Chapter 15: What the?

-- Philip - 2061 --

Ant and I looked at the Rih drive.

There was no way we were going to get that baby going again. She was Fucked with a capital ‘F’. I was still surprised the computer hadn’t shut it down. It must have failed catastrophically to melt as it had.

We went and checked the other three drives. The second drive on this end was fine, giving us some hope. I suggested we might need to do a spacewalk. Theoretical we could drop the cones off and replace them. It was also possible the damage wasn’t that bad.

The damn computer had so many safeguards on the drives that if something were even a thou’ out of alignment the bloody things shut down. If the cone was only dinged, or the bolts were loose, we could do a bit of panel beating and get the ship going again.

The other two engines were also in working order. The external damage was causing all the problems. We were going to have to go for a walk. We were still tired and drained and with no girls to top us up, we would need a bit longer to recharge.

We checked the stores and the first assessment was grim. The girls hadn’t been too careful with what they used, as we got closer to Earth. We should have come home with enough supplies to feed four of us for a month. Being four days late and the food they had wasted, our stores had been reduced to a couple of weeks.

They had also eaten anything they liked and not stuck to the food allocation roster, so we had a lot of things missing to keep our diet balanced, the protein being the biggest problem. I had to smile when Ant was muttering under his breath about their stupidity.

As we went through the stores, I heard Ant yell out, “Eureka.” I turned to see him holding up a box that was about 50cm square. I lifted an eyebrow, and he grinned and wiggled his. I knew I wasn’t going to like it. When he said ‘Mung Beans’, I had to groan if only to make him happy.

I remembered him insisting on them being included. I was sure the box of alfalfa seeds would be there too. The girls hadn’t liked either of them, so Ant had only been doing enough for him and me.

He knew I’d eat them if he included them with other things. I’d eat pretty much anything, as long as Ant had been the one who prepared or cooked it. The man was a wizard with food. The girls had worked that out fast too. They never stopped Ant from taking over cooking duties.

He ferreted around and pulled out another box, and I got the next big grin. He’d been growing leafy vegetables for us. The girls weren’t so big on them either, which had annoyed Ant so he’d not grown as much, so it wasn’t wasted.

He still had a full box of mixed seeds. We had enough other pre-packaged dehydrated crap that if he got the seeds planted, we wouldn’t starve completely. Some would need a couple of weeks to get established, but by then we would need them.

We both decided food was the priority. If we got the hydroponics set up and the seeds in, then we could fuck around with the drives and get them going. We still had a tonne of ice on this side in the second bay without accessing the damaged hold.

I could possibly set up a manual filtration system if the main one failed. Ant also had a small system for his hydroponics. It might not hurt to redirect our waste to the nutrient tanks. I liked the idea.

It took us the better part of a day to get the system up and running so that we were both happy. We set up every available pipe we could turn into a trough. We even used the asteroid’s rocks we had stored from melting the ice as the growing base.

We had been dumping the gravel into the empty food crates. We were surprised by how much we had. Looking after the ice melting tank was one job the girls had taken over without complaint since they liked long showers.

I had bitched about not getting a shower when I’d melted enough ice for us all to have a five minute one. I had called the girls inconsiderate bitches because they had used all of the water and Ant and I had to wait for the next lot to melt. After that, they made damn sure it was done.

Ant and I knew we were getting further from Earth each minute, but if we could get two drives working on at least one end we could make up the lost days with ease, and we would have the food to do it. Water was the least of worries.

We got the main cabin cleaned up, and it wasn’t as bad as we first thought. Ant got pissed when he found one of his favourite knives snapped and grumbled about the girls having no respect for a chef’s tools. I’d learned a long time ago to not mistreat the cooking gear.

Ant fed us, and we crashed for eight hours straight. For us, that was long sleep. We were both used to the four hours stints and found they were more than long enough for us. The girls seemed to forever want to crawl into bed and sleep.

Ant and I had also worked out by the second week that the girls were suffering from a form of space sickness. Neither girl hadn’t ever spent more than a week in space so their doctors probably hadn’t realised they would get it. Ant and I spent so much time in space over the years that being in it for weeks didn’t bother us at all.

Interestingly, we found once we started screwing the girls regularly their sickness seemed to abate, and we could get more work out of them. Qual, in particular, had been a real bitch if you woke her after less than six hours sleep.

I learnt that if I rolled her over and fucked her. That it seemed to wake her up and sweeten her mood. The girl sure liked sex. Once Ant and I began swapping the girls, it made our life better. We could get up and leave the one sleeping and then when the other went to bed, we’d screw whoever was in it at the time.

Since they slept twice as long as we did, a lot of chores seemed to fall on our shoulders, and the girls had no qualms letting us do the extra work. It pissed us off a bit, but Ant, and I just did what was required when it needed to be done.

After a shower and a feed, we got dressed in our suits and decided to leave via the damaged hold. We both grimaced when we found the girls’ suits were still in their lockers. Stupid bitches. They had been a bit erratic this last week, so we could only put it down to the space sickness affecting their better judgement.

The ice had shifted when the drive cut out, and the compensators fluttered. It was a bloody big hole. We couldn’t land on Earth with that hole, and I didn’t have enough plate to fix it. We would have to head to the Moon.

This created other issues, but that was far enough in the future not worry about it now. We headed down to the end and accessed the chamber to let us out of the hold and into space. It was a pain having to wait for it to do its routine even though the hold wasn’t pressurised, but the attachments for our safety line were here, so we had little choice.

We headed for the fore drives. Both of them were working so if we could get at least one cone fixed we could get home even if we had to rotate the ship using the Ionic Drives. Shit! One of the cones was so damaged it was a wonder it was still attached to the ship. It was a write-off.

The other cone had possibilities, but it wasn’t going to be easy to fix. It was going to involve a lot of hours in space. I wasn’t sure if I had enough welding gear either. We would also need to manufacture more oxygen for the tanks, and both of us would have to work out here with no support from inside the ship.

We made our way to the other end and left a tether line. It could stay there if we entered from the other hold as I was going to need it later anyway. We checked out the communications array, but it was beyond my repair.

Over the years, I had learnt to fix a lot of things, but I had to have it to fix it. Here I had nothing. We had the EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) activated, but it would be sheer dumb luck if it were ever picked up.

One thing still bothered both of us. While our ear studs had settled down, they were still warmer than normal. We had learnt years ago to act if they were warm or hot. We had argued about whether Ant should stay inside, but he was adamant that if I went, he came with me.

Our studs had cooled a little after we made this decision. So we both went. We were almost at the other end of the ship and had stopped to attach the long tether line we were running out with us. We both grabbed the sides of our helmets in pain.

We turned to look back along the ship in time to see a basketball sized rock, lit up by our rear lights smash into the ship near the top Ionic drive. The ship shuddered and bucked under us at the impact, and then the drive exploded off the ship ripping out a section of the hull as it did so.

We had both flung ourselves to the deck and hung on for all we were worth. We had turned the drives off while on the hull, or it could have been a lot worse. We hoped the fail-safes cut out the fuel system or we would be in a whole mess of new trouble.

We both swore in unison. Fuck, our luck was just getting better and better. The rock and the explosion had hit us hard enough that the ship started to spin. We needed to get inside and fast.

We re-attached our boots to the hull and disconnected our short tethers from our belt to re-attach our longer ones. Just as I went to attach, I got this real dizzy feeling. I felt myself falling when I blacked out.

My last thought was, ‘Fuck, I’d not gotten the clip in place.’

-- Ant --

We were on the hull when my ear stud started to burn.

I looked up to see a rock hit the Ionic Drive and dove for the hull. Phil had just attached the main tether and had been standing back up when it hit. I grabbed him and pulled him down with me.

We hung on for dear life as the ship bucked beneath us. Fuck, this had been one fucked up mission. We couldn’t seem to catch a break. We had no idea at this point how much damage had been done internally as the drive exploded off the ship.

We both stood after the ship stopped shuddering and went to swap tethers. I saw Phil fall as the weird dizzying sensation hit me and I found myself falling with him. I still had hold of the two clips but felt them slid from my grasp as I fell.

I came awake slowly. I breathed in through my nose and caught an unusual scent. I sniffed again and frowned. The air smelt very different and made me think of roses. I loved roses and used to grow them for my mother.

I opened my eyes and frowned again. The ceiling was different. It was higher from the bed to start with. It also had an unusual glow that brightened as I lay there and I saw my reflection bounced back at me. The room took on dimensions as the shadows fled. I squinted and looked around the room.

I was on a large bed and had a light pale blue coloured sheet over the lower half of my naked body. ‘Okay, ‘ I thought. ‘This wasn’t in my version of what heaven looked like, but it wasn’t bad.’

I then picked out doorways in two different walls of the large square room. One had a door the other opened into a cubical. The opposite wall appeared to be made up mirrored sliding doors that I assumed were cupboards.

The rest of the walls were white. The floor had a soft looking mottled brown and cream covering, but there were no windows. I could feel a very faint vibration and decided I was on a ship of some kind. This made more sense to my befuddled brain.

However, it was unlike any craft that I knew of on Earth. I glanced at the door when I heard a chime and watched as a gorgeous creature glided into the room. She damn near took my breath away.

Her hair dropped in loose curls to her waist. It had a white tone with fine pale green streaks. It was pinned with combs behind her ears. I noticed the top of her ears were more pointed and that they were longer and thinner than any human’s ears that I had ever seen.

Her exposed skin was pale with a slight greyish/green tinge. Her eyes were large and dark purple. While they were larger than a human’s eyes, they didn’t look out of place with her finely pointed nose and wide, dark pink cupid-bow lips.

My eyes travelled down the rest of her 180cm human-shaped body. She wore a pale green almost transparent frock that pinned to one shoulder and draped down her body to her long, slim, bare feet. The dress outlined her magnificent pointy breasts, which made my cock stiffen.

I could see she was slim, but she had nicely rounded hips and long, lovely shaped legs. She was devastatingly gorgeous. I got even harder when she licked her lips with her pointy pink tongue, and I realised where her eyes were directed.

I heard a soft female chuckle, but it didn’t come from the woman. I glanced around the room when a disembodied voice said, “Welcome aboard Andrew. I see you have met my daughter Celadon. My name is Zara, and I am the ship that you are in. You and your brother were lucky we got to you in time.”

I licked my dry lips and replied with a slight croak, “Why, what was wrong with our ship?”

Celadon answered, “Quite a lot. We have retrieved what is left of it, but it will never fly again. Fortunately, we were able to bring you two and your ship aboard before the next asteroid hit.”

“Is Phil okay?” I asked anxiously as I sat up. I swung my legs off the bed and flashed Celadon in the process much to her delight.

She grinned at me and replied, “Yes, Mother has sent my sister Cyan to attend to him.”

I frowned, “How can a ship be your mother?” What the voice had said seemed strange. She had said she was ‘The Ship’.

Celadon chuckled, “Zara made us. This ship had a storage of DNA, ova and sperm from the previous occupants. Mother has made several brothers and sisters before us. She also modified our DNA, so we also contain part of her. It makes it easier for us to control and fix any of the ship’s systems.”

I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t fully understand, but I hoped to learn more. “So, is Zara taking us back to Earth?” I asked hopefully.

Zara answered, “No. I’m sorry, but in your original timeline, you and your brother died. I’ve been a little naughty and circumvented that fate. However, the place I’m sending you four has a much better outcome for you.”

Loral and Anne would have been upset when our ship disappeared off the radars. If they now thought us dead, that was worse. Confused about her sending us somewhere else I asked, “Us four?”

“Yes, I created Celadon and Cyan for you and Phillip. You need to go help your sisters,” Zara replied.

“What sisters?” I asked getting even more confused.

“Your father, Storm Green, left four children on Earth. Your sister Raina has been reunited with him, but Crystal has run into some trouble. It was not something I’d been able to foresee or circumvent.”

She then told me, “I can’t alter fate to that extent. We also need to stop and pick up some other people who have gotten themselves into some trouble. In the meantime, I believe we have some mage’s boxes that should suit you and your brother so you can start your training with the girls.”

Now I was seriously confused. “What the fuck!” I exclaimed.

Celadon chuckled. “It’s okay, let’s get you showered and dressed. Then I’ll take you to get fed, and Cyan and I will explain about the boxes to you and your brother in more detail.”

I stood and scratched my head in confusion. I looked up when Celadon exclaimed, “Damn mother, he is perfect.”

I heard the other voice chuckle and say, “Yes, Storm sure has some excellent genes.”

I looked down. My cock was still up. I’d kinda forgotten about him during the conversation, but he hadn’t forgotten about Celadon. My cock twitched as she stepped closer to me. The hint of roses didn’t help.