Chapter 4

“We’re going where, exactly?” Magnum asked, arching an eyebrow as he looked across the cramped passenger drum of the Angel Grove and at my girlfriend. Ali sighed and then flipped her head to try and get some of her hair out of her face. But micro-gravity was a real bitch sometimes and kept her hair jangling and clattering about her face. She waved her hand more aggressively and got her bangs out of her eyes long enough to look properly haughty.

But the lead up had really cut the knees off of her expression. Which was a shame! Ali could haught like a...

I didn’t know any good celebrities who were famous for being haughty.

Also, I didn’t know if haught was a verb.

“A black hole known as the Abyss,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I thought you said it was an archive,” Opal said, her brow furrowing.

“Yeah. Aren’t archives usually not in the dead hearts of failed stars?” I asked. Then, slowly, I cocked my head. “Okay, now that I say it like that, why aren’t more libraries in the dead hearts of failed stars?”

“Impracticality and gravity?” Tycho suggested as she pushed herself down from the piloting nook. There, she had been throwing a warp infront of the com-laser that was set on the very nose of our ship. Make a warp from here to HQ and you can beam all the information you’d gotten and get updates from high command. That included whether or not we had to go ahead on Ali’s suggestion. But since we had come out of this mission knowing only slightly more than we had set out with, I had a pretty good guess that HQ would want us to keep poking.

“The Abyss is not like any other black hole,” Ali said, sighing.

“Wait...” Magnum held up his hand. “The Doyen Empire is a six hundred light year sphereoid, whose very edge abuts the SOL system. The closest black hole is three thousand light years away.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I studied space?” Magnum said, like I was the one asking weird questions. “We all live and work here, it seemed like a good idea.”

I flushed.

“I was about to get to that,” Ali said, brushing her hands through her hair to try and keep it out of her eyes again. “The Stygexians called out to Doyen Paladins who were exploring solar systems near the edge of the Empire. Those Paladins found themselves ... drawn to the Abyss, the space between folding as if it wasn’t even there. Trying to move beyond the Abyss, trying to go anywhere but directly home...” She shook her head. “No one who tried that ever got home to say what they found.”

I shivered. “So, the Stye-gex-ians,” I said, pronouncing each bit of the word carefully. “They are able to both live inside a black hole and fold thousands of years of space as if it wasn’t even there?”

“To be fair,” Tycho said, rubbing her fingers along her temples. “One of the nice things about making a warp is that most of the space you are skipping over is empty.”

I snorted.

Ali sighed slowly. “They trade secrets for truths. Every Doyen family has gone to them in their most direst of needs, to solve their most pressing of mysteries. But since the price is so high, and reaching them is so dangerous, the actual number of people who have visited is ... limited.” She shrugged. “I’ve never been, but my grandfather went and returned with a blade that can cut a moon in half.”

“What mystery did that solve?” I asked.

“The mystery of ‘how to kill this motherfucker that pissed him off,’” Ali said, cheerfully. Okay, she was learning from me. I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or scared. Ali shot me a grin and I decided on proud. And horny. Opal leaned over and smacked my thigh with her hand and I coughed and tried to catch Little Pirate underneath my thigh. That ended up being a slight mistake, since the pressure only got me harder. But the post-fight lassitude that each of us were sprawling in, it was hard to not get a little horny. We had survived a freaking mecha fight!

Ebony pursed her lips. She sounded as serious ever as she said: “What secrets can we possibly trade to them?”

“Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father,” I said. “Snape kills Dumbledore-”

“He what!?” Magnum yelped.

We all gaped at the team leader. For the first time since I met him, Magnum actually flushed.

“Okay, firstly!” I said. “It’s twenty eighteen, current year argument. Secondly-”

“While Harry Potter is as popular in China as you’d expect,” Magnum said, his voice stiff. “I didn’t have time to see the movies, and I was busy while the translations were coming out. Some of us had real jobs, Pirate.”

“Hacking the Pentagon is totally a real job!” I said, scoffing.

“Uh, I think under every single possible criteria of a real job it is, in fact, not one,” Opal said. I glared at her.

Ali scoffed. “I’ve seen some hints of what you people call real jobs. Endless drudgery for masters you will never meet, for fiat currency. No times for naps or leisure. Chained to desks and clothes.” She shuddered slightly. “I’m shocked that the Empire hasn’t detected your planet from the sheer misery alone.”

“Don’t Doyen normally wear clothes?” Opal asked – her eyes flicking to my girlfriend’s exposed, dark purple breasts.

Ali scoffed. “They won’t when I’m in charge.”

“You know that we’re going to try and replace the current Doyen government with something a bit more ... representational?” I asked.

“And I will be in charge of that,” Ali said, then showed a huge, toothy grin at me. This reminded me just how sharp some of her teeth were, even as her ears perked upwards in excitement. Her palm pressed to my thigh and I felt a faint tingle in my brain as she peeked at my surface thoughts. Her eyes gleamed happily. “George Washington was nearly unanimously elected, wasn’t he?”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Magnum said. He looked at Tycho. “You ready for a warp? We’ll be heading across the Empire ... it’ll be quite a trip.”

Tycho sighed. “That’s just it. I’ll burn out before we’re a quarter of the way there. I need at least one break.” She looked at the rest of us. “And I don’t know how you all feel about spending a day in...” She looked at me, then back down at her thighs. “A ten foot wide drum.”

“I’ve played Anachronox, I know how that turns out,” I said. Blank expressions from everyone. “Okay, here’s where I’d normally look aghast at the lack of culture onboard, but lets be serious. No one fucking played Anachronox.”

“I know a pit stop,” Ali said, cheerfully.

“If you know a pit stop, won’t every single other Doyen in the galaxy also know it?” Tycho asked.

“No,” Ali said, scoffing.

Magnum nodded slowly. “She didn’t tell any of them.”

The Doyen Empire did not expand like how an Empire would in, say, Stellaris. If you haven’t played Stellaris, get your ass to Steam and buy Stellaris. You are at home, on Earth, presumably on or near a computer, and you can get to Steam and buy Stellaris. I’m the one stuck in a tin can flying through space surrounded by psychotic psychic aliens who want to put a lightsaber through my head. Anywho, unlike the rational, systematic, unified expansion of a rational interstellar state run by reasonable people, the Doyen explored in piecemeal and in secret.

Each household wanted to be the first to claim a new world. Each household wanted to be the first to exploit a new race of “mindless” chattel, or to be the first to attain honor by wiping out a potential rival. So, each one sent out scouts. And none of them mentioned where said scouts were going!

Picture, if you will, a Doyen Paladin sent out by Tzali. She brags to all her Doyen buddies while playing ... croquet or whatever it was Doyen nobiltiy did between subjecting planets: “Oh, I sent so and so to such and such planet.”

So, said Paladin arrives and five other Paladins jump him. But secrecy meant that sometimes, solar systems were “discovered” multiple times, or they were discovered then lost when the Paladin in question got killed somewhere between finding the system and getting home, or they weren’t scouted at all but someone claimed it was scouted and full of ... space dragons or something. In the end, it produced a map that gave any fan of Tolkien palpatations. No nice, neat drawings of the Shire for you buddy! We had to deal with an incoherent psychic map of ‘maybes’ and ‘uhs’ and ‘question marks’ and ‘confusions’ and ‘well, kinda sortas’.

Upside, though?

Not a single Doyen knew about this place. What place?

“Holy shit!” I laughed as I stepped through the warp I had opened and onto the pure emerald green sand that sprawled from here to the horizon. The ocean was the most beautiful shade of pure pink that I had ever seen. I’m talking ‘pink as Pinkie Pie’ levels of pure pink. The frothing caps of the waves that crashed against the green beach didn’t turn white – they actually started to glow with a searing luminescent blue, which flared out into a haze of smokey light that hung in the air for a heart-achingly beautiful second before drifting down and being swept out again by the waves.

The beach was banded by trees that looked almost exactly like palm trees, save for all the differences. But who cared about leaf shapes and bark consistency and colors and such when they were doing the God given work of providing shade from the bright pinkish sunlight that blazed across this beach. The sun felt great. Doubly so after what felt like a million years in the Angel Grove. You will not believe how fast being crammed into a closet with five other people could get. Being sexy naked teenagers did not extend the length of that time by much.

By the time we reached here – which was roughly the midway point between Beta-3 and the entry to the Abyss – Tycho had been so tired that I had to be the one who opened the warp. And now, she stood beside me, her hands sliding through her frizzy hair, her eyes closed as she soaked in the sun. “God,” she groaned. “This is amazing.”

“It is!” Ali said, cheerfully as she stepped through the warp.

Magnum shaded his forehead, frowning. “Any dangerous wildlife here?”

“Nothing that I noticed,” Ali said, grinning as she started to run forward towards the ocean. Her feet sent up tiny, glittering showers of emeralds as she rushed towards the water. The movement of her long, athletic legs added the most delectable jiggle to her ass as she skirted to the side, swinging out into an arc, letting herself run along the water-front. A wave splashed around her thighs, throwing frothing pink and blue water around her body. It was a technicolor porno, like the set of a 1970s sci-fi show who had decided on body paint rather than costumes or facial prosthesis. She laughed as the water flowed back, leaving her glistening as if she had been freshly oiled.

I glanced at Magnum. He glanced at me.

Fine, he sent, telepathically. Your girlfriend is hot.

I grinned at him.

Opal set her butt on the sand and she wiggled her hips, settling herself in the sand. “Warm!” she said, cheerfully.

“Question: How do we keep sand from getting in uncomfortable places?” I asked, starting forward past Opal – walking casually towards my girlfriend, who was enjoying the spray.

“Telekensis, Kyle!” Opal called to me. But before I had gotten more than five feet away, Ebony was trying to get Opal back on her feet, tugging at the other girl’s arm.

I came to the water, opening my mouth to speak to my girlfriend. And that was when the water slammed into my body and I staggered backwards. My arms flailed and I stepped backwards to try and get myself rooted properly. I blinked, then blinked again. Cause I was looking at a shock of black hair – short and dripping. I laughed. “Hey, uh, get out of the way...” I trailed slowly off as the other man stepped forward and I realized that it was not Magnum. And Magnum was the only other dude on the team. I was still blinking in confusion when the other dude swept Ali into a deep, long, kiss.

The other dude was me.

Me!

Abby Hatem, aka, Pirate Mask, aka, what the absolute fuck!?

I looked down at myself and saw a shimmering bluish shape that looked a bit like my warform, albeit a lot smaller. I put my hands on my chest, and tried to shout, but no sound came out of my mouth. Ali didn’t seem to notice that anything was weird and I felt that kind of confusing combination of pure outrage and utter arousal that came from seeing my girlfriend getting felt up by another man. Since, it wasn’t another man. It was me! My body! Doing what I wanted it to do, which was squeeze and cup and tease Ali’s titties.

Opal and Ebony started towards the waves. Ebony was moving more casually, but Opal bounded along cheerfully. I tried to run forward and managed to float like a ghost. I spread my arms, waving desperately. Don’t get near the water, you fools! But, as I had halfway expected, the two of them walked through me as if I weren’t there. Ugh! Fucking astral projection spirit realm bullshit! I swung around and actually saw Opal looking back over her shoulder.

She and Ebony were fucking psychics. Opal was an empathy. Ebony was telepathic. Ebony hadn’t noticed me, but Opal looked faintly disconcerted. Meanwhile, in the beach, Ali was rolling her head back as my jerkass autopilot body slid his palm between her thighs and started to fingerfuck her like ... well, like I would. I clenched my fists, scowling fiercely and tried to feel as outraged and cuckolded as possible! Opal actually did pause and Ebony went ahead. Then a wave smashed into Ebony from behind ... and...

Pop!

There was Ebony’s astral form, staggering slightly. She looked around, her lips forming words, but no sound reaching my ears. She was confused just long enough to miss her former body reaching through her to grab Opal by the breasts and drag her backwards. The surf slapped her, and once more, an astral body came out. Opal and Ebony’s real bodies both started to chat cheerfully – but quietly. I swore that Opal said: “Well, you see, of course, that is, uh, that is...”

Astral Opal threw up her arms, glaring at Astral Ebony. Astral Ebony pointed at herself, as if to say: What? Me?

The thing that was bugging me was the fact that we were astral, right? So you’d think that would mean we’d only have psychic powers. But the only psychic powers I seemed to have was being outside of my body and not being fucking dead. But before I could say anything, Ebony’s body called out: “Hey, Fang, get over here!”

Magnum looked up, his brow furrowing slightly. He looked faintly confused as he looked at the four of us in the water. Then he, reacting on some instinct or sound, flung himself to the left. His shoulder hit dirt as a long tentacle of flesh shot past where he had stood, tipped with a crystalline, glittering dart. Emerging from the jungles was a beast of muscle and bone and brain. Four of them, extruding from its four shoulders. It was quadrupedal, low to the ground, and had a pair of long tentacle-tongues emerging from a disgustingly toothy maw set onto the front. The brains pulsated as it focused both tentacles on Magnum, who leaped backwards as nimbly as if he had been born doing this kind of shit. Meanwhile, Tycho was getting to her feet. But she had sat down near enough to the water that the waves slapped her body and...

Pop.

Astral Tycho fell flat on her face as her body waved one hand, a warp scooping both Magnum and the tentacle-brain-beast up. As they both vanished, Ali jerked her head away from my body’s mouth, gasping: “D-Did you guys hear something?”

“No,” every single other person on the beach said.

Well.

And here I had been hoping for a fucking beach episode.

Do you know how freaking distracting it is to try and figure out how to communicate when you have no psychic powers and no vocal cords while your girlfriend is getting railed about five meters away from you? By your own possessed body!?

Cause...

Okay.

This is going to sound weird ... but it’s kind of fucking hot.

Ali was on her hands and knees and had lifted her rump up and had dug her fingers into the emerald sand and was just getting fucking destroyed by my body’s dick. And being without me didn’t seem to be slowing my body down, either in the stamina department, nor in the raw fucking skill department. His hand had cupped Ali’s sex, reaching around her belly as he kept himself upright with his other hand. He worked her clitty as his cock pounded her sex. His balls bumped against her belly and his knuckles and every single loud slap brought a new whimpering gaps of pleasure from Ali. Her face had gone completely slack – her ears drooping, her eyes half lidded, her jaw hanging open as she shuddered in climax after climax after climax.

It was a damn good way of distracting her from the fact that Ebony, Opal and Tycho were simply sitting in the water, with their eyes closed, their legs crossed. What they were doing remained something to be deeply suspicious of.

But while Ali was getting demolished, the astral company of disembodied crusaders (or AC/DC) were all trying to remember what we had learned in sign language class. The upsides to being trained by psychics were that they could implant knowledge into your brain. The downside was that this knowledge had to be reinforced by actual physical practice before the short term memory structures broke down and were overwritten, and none of us had been that good about practicing our hand gestures. I mean, we usually used radio in battle and telepathy out of battle for secret signals. Why fucking bother with hand signals?

Well, why learn to throw a knife in a nuke fight?

For situations where you got your soul sucked out of your body by weird psychic water! That’s why!

Fortunately, I had gone through basic training fairly recently. This meant I remembered more of the hand signals and, by practicing them, I could feel the knowledge settling into my brain more definitely. And me doing it helped spark the memories of the others. Soon, we were all chatting away with very angry hand gestures.

W. T. F. Opal signed.

I second this question, Ebony shot, glaring at me.

Whoa, it’s not my fault, I sighed, then slapped my astral chest. I signed quickly, tapping wrist and palms and making circular gestures with my fingers. Ali said this place was safe!

For Doyen maybe! Tycho signed, then scowled. I don’t know where my body sent Magnum. He could already be dead.

How did your body do that? I signed.

Ebony stepped in. Her hands flashed as she signed a long, complicated sentence. It actually started to make my brain hurt ... but I followed it. Okay, psychic powers? They’re physical. Rooted in the brain. That was emphasized by a tap on her forehead. The mind is a biological computer. Our computers just have some bonus apps. We are currently not running on those platforms. Ergo, we do not have any of our psychic apps.