Chapter 4

Dey groaned as a spray of sea water slapped her in the face. Her fields could have knocked the spray aside. But rather than using her energy on that, she and Loki had decided in their infinite wisdom to save her K9s for something more important. In case it came up. So far, she was regretting that choice. The engine sputtered behind her and she heard Xee’s voice breaking over the howling sound of the storm and the sleeting rain that added to the wash of the waves.

“We’re getting some red lights, Dey!”

“I noticed!”

Dey grabbed onto the wheel, locked it into position, then turned and ran onto the deck. If she had thought it was bad in the cabin, she found it infinitely worse in the rocking, tossing waves. She grabbed onto the edge of the Enterprise to keep herself from sliding overboard and mentally regretted every leaving Miami. But no, she had to get some treasure.

The Cape of Good Hope wasn’t the southernmost tip of Africa. But it was the most recognizable landmark out there – but the storms that blew from the pole and along the coast were nothing to joke about. They hadn’t been anything to joke about in the 18th century, when people had struggled past with nothing but wooden ships and iron souls. They hadn’t been anything to joke about in massive steaming dreadnoughts from the first and second Big Wars. Now, on a ship with technology literally light years ahead of those eras, Dey was worried that this storm was going to be enough to send her into the spray.

She pushed herself away. Her feet remained planted on the deck as Loki painted the view in false colors, outlining different things to grab onto in case of a major swell. With those hand holds, she got to the engine and managed to flip it open. She saw the fault immediately. As she worked, Xee handed her tools and tried to keep the rain out of her face – holding up her palms and creating a shimmering warp field that refracted the rain away from the lot of them.

Underneath the Enterprise, Sky worked his tentacly best to use his sub – the Cthulu – to maintain their course, the connection between the two ships making his engines essentially small backups to the Enterprise’s primary.

Another sleet of rain slapped Dey in the face.

“Sorry!”

She shook her head at Xee, then shoved a replacement wire home. The engine sputtered to life again, the electrics whirring as Dey shoved the covering back down. She looked up at Xee, grinning fiercely.

“Still better than being a ball and chain,” she said.

“I do not understand that reference.”

Loki laughed.

Dey looked back over the seas – the dark waters illuminated by flashes of lightning. She half expected to see the beefy form of her current ex-husband beating through the waves. Not that Kuz the Shockpod, a genetically engineered alien supersoldier, was actually her husband or ever had been. A pity victory on the field of battle did not a wedding ceremony make, not in Dey’s head. And not according to any law on Earth. And since the Shockpod tribes had become independent from the Yahaag Corporatocracy, the Shockpod’s laws had failed to apply to Earth as well. That kind of thing happened when your primary interaction with another alien race was wandering marauders dropping onto your colony worlds, shooting the shit out of them, and general nastiness like that.

Then Dey’s brow furrowed.

In the darkness, she swore she saw a boat bobbing on the waves.

“More Titanic hunters?” Xee asked.

“Maybe.”

They had bumped into another set of ships making their way to the fabled location of the Titanic-2 – the reason why Dey had left her quiet vacation and set out on a trans-atlantic trip with a bunch of weird aliens. The Titanic-2 was one of those massive historical coincidences, like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, or the dual nuking of Tsutomu Yamaguchi. The same designs and the same deck lay out as the original Titanic, with the same mixture of bigwigs and poor, with the same kind of hubristic captain and the same horrible chain of mistakes and tragedies and bloody human stupidity.

Different oceans, though.

Another wave smashed into the prow of the Enterprise and when Dey was done blinking, the other ship was gone.

Dey groaned as she woke up. Her muscles ached from a night of running, tugging, kicking and swearing. Her face felt grimy with salt and she blinked grit from her eyes as she sat up. Xee was sprawled on the bed next to her. The slender Huntress hadn’t taken the storm particularly well, considering the fact that she came from a world where the only liquid was helium-3. And helium-3 didn’t rain, or sleet, or splash. It just writhed.

And wriggled.

And...

Dey blinked.

Her palm wasn’t resting on the soft curve of a pillow as she pushed herself up.

No. Pillows were not so perfectly rounded and firm. Pillows were also not attached to a pair of shapely alien legs. Dey’s hand was resting on Xee’s butt. The Huntress was laying face down on the bed, her body tangled with sheets and pillows. Dey had managed to not impale herself on the spines that thrust up from the Huntress’ back, each one shimmering with the faint warp field that they used to cool their bodies off. Loki had explained it as a doppling trick. In the same way a freight train’s whistle got lower pitched as the train rushes away from you, Xee’s suit used warp fields to decelerate infrared radiation down to radio waves.

Something sparked in Dey’s brain.

“Mmm...” Xee lifted her head slightly, her palms pushing along the bed. She arched her back and pushed that rump into Dey’s hand more. Dey’s hand reacted, like any red blooded American’s might, when grabbing an alien’s butt. By squeezing. Xee squeaked and jerked her head up and Dey sprang away from her as if she was red hot.

“Are we alive!?” Xee asked, scrambling up and looking around.

The cabin looked just as trashed as Dey felt. The Enterprise looked like it had been knocked completely ahoo. One of the storage lockers had been knocked open, and supplies were scattered across the deck. One of the windows had shattered outwards and glass glinted along the side of the ship. One of the engine compartments had flipped open and sparks seemed to be flying from it every few seconds. The hatch in the center of the deck opened and Skylar tugged himself out, groaning.

“Do you know what life is like in a paint can?” he asked, sounding dizzy.

“A paint can?” Xee asked.

“You get shaken to fuck!” Skylar pushed himself to his tentacles, tripped, fell to the ground with a thump. He groaned. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Dey hurried forward. It turned out that there were several dozen evolutionary similarities across the known species of the galaxy. One of them was the vomit reflex. Omnivores tended to weather ecological shocks better, and omnivores who could risk eating posion without immediately dropping dead tended to survive to have more omnivore babies. So, everyone vomited. And everyone needed a friend to do something like, well. This. Dey grabbed Sky’s tentacles, dragged him to the side of the Enterprise and left him hanging over head. His beak opened and a thick spray of grey-green goop dropped from his mouth.

Dey winced.

It was instinctive in humans to want to vomit when they saw someone else throwing up.

Turns out squids were close enough for squishy bits of her brain to start sending up primeval warning signals: Hey, he’s throwing up. Maybe we ate it too?

[Shut up brain.]

I’ll tell it to knock it off, Loki said. Soon, the urge faded.

Xee stepped over.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“Just storm sick,” Dey said. She looked up and around and frowned.

The ocean was just as vast and clear and empty as it had been storming and crashing last night. The waves were small and placid, giving only a slight bob. The air was crisp and slightly cool. But in the distance, her eyes picked out something on the edge of the horizon. Loki cleared up some visual clutter and sighed.

It’s that ship again.

Dey scowled. “If it is that fucking Kuz...”

“What?” Xee asked. “No, that ship isn’t Kuz’s ship. Kuz’s ship was following us from the east, and had a different outline.”

Dey turned to face the Huntress. Her faceplate showed a ^///^ emoticon.

“So.” Dey put her hands on her hips. “Kuz is following us.”

“Well, he is your husband.” Xee said, nodding.

“WHAT!?”

Sky thrust himself back away from the edge of the railing, one tentacle pushing a line of vomit off his beak. He scrambled up, wrapping tentacles around the rail to steady himself. All eight his eyes looked right at Dey, and every single one of them was shocked to the core.

“For the last time,” Dey said, her voice coming through gritted teeth. “We’re not married.”

“Well, um, after Dey lost the fight-” Xee said. Then she stopped herself. Sky was looking at her with confusion now. Dey decided to step in before this conversation got any more embarrassing – but fortunately, the universe decided to throw her a bone by having a distress call warble through the ship. The radio had taken a serious beating during the storm, but it seemed to be working enough to pick up an S.O.S. Dey walked over, then cocked her head.

[Loki?]

It’s coming from the ship back there. Maybe they got beaten up more than we did?

[Maybe, ] Dey said, frowning. [Something about this is fishy.]

Agreed, Loki said.

Dey turned back. “Sky, Xee, you two can start fixing up the ship, right?” she asked.

They nodded.

“Okay,” Dey said, rubbing her hands together. “I’m going to take the Cthulu over there and see what is up.”

“Oh, sure, just borrow my sub,” Sky said, his voice wry and amused. He writhed his tentacles in an exaggerated shrug. “I mean, I am paying you, of course I follow your orders. That’s how things work among the hu-mans, yes?”

“Fuck you,” Dey said, grinning. She walked to the hatch and dropped in. Once the hatch closed, Xee’s facial emoticon blinked – the small LED dots representing eyes winking on and off. She turned to face Skylar.

“She didn’t actually mean she’d engage in coitus with you, did she?” Xee asked.

“No, just an expression, kid,” Sky said. “I thought you were an author. Wouldn’t you get metaphors?”

“Well, in Huntress fiction, metaphors are only used by the scheming characters,” she said, nodding as she started over to the engine. Watching Dey work at it had given her some idea of what to do – though the technology was frighteningly primitive in some ways. There were engineering technology that her suit’s computer told her came directly from combustion engines. Combustion engines. She shuddered at the thought.

“That must make human fiction really unsettling,” Sky said.

Xee giggled.

The Enterprise rocked as the Cthulu disconnected and fell away from the underwater hatch. Skylar checked to make sure the safety seals were still engaged. The ship wasn’t leaking, so he supposed they would live for now. He turned to Xee. Xee’s emoticon had changed to >///> and then shifted to <///<.

Quietly, she whispered. “I think Dey had her hand on my butt.”

“I doubt it,” Sky said. He picked up a few tools with his tentacles, starting to mentally catalog the repairs that they would have to make. It was already looking like a pile of pains in his ass. And he didn’t even have an ass as humans would understand it. “She seems kinda tetchy about aliens and sex.”

“Well, I mean, she mated with Kuz,” Xee said.

“WHAT!?”

Dey leaned back in her seat, her eyes closing.

What are you thinking about? Loki asked, his hands on her shoulders. The Cthulu – like all civilian subs – was relatively fast. But she was taking it slow, trying to be as unnoticed as possible as she crept up on the other boat. It was likely a waste of time, considering the fact civilian subs weren’t exactly stealthy critters. It also gave her time to think, and time for her K9s to charge. She reached back and rubbed the wire running from her batteries to the sub’s reactor, which sat behind her chair.

[Kuz. Sex. Butts.] Dey chuckled. [That mysterious ruckus that Major Moon Two told me about. We’re not intelligence, but we might get called in when it goes hot. But ... well, I haven’t noticed anything in the news about it.]

If it’s top secret, that’s not shocking, Loki said. As for the Kuz, sex and butts, lets start with the easy question. Do you actually want to be married to him?

[Fuck no, ] Dey said, snorting.

Bam. Done. Do you want to fuck him again?

Dey took a few more moments considering this. She chewed her lower lip, looking at the front window plate of the Cthulu. The ocean passed by – tiny flecks of particulate life sliding past smoothly, like the stars in a shitty sci-fi show.

[Totally, ] Dey said. [He’s hunky, he’s got an amazing cock, and ... I dunno. He’s kinda funny, you know?]

Well, that’s another easy one. Loki sounded amused. I kill him the next time we meet.

Dey threw her head back and laughed. “Dick!” she said out loud. Loki simulated a slap to her butt. Dey loved that she could be lounging in a chair, strapped down and completely clothed, and Loki could still make her feel like she was buck naked and tied to a bed with him holding the riding crop.

Now you’re just giving me ideas, Loki purred. Onto issue three.

[Butts?] Dey asked.

Are you into girls? Loki asked.

Dey frowned. She hadn’t really thought about it before. She tried to picture herself making out with another girl. Her mind drifted to Cherry Blossom. She made a face. Then she thought about Xee. That was a lot more appealing. She grinned.

[I think I can try it once, ] she said.

Well, bam. Another easy thing. Once we get back, we fuck Xee’s brains out.

[She’s trapped in an encounter suit. If she takes it off, she melts, ] Dey said, grinning slowly. [I don’t see a load of erotic potential in that.]

You see no erotic potential in a form fitting, skin tight, sleek suit – so tight and malleable that you could caress and squeeze and grope every inch of that gorgeous, exotic alien body. You don’t see anything you could get, by sliding your fingers into her sex – fingers still wrapped around by the smart fabric of her suit. The thrill of holding something you should never be allowed to stand near, let alone touch. The idea of hearing that sweet little voice moan and gasp and whimper. She’s an eager, clueless nerd, for god’s sake, do you know how much fun that kind of girl would be to ... introduce to the pleasure of another person’s touch?

Dey’s throat was suddenly quite dry.

She coughed.

And if her suit is linked to her brain in the same way that I am to yours... Loki’s purr was pure sex in her ear. Dey shuddered and felt and saw something impossible. A bit of tweaking of her optical nerves, a simulated shunt into her centers of pleasure and tactile sensation, all of it combining to show Dey what she might have. A thick, long cock, thrusting from between her thighs, laying against her belly. Tentatively, she reached down and closed her hand around the base of the shaft. A jolt of pleasure exploded through her body and she gasped as her cock sprang to full life. She bit her lip, her hand moving instinctively. She had never been male, never had a cock before, but it seemed baked into her DNA, the thing to do at a time like this.

Jerk.

Off.

Now.

Her hand went up and down her shaft as she writhed against the safety straps that kept her in the chair. She panted as a smell – thick and musky and male – filled her nose. She squeezed the middle of her cock and drew back, watching her foreskin as it slipped backwards, revealing the thick, welling droplet of pre come that was waiting for her to ... what? Normally, in this situation, she would be on her knees, sucking and slurping away. Instead, she was focusing only on her own pleasure.

It felt marvelously decadent.

Dey bit her lip, closed her eyes, and imagined sliding this phantasmal cock into Xee – the sensation simulated by Xee’s computerized suit – and the thought alone kicked her off. Her back arched and she felt her thighs growing slick, her chest suddenly damp. She opened her eyes to slits, watching as thick streams of simulated cum spurted from her cock, arcing into the air, then landing on her chest. She cooed softly, her whole body relaxing into the chair. She panted softly.

[H-Holy fuck, Loki, ] she panted.

Now you know why men always want head, Loki said.

Dey snorted and giggled at the same time, her eyes closing. [And women just ask for oral because we’re greedy?]

Yup! I’ve read that extensively on the internet, that must make it true.

Dey laughed. But the sonar ahead said that they were within a stone’s throw of the other ship. It looked to be only slightly larger than the Enterprise. She sighed and then felt the tiredness of her orgasm start to fade away as she took the controls of the Cthulu. Water sloshed away from the forward plate and she saw that, while the other ship may be slightly larger than the Enterprise, the other ship wasn’t as nice. It looked like it was mostly made of scrap and kludged together bits and pieces. But then she noticed the very kludged together antenna at the back of the ship.

It looked designed for laser communications. Pretty serious laser communications. More, it looked designed to be moved around the ship on a gimbal, and aimed via a small ball and socket joint. Dey frowned.

Okay, that is definitely a close ranged laser weapon, Loki said.