us Kevin.” Toby sounded a little irate.

A female character appeared, dressed in a long gown whose hem touched the ground, possessing sleeves from shoulder to wrist, intricately detailed gloves, high necked collar, but was open at the front to reveal a large amount of cleavage and flesh from breast to a thin band of cloth around the throat that linked left sleeve to right. A tiara sparkled amongst long brown hair that dropped midway down the characters back. A slim magical staff was held in one hand, topped with a crystal orb at the characters head height. “Right!” said Kevin, the female mage. “Let's get this party started shall we? And why the fuck is there a dead Tiefling on the ground and a ten year old mouthing off in local?”

“He still there. Why's he not re-spawned yet?” Lucy said with surprise.

“Noob.” Polly observed.

“Noob.” Agreed Toby.

“Any-way's.” Kevin carried on “ We good?”

“Yip.”

“Ready.”

“Let’s do this..”

They all stepped into the portal and re-appeared at the entrance to an imposing cave, surrounded by runes warning of impending death. The runes weren't wrong. Lucy had lost count of the times they had all died inside. But this time, this time would be different, she knew, just knew it.

The Caves of Ulgamar were legendary in the game, both in scope and lore. Only a few players were reckoned to have completed it, though many claimed to have done so, though became very shy when pushed as to what was inside. There were videos, of course, on YouTube. Lucy and the rest of the team had watched them and found them to be completely different to what they had so far encountered. They had come to the general consensus that some players had used a third party level editor to build completely fictional play-through’s to troll the player base.

The largest independent Sinathem gaming site had done several interviews over the years with a few players who had supposedly completed the final dungeon. The players had been surprisingly tight lipped about what awaited the successful dungeon delver. Silence, a sly smile, normally a final mysterious comment along the lines of “Totally worth it” or “Not going to spoil it..” and “Hah hah hah…”

The game developer, when pushed, coyly revealed that only a few players had beaten the dungeon, but also seemed in no hurry to lessen the difficulty in the slightest. The official line being “Only legendary players deserve legendary spoils...” What spoils were looted was something of great speculation. So much so, that many of the unofficial forums had taken to banning and deleting threads started on the subject, as the moderators were fed up of them.

The four of them had tried at first to record their efforts. Tried, because no matter what video capture program they used, the frames per second dropped to a truly awful and unplayable single digit. They had tried using mobile phones and cameras to record the screen, but again, playback showed just a screen of flickering colours with the occasional frame of footage intermixed.

They weren't alone with that issue, according to the internet. All those that tried the dungeon had problems trying to record their attempts. Another reason as to why the four of them believed the videos up on YouTube were fake.

Polly went first. Her top hat clipping through the top of the arch. The first few levels were simple enough. Or at least, simple enough to their party. Polly stopped just inside the arch and disabled the first of many traps.

The start of the dungeon was a rogues wet dream. Tripwires, pressure plates, hidden passageways. Many of which needed a level eighty rogue, at least, to disarm. You could try running through some of them, but the traps were scaled to end game characters and were instant death to those characters under eighty foolish enough to attempt the dungeon..

There wasn't much for Lucy to do at this point, her barbarian’s dexterity scores nowhere near high enough. She collected her empty dishes and deposited them in the sink, opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine and collected a glass.

“On the wine already Lucy?” Polly said with a laugh.

Shit! She had forgotten to mute her mic. “Well, you know how much this girl likes her wine...” There came over her headset speakers, the sound of a ring-pull being pulled. Whether that was a soft drink or a can of beer, Lucy couldn't tell. She poured herself a decent glass full and sat back down. There was a rustle of paper notes, most probably Kevin, as he was fastidious when it came to recording their progress.

Sure enough, Kevin spoke.” Next up is the Edgar Allen Poe pendulum, then the trapdoor and spider.” Lucy took a sip of wine and readied her fingers, stepping up next to Polly. The pendulum was triggered and whistled past Lucy's nose. She timed the swings and stepped forward and past the great swinging blade. Another two steps and the wall to her left slid aside and a chittering spider sprung forth, straight against the swinging edge of Lucy’s double headed axe. The spider burst into an explosion of bloody polygons.

“Next is the floor pressure plate in line with the sconce.” Kevin continued.

Polly was already moving past Lucy, crouching down to disarm the flame trap. And so it went, they moved deeper into the caves, Polly disarming the traps, Lucy dealing with the various denizens. The further they progressed, the more difficult and numerous Lucy's attackers became. The first mini boss was reached. Polly slipped into the shadows, staying out of harms way. Kevin cast a spell and bathed Lucy in an air of lightning protection. Lucy moved forward to attract the mini boss's attention. Lightning shot out of its eyes and struck Lucy full on. Lucy shrugged off the damage and charged. The boss leapt back to avoid the power swing of Lucy's axe and in doing so, leapt back onto Polly's daggers (plus ten back stab when striking from the shadows.) The blades were also poisoned with elemental damage. The boss spun to swipe at Polly, only to be hit by Lucy's back swing and a charged shot from Toby.

It died.

Apart from some slight electrical damage sustained by Lucy-not worth taking a potion over- no other damage to the team had been taken. A large stone panel rolled aside revealing the top of stone stairs. Polly went first, to disarm the trap on the last step. And so it continued, a continual stream of buffs now flowing from Kevin's hands into Lucy as she dealt with all the creature threats as Polly darted about, dealing with traps and any creatures that failed to die at the behest of Lucy's axe.

The banter that had been flowing over their headsets, trailed off as they concentrated on well-timed mouse clicks and keyboard presses. Soon all that was coming over Lucy's earphones was the soundtrack of the game and Kevin's steady warnings as to what was next, interspaced with the rustle of paper as he turned over to the next page of his notes.

As the teams 'tank', Lucy had taken a lot of damage. Far more than anyone else on the team, but it was within the limits they had deemed 'acceptable'. You could only consume a few healing potions within each sixty minutes and likewise, Kevin could only cast the healing spell in his limited slots. Slots that would need a campfire or rest point to recharge.

Unfortunately, no rest or campfire points were available in this dungeon, so spells and potions had to be hoarded. The previous two attempts at the final boss, had been attempted more for the band to work out what Kevin’s spell loadout should be, rather than any serious attempts at defeating the final boss. All their characters had one time use abilities, no more so than their archer, Toby, who was saving all his special attacks for the final boss.

Some teams Lucy had been in, in the past, would have accused Toby of not pulling his weight. Not Kevin’s group. They all knew they each had special character perks and that success lay in using the right ability at the right time. Polly passed the dexterity check and the hidden door was revealed. This was it. The final story board flashed up on the screen. Lucy never really bothered reading them. They were just story plot points that got in the way of her axe swinging. Though she could guarantee that Kevin could recite the boards word for word if asked. The geek.

Yada Yada Yada, here be death. Was all Lucy ever read in those things. Granted, in this case, it served a far more vital purpose. Lucy made sure her mic was turned off and made her way to her bathroom.

Empty and refreshed, Lucy switched her mic back on, waited patiently for the rest of the team. She tried to recall as best as she could, the previous attempts. She had a rough idea of the final boss’s attacks. Like every other boss, it followed a programmed routine. Three quarters of the battle was working out the pattern of attacks and reacting accordingly. She was going to have to be fast on the keys and dodge like a madwoman. She was the only one in their team who had the health to take a direct hit and she needed to keep all the boss's attention on her character so that it ignored her squidgier companions.

“Okay, are we good?” Kevin asked.

“Ready.” Lucy confirmed.

“Ready” Toby said.

“As we planned Lucy.” Kevin stated.

“As we planned” Lucy agreed. Kevin had re-spec’ed his entire mage build just for this battle. There had been no hint or clues on what damage the boss dealt, or was susceptible to, online, or on the forums. So they had all been paying close attention on the previous attempts, as to what attacks and weapons did damage and what didn't, along with the types of damage they had taken in the process.

“Okay.” Polly came back on. “I'm good to go...”

“Good luck team. Let’s get this fucker and become famous!” Kevin said and hit the 'continue' button on the storyboard. Lucy hit her continue icon and was greeted by a brief flash screen.

: Waiting for other players :

And then she was in the final underground sanctum. Immediately she moved forward triggering the on screen text “Blah blah blah... Get on with it.” Lucy grumbled as Polly and Toby moved to the side, keeping their distance from the centre of the chamber and the not-in-the-least-bit ominous looking altar. Kevin's character stayed well behind Lucy's and started throwing the last of his spells at Lucy.

Whilst Polly's character did brilliant damage with her twin daggers from concealment, the final boss had a short range surrounding aura that leached health from any attackers foolish enough to get close. Polly had found out the hard way, previously, how quickly that aura killed her. She slunk of into the shadows and swapped her preferred daggers for a crossbow.

The boss seemed most susceptible to piercing damage, so now it was Toby's female archer's time to step up to the challenge.

“You have no appreciation, Lucy, for the drama, the story...” Kevin chastised.

“Me barbarian. Me kill. Me rip off arms..” Lucy replied.

The others laughed at her, as the final boss appeared, spouted a bit of 'plot' and set the process of killing them all, into motion. It was a frantic process, Lucy leaning left and right in her chair as though it would help her character dodge the incoming attacks. Her character positively glowed with buffs. It was a glorious sight, Kevin throwing everything he had left at her. Lucy had one eye on the Boss, one on her health bar. Once she was dead, the rest of the team would quickly follow suit and yet another attempt would be over.

Lucy was getting low on health, one of her fingers hovered over the quick slot key. Her low health suddenly rushed back up to three quarters full. Her finger hadn't done anything. Kevin had taken a risk and used one of his few remaining health spells on her. Lucy would have kept that back, just in case one of the others needed healing. “Shit!” Lucy took a hit and most of her freshly replaced health was gone. She couldn't afford another hit like that. Her finger stabbed down and her last quick slot was used up and her health went back up to three quarters full.

The health bar of the boss was going down but not fast enough. It was going to be tight...

Toby took a hit. Even though it was only a glancing blow, it almost killed him outright. “Fuck!” His heath shot back up as he used his one and only health potion, only for him to take another hit.

“Toby...” Kevin warned.

“I know, I know...”

“Heal him Kev...” Lucy all but shouted into her mic.

“I only have one last healing spell left Lucy...”

“If Toby dies, we lose our damage dealer...” It was going to be a difficult decision... Toby's health went back up to full. Now Lucy would have to be really careful. Her shoulders were that tense, they hurt. And she really needed a piss. The boss's health was still going down, but so was hers... “We're not going to make this...” Her heath was low, Even if she evaded any blows, the aura was going to kill her.

“Fuck it!” Kevin shouted “All in!!!” Kevin drew closer so that his staff was in range and stopped buffing Lucy to throw mage balls at the Boss from his staff. Polly attacked from the shadows swapping her crossbow for her favourite daggers, managing to score critical hits with both. Toby drew closer and threw caltrops down at the boss's feet. Lucy laughed at the absurdity of it. The rangers caltrops were notoriously ineffective after level forty, the protagonists encountered after level forty had health and deflections that rendered the rangers caltrops ability useless. It had been a complaint of rangers for years.

In order for Toby to use the caltrops, Kevin his staff and Polly her daggers, had meant that all were inside the range of the Boss's health depletion aura. Lucy Watched the health of her fellows start to drop like a stone. They were all basically dead, but they weren't retreating, fighting till the last. Lucy gave up and went all in as well, not bothering to dodge, but to get in as many hits in as possible.

It was sad that they hadn't been able to record the run. This was absolutely EPIC in its failure. They would be talking about this for years. Probably long after they stopped playing the game. That was it, her health was almost gone. Lucy removed her hands from her keyboard. On screen, the Boss dramatically fell over.

: Congratulations : appeared on the screen.

There was silence. No music, no effects sounds. Just silence.

Lucy just stared at the screen uncomprehending.

“Are we still alive? Did we win?” Toby asked as his character walked across the screen and approached the fallen boss. “I've got a loot screen!”

“Wait!” Lucy finally spoke.” We're still alive?”

“Appears so…” Toby said “Though looking at my health bar, I’m more zombie than Elfin Ranger. Anyone got any paracetamol?” He laughed. The other characters started moving about, except for Lucy's she just stared at the screen in bewilderment. “Hey guys, is Lucy still with us?”

“Lucy?”

“LUCY!!”

Lucy winced. “Jesus! Don't shout! I'm not deaf, or dead for that matter.”

“Lucy is still with us...” Toby said pointlessly.

Lucy opened her profile screen and looked at her health. Three out of seventeen thousand. Shit, that had been closer than close.. Had any of them died, the dungeon would have been over as, apparently, you needed to finish with the players you started with. Lucy leaned forward. Fuck, did her shoulders ache or what... And she was exhausted. like she had just come in from a run around the park. “What did it drop?” Lucy asked.

“Absolute shite!” Kevin replied dejectedly.

“Really?” Lucy walked her character over to have a look. Some health potions, a pathetic amount of coin and some crafting ingredients. Legendary loot, it wasn't. “Is that it? Really?” Lucy was most definitely not impressed.

“Yo bittches! We made Global!” Polly said with a laugh. Lucy changed the chat box from team to Global. Sure enough there it was, their character names.

: Elora Faraine, Throlnirr Sgilsnot, Wendy and Annabelle Ozinelle, have defeated Dorgeth Vagremath :

Lucy changed the chat over to the sever chat. The same message from the game's system was there as well, quickly followed by messages from other players on-line at the time.

: wow! :

: No shit! :

: congrats! :

: what's the loot? :

Lots of messages on chat were directed at them. A number appeared on the message icon at the top of her screen. Five, twelve, twenty three. The unread messages in her inbox were piling up fast. Lucy was scared to open it and read some of them.

“I can't see any hidden chests or doors.” Polly sounded every bit as pissed off as Lucy felt. Was that really it?

A story box appeared in front of her. A short story about how that they had killed the demon, happiness had spread throughout the land. Yaddo Yaddo. Bog standard fantasy fare. Lucy skipped past it all till the story board screens disappeared and she was back in the cavern.

Now a portal was there next to the Altar. Lucy went for a wander, but like Polly, she couldn't find anything that made it all worthwhile. Lucy entered the portal and found herself back at the main spawning point. She opened up her character screens but couldn't find any new additions. No new level, no new abilities no new powerful weapons or armour in her inventory. Oh, hang on there was a new scroll. she clicked on it;

: Congratulations upon defeating Dorgeth Vagremath (the third). Your play through will be checked to ensure no cheats or hacks were used. If you succeeded through ability, your prize will be awarded as soon as possible. (we aim to ensure this is done within one working day- This may take longer if multiple players succeed at the same time) :

Lucy opened her mouth, but it was Kevin that spoke.

“Hey guys. I've got a scroll in my inventory. It says we will be rewarded when the Devs check our run.”

Slowly the team appeared about her in the square as they ported out from the dungeon.

“Well that isn't so bad. It better be a kick ass suit of armour, or a sword of obliteration or something.”

Lucy felt let down, drained. “I'm sorry guys. I'm tired. I'm going to log off and go to bed. Catch you tomorrow...”

“Laters Luce.”

“Tomorrow Lucy!”

“Tomoz, sis in battle.”

Lucy logged off and shut her computer down. She shook her head ruefully at how close it had been. She collected the dirty dishes and the half-drunk bottle of wine. She swithered over taking the bottle to bed, but decided at the last moment, that that was a really bad idea and put it back in the fridge. Turning off the light, she hung her dressing gown over the end of the bed and crawled in under the duvet. What a night, though the end of the battle really had been an anti-climax. Lucy closed her eyes. Tomorrow, as they said, was another day.

She braced a foot up against a coolant pipe and tried not to think about the infinite darkness that lay a foot away from the sole of her light ship shoe. Vibrations from the drive cone travelled into her body, through the contact between the internal plating and her back and buttocks.

The lights went out. They had fired.

This was the worst part. The not knowing if death was but a mere moment away. She clenched her fists and didn't bother holding back the sob. The lights flickered back on, the distant hum of pumps and machinery kicking back into life as their power was restored. They had been stalking the transport for days, stealthed and slowly manoeuvring into position behind it's drive cone where it was blind.

There had followed hours of tedium as they quietly drew close enough for the laser to work. Missiles and solid ballistic munitions couldn't be used for fear of causing catastrophic decompression and destroying the target. The only viable option was to sneak up behind and fire the laser straight up the drive cone. As solid matter would have been disintegrated by the reactor exhaust, they used a laser. The lasers beam wouldn't be affected by the drive plume and on contact with the shielding of the exhausts internals and core, the myriad electronics held within would burn out causing the reactor to shut down. By the time the target rebooted, they would be upon them, anchored and ready for breaching. Just another ship joining the long list of ships plundered.

It was how her parents ship had been taken. Stripped of everything of value and then left to drift aimlessly in the void, along with the corpses of her parents and older brother, now forever alone in the darkness.

Just another small ship lost to the dangers of interstellar travel. The risks so varied that she doubted that their loss had made any more impact than a mark on a tally sheet somewhere. Given the vastness of known space and the traffic within, no one would have even bothered to come looking to see what had happened to the small family run freighter. Had they been famous or carrying precious cargo, eyebrows might have been raised and someone with too much money and time to burn, might have come looking. They hadn't been, so she doubted anyone had cared enough to bother finding out why they never made their docking slot.

There was a series of faint 'thuds' as the anchors were fired. The two craft would be drawing together now, a spider pulling in its prey. Another family, or small enterprise, destroyed.

Just another revolution of the cog of life. The destructive machine that was humanity.

The crawl space shook as the two ships collided, the external hatch of their prey forcibly blown open. There was a faint tingle in her ears as her eardrums reacted to the slight change in atmosphere pressure as the umbilical latched on like a remora eel and the air lock cycled.

She wiped the moisture from her eyes, rubbed the sleeve of her frayed and tattered ship suit across her nose, and crawled out of her safe space. Not that it was hers, or even remotely safe. But it was a nice fantasy and apart from the clothes she currently wore, it was all she had, was all she was allowed to have.

The ship wide speaker system crackled into life "Ship secure, get to it cunts." Other girls joined her as she drew closer to the lock and its umbilical.

Malnourished hands and arms pulled her through the corridors. The other girls just a quiet and sullen as she was. No words were spoken as they headed towards the cargo hold. If it was empty or contained small crates, they could move it through the corridor. If it was bulky, or too big for the corridors, then they would have to move the cargo via space. The corridors echoed to the distant sounds of screaming.

There was always screaming.

That had been her once. And many, many times after. Though she no longer screamed now. Didn't do anything. Just let it happen. Fighting just prolonged the inevitable, made them come back for more.

The girls moved on, gliding through the corridors, none of them paid the screaming any heed, they had all been there. Skeletal wraiths of despair. If she was lucky, there might be food packs, and she could squirrel one or two away, maybe even sneak a chance to eat a couple when she was in the hold. Her stomach rumbled at the thought. So wrapped up in her food consuming fantasy was she, that she didn't see the blow that ripped her fourteen year old fingers from the grab handles and sent her cashing into the bulkhead wall.

"What the fuck are you doing in here cunt? Get outside and connect the pipes."

And just like that, all thought and chances of food were gone.

The other girls moved over what was in the hold and the personal possessions of the freighters crew as she methodically suited herself. There was no room for error in space. No second chances. The air lock cycled and the suit billowed out slightly as the air inside sought to escape into the vacuum. Walking into position into position, she bent her knees, connecting one end of her suits tag line onto the hull and launched herself into space. Years of experience ensured that her leap was true and she anchored the other end of the tag line to the freighters hull.

Clipping the hoop of her belt onto the tagline, another bend of her knees sent her back across.

Opening a hatch she pulled out the fuel hose and dragged it along the line to the connection on the freighters hull. She opened the manual valve and activated the suits short range radio. "Fuel connected." There was no reply, no acknowledgement. Not that she had been expecting one, but if she hadn't radioed it in, she would have paid for it. Another bend of the knees and another weightless soar through space. Heading back to the airlock, she cycled through, swapping out her almost empty air-cylinder for a fresh one, checking the pressure was correct for a full tank. Back at the tag line, she opened another hatch and set to pulling out the water pipe and hauling it across the gap. Connection secure, she opened its manual value. "Water connected." She radioed into the darkness. This time, she merited a reply.

"Transferring." Crying could be heard in the background of the reply, begging to be left alone. She sighed with relief, she could head back.

Stripping out of the survival suit, she hung it back up, securing it and plugging the second tank into one of the charging ports before she made her way over to the freighter. Depending on the levels, it could take hours for the pirate craft's tanks to fully replenish. The hold was almost empty when she arrived. Not a good sign. The freighter must have been almost empty of cargo. Low yield meant anger from their captors, and that could go in any direction. All of them bad.

She could see the fear in the other girls eyes. One of their captors appeared, ship suit mostly still unbuckled from his 'fun'. He threw two meal packets at her. "Cabins." He barked at them. With trembling fingers, she quickly opened both packets and consumed the contents before one of the other girls took them off her.

Methodically, they stripped the cabins of everything that could be stripped, loading the haul into cargo nets. One of the few advantages of zero-g meant that large heavy loads could be moved easily along the corridors. Their captors would sort through it later, spacing anything of no or little value. The same was done to the freighters fittings. Easily removed fittings were removed for spare parts. Circuit boards from the engine management carefully removed, though the girls left everything to do with the control of the fusion bottle well alone.

They weren't allowed anywhere near the bridge, lest one of them tried to send out a call for help. Though they all knew that such an attempt would result in the immediate spacing of all of them, regardless as to whether or not they were even complicit in the attempt.

Anya, a girl who had been taken a month after her, approached. "We're to disconnect."

It always seemed to be her. When it came to connect and disconnect, she was always chosen, but then it was mostly her fault, as she had been trying to make herself more useful, rather than just a sex toy like the other girls. She vastly preferred skinning knuckles replacing a pipe in a tight awkward space than being raped. Especially since the men only seemed to get off when the girl they were thrusting into, was crying. In the smaller personal air lock, they checked each other over and connected air tanks. With the pair of them on the task, she wouldn't need to come back to replace her air tank.

Anya started to close the valves on the pirate vessel as she pulled her way along the wire. Closing the valves on the plundered freighter, she disconnected the hoses and tag line, pulling herself along even as Anya pulled the line from the other end. When her boots were clamped back on the hull, Anya started feeding the water pipe back in as she fed in the fuel.

The ship vibrated beneath them as the drive engaged. The walk back to the airlock was one of careful panic. They both knew their captors wouldn't think twice about jumping before they were even inside, so it was with great relief when the air lock door shut behind them. With a bit of luck, the crew would have satiated any lust on the other girls whilst they were outside. Her hopes were dashed when the inner door opened and they were greeted by one of the crew.

"Cargo hold. Now, Don't waste time changing."

The two girls exchanged a worried look as they removed their air tanks and put them onto charge. Helmets in hands, they followed the crew member to the main cargo hold and she felt her stomach sink.

All the male crew, bar one sat in the pilot’s seat in the bridge, were there, along with all the girls and three new faces. Two girls and a boy, all three naked. That was unusual, they never took male captives. All three new additions were bruised, cut, beaten. The two girls had blood between their thighs and were quietly sobbing. She had been in their place, once. The boy, judging by his hunched stance and refusal to look up, hadn’t been spared the sexual abuse experienced by the two girls.

"Glad you two cunt’s could make it. Get in." The raider nodded his head towards the open freight airlock chamber.

She felt urine run down her leg inside her suit, but she still numbly stepped forward, Anya following her. She took a suit tank off the wall and was hopeful when no-one told her not to. Maybe she had read the situation wrong. Body working mostly on autopilot she connected the tank. Anya, who had followed her lead, doing so as well.

"We have a tradition on this ship.” He continued “When we take on new crew members, we say goodbye to the least pleasing...."

Her heart dropped to the deck as Anya let out a terrified sob next to her. The ship shuddered as they dropped out of the warp jump.

"Oh! Wait a minute! There is only the pair of you. Silly me." He turned to the three new bodies, two of which stared back at him in uncomprehending fear "One. Two." He slowly counted in exaggerated slowness, pointing at the new boy, then one of the new girls. "Three... Oh, three! We are one short." He turned to the assembled girls, who desperately tried not to meet his gaze or draw his attention. "Hmm.." He lifted a hand "Eeny meenie miny mo, who is shit at sucking dick..." He smiled widely at the girls, enjoying their terror immensely. "Natalie!"

"NO!!!" Natalie screamed "Not me!"

"Yes, you." He replied happily as Natalie desperately shook her head. "Out you come, chop, chop!"

Natalie screamed as one of the crew members dragged her forward "Please no! I'll suck your cock! I'll suck it right now! You can have me, any hole, any position, right now! PLEASE NOT ME!!!"

"Ahh, little Natalie, such passion! Such life! But we've all had you, in every hole, many times, and if only you had shown such willingness then, as you show now, then you wouldn't be in this little predicament. But, alas, for you, we all voted and you were found to be... lacking."

"Please! Give me another chance! I'll be better!"

"Why don't we ask the other girls, shall we?" He turned from Natalie to the remaining girls "Anyone wish to take Nats place?" The other girls stayed silent. "Oh dear Nat, doesn't look like anyone wants to trade places with you. In you go, there's a good cunt. Actually," He laughed. "You're not that good, hence why you were chosen"

"No! I beg you! Please!"

"Do you really wish to please me Nat?"

"Yes, Yes, yes..." Natalie begged, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"Then you can do so, BY GETTING IN THAT FUCKING AIR LOCK!"

Natalie was partly pushed, mostly thrown, into the airlock, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

"Don’t bother with your mag boots girls.” He said to the two space suited girls. “You're not staying. Seriously. You are not staying." The door slid shut just as Natalie reached it, banging her fists futilely against the metal and reinforced plexiglass.

Watching Natalie bloody her fists against the door, she put on her helmet, part of her conscious mind wondering if it was her sub-conscious desire to live, even if it was just for a bit longer. Or to cut out Nat’s screams, which were deafening. A hand found hers and she turned to look at Anya, who had also donned her helmet. The two girls squeezed their hands tight together as he smiled and waved goodbye at the window.

There was a brief tug at the back of their suits and then they were sucked out of the ship, the screaming instantly stopping. She couldn't believe they had done this to her. But then, she could. She had watched this murder countless times from the other side, always believing that it wouldn't happen to her. After all, you didn't have to be fast to outrun a monster, you just had to ensure that you weren't the last. Somehow, she had become the last.

She watched the ship depart, her home of the last few years quietly disappearing out of sight. Natalie drifted along side, eyes and mouth open. Skin white, dead, all the moisture of her body frozen, including her eyes. They had ejected them on the peak of a hard turn, basically sling-shotting them out of the airlock.

She looked around as a large shadow swept past. An asteroid field. A dense one. A statement of fact, that they wouldn't be coming back for them. That they wouldn't risk the ship, or their lives, for the two girls. The rocks continued to glide past. It was hard to comprehend that it was her that was moving, not the asteroids.

Natalie was slowly separating from them as her mind refused to dwell on her situation, trying to work out which would kill her first. The cold, the inevitable lack of oxygen, or a collision with an asteroid. Anya and herself must be travelling at five thousand or so miles an hour. At that speed, colliding with any of the rocks gliding past was just going to result in her becoming a thin carbon smear.

Arms enfolded her and she hugged Anya back. Their face plates touched and they stared into each others eyes. Neither was crying. They had passed sheer terror and now there was only fatalistic resignation. The hug, obstructed as it is by the suits, was comforting, a strange solace to the fact that in the vast emptiness of space, they would be together till the end.

Anya squeezed her tightly. She hadn't been attached to many of the girls. Anya had been one of the few, and even then, they had only sought intimate companionship twice of their own desire. All the girls had slept with each other many times under the direction of their male captors. They had liked to watch the girls pleasure –or punish- each other under their direction, before they moved in to finish off with their hard cocks or hard punches, depending on how their mood, or their dark desire took them.

They shot past a rock scarily close. So close that they could have almost reached out and touched it, then it was gone. She winced. That had almost been it for them. Yet, she couldn't work out if that had been a good, or a bad thing. She looked around. Of Nat's corpse there was no sign. She had either drifted beyond sight or had collided with one of the asteroid belt's many solid denizens.

This was bad. This not knowing. Did she want to see death coming, or would she rather close her eyes and meet oblivion in darkness. She closed her eyes. Then opened them a few seconds later. The darkness was, somehow, worse. She was starting to get cold now, and there couldn't be that much oxygen left in the tank. She refused to look at the gauge. Looking wouldn’t' help, nor make any difference to the inevitable. She looked back at Anya.

How come she had never really noticed how beautiful Anya was. She supposed they all were, as the less than beautiful were either murdered during sex within a day or two of being captured, or simply spaced when the adrenaline of the boarding action had worn off and they saw the quality of the goods with calmer minds.

Anya smiled, a fatalistic, forlorn smile as her lips moved in silence 'I'm sorry...'

Her mind was still matching Anya’s lip movements to words, as one of Anya's hands left the embrace. Her mouth opened to say words she still hadn't formulated in return, when the inside of Anya's helmet misted white and her grasp slackened.

And that was it, she was alone.

Her hand moved up to her own helmet release, but she couldn't do it. She tried, she really did. But she just couldn't do it. She cried as she turned Anya around and removed her
air tank. Anya's released helmet slowly parted from the suit and drifted off as the air tank was removed. She wondered why she even bothered. It just meant that collision and hypothermia had moved to the top of things most likely to kill her. Anya slowly drifted away. Even in death, she was still beautiful.

"Your body is forever yours now Anya, and yours only. You will never have to suffer the unwanted attention of men ever again." She sighed, a strange peace coming over her. Looking away from Anya’s corpse, she saw an asteroid approaching. There was no way she was going to avoid it. "So this is it then? Well, fuck." A terrified laugh escaped her lips.

And yet, what was that on the surface.. It looked like a...

Ship.

Contrary to last blog posting, things took yet another mad change of direction in life.

Keeps us on our toes, don't it...

Anyway, this resulted in me having the time to work on Beth a bit more. I also went back and corrected the spelling and plot holes in parts one and two. Or at least, the ones I spotted.

I point this out, as I decided - in my wisdom - to amalgamate the two chapters together and resubmit the modified chapters as one chapter before submitting the new. Which I did, however the new chapter submitted a few days later was posted as the third chapter. Which is technically correct, I suppose.

Basically, what I am saying in a round-a-bout way, is that all the 'bits' are there and you aren't missing anything.

I'm now a little 'Bethed' out and plan to work on some other stuff for a break as things gestate/percolate/cook in my head.

She will be back... Sometime...And without dark glasses...