Chapter 8

I had lost track of time when I was notified that airlock number one chimed, alerting me of a presence requesting entry.

Lady Strife stood at the door in her sleek power armor. A suit unique in all of the universe.

Following regulations, I requested her name and passcode.

“Moria O’Shannan, code number 894-55687-789-2574.” I keyed the entry and allowed her access.

“Permission to board, Captain Volkstag,” she called out across the ship’s speakers.

“Granted, Lady Strife. I’m on the bridge.” I finished the section I was reviewing and then turned my attention to my visitor.

“Did you come to see how much damage we did to your ship?” I stood and offered the ship designer a sealable mug of coffee.

She removed her helmet and hung it on the back of her waist.

“Tell me about your voyage, Captain.”

“I’ll start with the people. Abasi Hassan first...”

I spent two hours giving my ‘shortened version’ of their status and how they handled the trip through ID — Inter Dimensional space — and ending with Karen van der Waal.

“I don’t think that we should accept married individuals or even parents. Especially not someone who has younger children,” I concluded.

“Were you aware that Abasi Hassan has a wife and two daughters?”

No.

“Let me guess, he was ordered not to tell me.”

“Correct, Captain.”

“Well, it’s possible that strength of their connection is a component and it’s also possible-”

“That Sydney is correct in that you influenced his bond to Mother Earth by the strength of arguments between you two,” Lady Strife concluded after my hesitation.

“You expected him to fail, didn’t you?”

She rocked her hand back and forth, as is to say it could have gone either way. “We weren’t sure. Van der Waal was a definite. Carlos had a medium probability and Shaw was the one we had few concerns over for such a short voyage.”

“I should have known.” I should have known that at least one was meant to fail on this first voyage. Not to just test them, but to test me too.

“Instead of secluding them for testing, I think you should throw all of them back into their home life and test them a few months from now. It might give them a better chance for reintegration,” I suggested.

“It’s been tried with little success,” she responded.

“I think it can only help, Mari especially. Maybe Abasi too.”

“Is that an order, Captain?” Lady Strife, the most dangerous person in the solar system, asked me directly.

“No. You three know better than I do. But how about considering it a personal request?”

“I’ll speak to Sydney. How did my ship perform?”

“The coffee maker in the galley jammed every time we transitioned between dimensions,” she raised her eyebrow at what I led off the report with. “Engine number three suffered a loss of 43% power after the final transition to Sol System, but until then acted within parameters. The main Fusion generator spiked on entry to the ID by 7%, auxiliary spiked by 13% the first time and 9% and 21% the following times. The Dimensional Borer remained well within operational parameters, using 50% power both there and back...”

...

“And you, Captain, how are you feeling?” Lady Strife asked after I completed both my list of the Legacy’s notable issues and minor ones.

“A bit frustrated. I’m having issues with this latest lesson on circuits that Rose left for me and most of the ship systems are still beyond me.”

“That’s it? Circuits is the only thing worrying you?” she asked neutrally.

“No, not the only thing. I am human,” I rolled my eyes. “I watched the crew spend the better part of a month running esoteric experiments and was jealous. But learning the ship and its systems in a way is an esoteric experiment all in its own. At least for me it is.”

Releasing a partial sigh and a worried frown. “I’m afraid for the next batch of contestants. If two or three came close to fraying in twenty-two days, how badly will they do in fifty?” I admitted my fears to Lady Strife.

“None of your next batch of ‘contestants’ have any significant attachments on Earth. Sydney hopes that will lessen the bonds between Mother Earth and them.”

“I can’t expect any more than that, can I?”

“We also want you to take all four, if you are able, as lovers,” she smirked.

“You’re kidding.”

She wasn’t.

“You think that by me having sex with the next group that I will bond them to me, protecting them from the loss of Gaia’s Web?” I questioned.

“Sydney believes that you will be able to save at least two. More if they cooperate.”

“What does Mrs. Larkin and you think?”

She laughed, “Catherine threw her hands in the air and refused to have any part in this experiment. She can be oddly prudish at times when it comes to using others for sex.” There was more that Lady Strife wasn’t saying and I wasn’t in a position to ask.

“And you?”

“Fuck them silly. Twice a day if you have to. If it saves even one, then it will be worth every second that you spend in bed.

“If your new crew walks around with silly smiles and returns happy and sane, can you deny that it was a complete success?”

I ran my hand through my short-cropped brown hair and held on while thinking, “I can’t.” Deny it, that was.

“Don’t worry your pretty head, either of them,” she chortled, “Sydney has enough information on you to choose suitable candidates.”

I groaned.

There was also one other person I needed to ask about, two really, but this wasn’t the time or place to see what Rose thought.

“What does Rose’s Grandmaster think of the experiment?”

With a suddenly serious expression and a raised left eyebrow, Lady Strife asked, “Why do you ask about Master Smith?”

Sensing I was suddenly on thin ice, I formed my words before speaking. “According to Rose, everyone involved with this mission treats him with respect. I thought I should too.”

“Master Smith said that how many survive intact depends entirely on your ability to manage your crew.” Interview over, Lady Strife donned her helmet and exited the Legacy. Yet she didn’t forget to crisply ask permission to depart, once arriving at the airlock.

If she didn’t like Rose’s Grandmaster, then why did Lady Strife send Rose to learn from him for a year or more?

That wasn’t a question I could ask.

I returned to my station and continued reviewing the logs. Maybe staying an extra day or two would be better for my overall health.

...

Even with my trepidations, I found myself wandering the stores which populated the main concourses of Hope Station. I had no one to send souvenirs to but looked anyway.

My asshole wastrel of a brother popped into my mind for some reason. I didn’t hate him, just hated spending any time in his presence. Each and every time we were in the same room, all I could think of was what excuse I could use to leave.

‘We need more ice,’ I had used more than once. Even if it was a worn-out ploy, it still sufficed.

As for my brainwashed ex-wife, the less thought of her the better.

I had an obscene amount of money and nothing to do with it. Nothing to spend it on. No one to share it with. Any want for the Legacy I could possibly think of was provided, including a vid library donated by Dreamworks, SONY, UA, and countless others.

As for books, the Library of Congress released to me the full access of their libraries. An absurd amount of data in itself.

I ended up pausing by a photography studio and stared at the 2-D pictures on the walls and windows and 3-d images on the turntables.

And hesitated.

“Sir, can I help you?” asked a thirty-some-year-old woman, opening the door of the studio.

“Do you have one of those PopBot cameras that follow you around?”

The idiotic heroes and villains on Earth swore by and at those things. Both hero and villain websites had countless vids showing off their exploits. The media used them too on a limited basis. They were illegal as hell in most situations and only the Supers could get away with using them without being arrested.

Or stoned by the public.

“I can’t afford one, I’m sorry to say,” she apologized.

“Oh, it was worth a shot.”

“You’re Captain Volkstag, aren’t you?” she recognized me.

“I am.”

“You can try XHSA, they might have one you can borrow.”

“What is that?”

“Hope Station’s news channel.”

Now I felt stupid. “Sorry, I don’t watch much TV.”

“No need to apologize to me. We all know how important you and the Legacy are,” she stated all too seriously for my tastes.

“You can look them up in the directory. I’m sure that, if you tell them who you are, they will let you use one of theirs.”

“Thank you -”

“Suzy Jackman. And you don’t have to thank me, anyone would have given you that information.”

“But you did,” I smiled.

Three levels above Jackman Photo and a quarter spin clockwise, I located XHSA — All the Hope Station news you need to know.

Inside were a pair of women arguing about purchasing coffee versus tea with their remaining monthly stipend.

It wasn’t a friendly argument either.

“Excuse me. Maybe I can help with that.”

“Who -” the question died on her lips.

The blonde elbowed the brunette in the ribs to shut her up. “Captain Volkstag, it’s our pleasure, how can we help you?”

“The Legacy is down for a week or so for minor repairs,” I joked. “I was wondering if I could rent your PopBot for a few days and give the interested viewers a personal tour.”

They both died.

Or at least entered a state of severe shock.

“Yes.” The brunette breathed out before the blonde recovered.

“I apologize that I cannot invite you inside myself, but I hope that you both understand.”

“Of course, we have petitioned the Lady before but she rejected our request.”

“She’s been very busy of late,” I defended my main boss.

“Don’t misunderstand me, we fully expected that denial. Everyone knows that the Lady has not had a vacation in seven years. But we had to ask. We get requests of our own daily to see the inside of your ship, Captain.”

Seven years? Was that when she went to pick up Rose?

“I didn’t know that. So how about it? Can you give me a lesson on how to use the bot and let me borrow it for two days?”

“Of, course,” the blonde stepped forward. “If you will come this way, we can get started now.”

Using the floating PopBot was easy — by using a pair of special glasses, the camera lens focused on whatever the wearer looked at. There was a simple handheld adjustable zoom included.

“We have a basic model, it was all we could afford,” the brunette apologized. They did a lot of that since I entered their office.

“How much are good ones? I mean the top-of-the-line ones from Earth?” I threw out there.

“Twenty or thirty thousand credits. But you will have to get approval from Admin and Logistics for space aboard a boxcar.” Hope and Grenadier stations received shipments from Earth via a set of linked boxcar and spaceship ‘trains’ and every cubic centimeter was accounted for.

“I need one with range and vacuum capability...” since we ourselves weren’t allowed to exit the Legacy, no one said that remote cameras couldn’t in our stead.

With the assistance of the blonde, a dark-skinned woman named Peaches, we ran my request through both Admin and Logistics. Approval was rubber-stamped since the request was from me and for the Legacy project.

...

I set the chip on Lady Strife’s desk, “This is for you. I hope it helps.” She looked at me in question, inserted it in her computer, and leaned back while sipping coffee from her oversized mug.

Knowing what to expect, I had brought my own mug and tablet, and sat across from the woman who still had not forgiven me for the question regarding Rose’s Grandmaster.

Lady Strife didn’t look up at me until the credits played at the end.

“What do you want me to do with this?” she asked reasonably.

“Charge a dollar per showing, it might help pay for some extra parts.” I raised my coffee mug, “Or some more coffee.”

“The quality of the vid is crap. But the impetus behind it was genius,” Lady Strife praised me.

“Have you spoken to Rose?”

“An email or two,” I admitted.

“Thanks, this will help. If there isn’t anything else?” she hinted.

“I’m good.” I nodded and left the overworked Lady. Overworked to a degree that no one else in the System could possibly understand.

My three-hour detailed walk-through, with the PopBot following, recording my narration of every nook and cranny of the ship that wasn’t classified, was a hit. Worldwide. Systemwide.

Peaches and Zandra spent hours with me, editing the occasionally disjointed vids into one smooth documentary. Compared to the industry standard 72-minute Documentary, my 174 minute one soon became the number one watched vid in the world.

Ever.

The XHSA ladies got their coffee and tea. Enough to last for months. It was the best I could do, for I had run out of available credits.

...

Five days later, I met my new crew, a cosmologist, a quantum physicist, an optical physicist, an astrophysicist, all pretty-to-above-pretty women in excellent shape, ranging between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-one.

Each was between 162cm and 175cm (5’4 and below 5’9), three brunettes of varying shades and a blonde, mostly of Caucasian appearance and serious but friendly demeanors.

I wasn’t sure if this was a marriage interview or not, and if I should slap Sydney Thomas when I saw her next or thank her.

Tikvah, the blonde Israeli, was the oldest and shortest of the four. She enjoyed teasing not just me, but all four of us whenever she could on just about any subject.

Irina, a Russe, was the second oldest at two months younger than Tikvah and the most serious of the four, yet she had a taste for girls and had a fantasy of being taken hard from behind while eating out another woman.

Famke, a Dutch and the youngest, an astrophysicist with large blue eyes and a willingness to try ‘anything’. Very little on her questionnaire was marked with a ‘no’.

Maria, the quiet Italian quantum physicist, who preferred to have others lead the way in the bedroom and admittedly enjoyed being tied up and ‘forced’ to obey – so long as it didn’t interfere with her work.

All of this information and more was contained in their dossiers. And more, including details I considered a bit too much information for a space explorer, such as, “Have you ever tried anal? Did you like it?” and, “How many and what size vibrators do you own?”

With detailed responses.

From each woman.

After reading their dossiers, I still wasn’t sure if I should slap or thank Sydney next time I saw her...

...

After the tour, each member of the second crew headed straight towards their new labs to get their experiments set up. I didn’t see them for the rest of the afternoon, not until our appointed time for our joint dinner at 19:30. I had learned my lesson after the first run and not having mandatory twice-a-day group gatherings.

At least that was my initial plan. A plan which was already obsolete the first day. At 19:15, one of the stress alarms sounded off on Maria so, without checking, I hurried to her location in the dining room.

She was stressed, alright. Or I should have said “stretched”. As in all four limbs stretched and tied off to the legs of the table. And she was somewhat naked. If sliced duck and gravy, smashed potatoes and gravy, steamed asparagus in butter sticking out of her pussy, and the rest of our pre-planned dinner strategically obscuring the quantum physicist could be called ‘covering’.

Tikvah, the mastermind behind today’s meal, was just slipping a blindfold over Maria’s brown eyes and instructing her living dinner plate to ‘be good’ when I entered.

“Captain, you’re early,” the Israeli minx noted with her customary teasing tone. “You can help me set the table and don’t forget the forks. You’ll find that I just got done sharpening a set of four.”

Maria whimpered and shivered, but didn’t complain.

Irina chose that time to step into the dining area and stopped hard. With a hand holding on to the door frame, she stared and half drooled at the tableau before her. I was positive our serious optical physicist never even saw Tikvah nor myself for the first dozen heartbeats, or two, while standing in the doorway.

The smirk on Tikvah face said that she had plans for both, and the look she gave me immediately after said that I’d enjoy those ‘plans’ as much as she would.

The blue eyed Dutch astrophysicist placed her pretty head on Irina’s shoulder, causing the woman to jump in fright.

“She looks tasty, doesn’t she?” Famke said softly, yet loud enough for all five of us to hear. “I think you should kiss her,” Famke said that one with the hardest accent of the four. She had a noticeable blend of Franco and German background. With a gentle shove, she encouraged Irina to do just that.

Unconsciously brushing her dark brown hair back, Irina stepped up in a trance and leaned forward. The silence in the room washed over her, and for the next few minutes, both she and Maria kissed with steadily increasing passion.

“God, that’s hot,” one of us said. Even if the two currently non-kissing women looked at me with near identical smirks, I wasn’t taking credit.

I had never eaten off of a beautiful, bound, and blindfolded dinner plate before. But Damn! I’d sure do it again.

“Since Tikvah made dinner, I think that it’s Irene’s turn to clean the dish.” – I kill me.

There was no objection from either the bound and heavily panting girl or the one who seemed all too ready for that ‘chore’.

Tikvah stood behind my chair and helped me up, “Famke, the Captain needs help with his equipment. From the size of it, I think I will need extra hands. Maybe even a mouth or two,” she grinned.

And just like that my rule, stating that no one was allowed in my cabin other than me, became a non-rule. Later, I rewrote it to “without me”.

Oddly, the next morning at breakfast, Maria angrily complained about Tikvah’s actions.

It wasn’t that she was tied up, but that she was tied up all night. Maria had an experiment that she wanted to run before sleeping and Irina didn’t untie her until both were completely exhausted.

Yet Irina wasn’t to blame ... since Tikvah was the one who tied her up in the first place.

And that bit of logic was way over my pay grade.

“New rule, before anyone gets tied up, ask when their next experiment needs to be checked on.”

My eyes crossed while saying that and munching on milk covered honey frosted algae chips.

Famke nearly fell off her chair laughing and Tikvah smirked at me.

Yet, Maria was mollified.

As for Irina, even if she was sitting at the table with us, she wasn’t awake yet.

From our pillow talk last night, I had learned that the four women had spent the last two months together in a mostly professional capacity. Last night was their first opportunity to explore and play.

The following day, Tikvah announced that it was naked day, which Irina protested hard at.

“What are you complaining about?” Famke counter argued. “You’re Optics and all of your sample’s were made months ago.”

“I don’t work naked,” Irina said primly.

I held up my hand to forestall any escalation. “Inside your lab you can wear a smock. Is that acceptable to both parties?”

“Fine!”

“Works for me.”

“That goes for everyone.” I noticed that Maria too looked uncomfortable at the prospect. I admitted that spending the day without clothes wasn’t my first choice.

I didn’t even need confirmation that I was the one targeted by this latest jab of Tikvah’s.

Later that morning, Maria sought me out. Still wearing her lab coat. “Captain. I don’t like going naked all day.” She did look miserable. I knew that Irina would just remain inside her labs so as not to have to deal with the clothes-less issue until tonight.

“Come with me.” I led the submissive genius into my cabin and, while she stood there looking around, I entered the simulator room and opened a footlocker filled with toys to use on and with the ladies. I didn’t know how it ended up here, but I blamed Sydney anyway.

Removing a collar with a dog-tag dangling from it, I showed what was in my hand to Maria.

Her eyes got big and she took a step back.

“See, you won’t be naked anymore. Let me just put this on you.” Her soft brown eyes nearly crossed while watching me buckle on the cloth collar and trying to see through her own chin.

“Now we don’t need this thing anymore, do we?” I unbuttoned the starched protective coat slowly while looking into her helpless face.

Turning her around, I began kissing her shoulders and down her back. Needless to say, she discovered that going without clothes in my cabin wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Even if it came with the price of wearing a collar.

And I got to understand first hand why Irina was so tired this morning. Maria never ran out of energy. EVER!

She was still chomping at the bit — one of those was included in the locker too — but I shooed her back to her lab with a pat on her comfortable ass. I needed rest after two hours of strenuous sex, with only slight breaks for me in-between.

Three days later, Maria met me as soon as I exited my cabin. Handing me a box, she said, “See that Tikvah gets her turn ... TODAY!” and walked slightly bowlegged away.

I opened and peeked inside. Irina, who had been ignored by Maria, also looked, then laughed. She patted me on the shoulder and wished me luck.

Seeing as I had enough time before breakfast and our morning gathering, I experimented with the application installed on the credit card sized device. And smirked. Tikvah was in for a rough day.

She had been playing fast and free with the other three, me too — indirectly — and Maria felt that she needed payback.

Resting on Tikvah’s usual chair was a double dildo harness with red and blue attachments.

Both six inches long with ridges and partially buried ball bearings.

And a bottle of lube.

Butter wouldn’t have melted in Marie’s mouth, while the rest of us were restraining our smiles.

Tikvah’s teasing smile collapsed.

With a backwards half step she tried to flee to her lab, but was caught and, in the end, spent the day wearing a lockable and locked set of vibrators.

Which hummed in tune with pre-programmed songs sent via a credit card-sized controller. Since Irina was good enough to provide the lube, I handed off the controller to her first.

I couldn’t imagine what the 1812 Overture felt like that up close and personal, but by Tikvah’s expression it was Something! Special.

I think we all knew when the first cannon fired from the altitude our blonde Israeli tease attained. That she fell to her knees straight away and tried to get her hands around the chastity belt portion of the insidious device caused Maria to finally smile with pleasure. And knowledge, I suspected.

It was hers after all.

I snuck up behind Maria, and asked a question. A simple question, really. “What’s your favorite song?”

Maria fled to her lab without answering, for some odd reason...