Chapter 12

Ingram and its crew had long since been relieved from station, replaced by Rellington, another stealth ship. Sampson and the others who had been aboard Ingram were undoubtedly back on Mars by now, the sailors reacquainting themselves with their families and friends, the intelligence operatives working in nice, clean offices in a Triad high rise, analyzing data and submitting reports. But Julie was still here on Earth, still operating in the guise of an Agricorp accountant. It had been well over a year now since she'd splashed down in the ocean off the coast and assumed her new identity and still there was no end in sight. But at least now, she thought as she initiated the communications link-up, things would start to happen again. The last eight Earth months had been an agony of boredom.

"What the fuck's the haps, Julie?" asked the hologram of Cumquat Cypress, commander of the intelligence contingent aboard Rellington. Cypress was a no-nonsense woman, 26 years of age, and one of the most experienced field operatives in the employ of the Martian government. She had been one of the instructors at the Intelligence Operatives School where Julie had initially trained, her previous covert missions to Earth legendary even then.

"Same old shit, Cummy," Julie told her. "I'm just sitting in this Laura-forsaken apartment day after fucking day, sticking my fingers in my pussy. Then I go home to my official house at night and stick my fingers in my pussy some more. You know you've been someplace too long when even masturbation gets boring."

"Well at least you can hang out long enough to get dicked by Scramm every night," she said, using her best look-on-the-bright-side voice.

"At least there's that," Julie replied, suppressing a sigh. In truth, even Scramm was getting old. Martians weren't meant to fuck the same person day after day for more than a year. But there was no point in complaining. She had a job to do and a cover to maintain, even if her mark was off the planet at the moment. "So what's the word?"

"The Alberta battle group is well inside the orbit of Earth's moon now. The lead ships are just finishing up their deceleration burns. Your mark's ship should be at dock in Departure as scheduled."

"Thank Laura," she sighed. Alberta was the California class superdreadnought that was the flagship for the armada that had escorted Amanda Hesper, her team, and-it was suspected-the sub reactor for the WestHem Lemondrop project to the "research facility" in deep space. Martian intelligence and the Martian navy had tracked and shadowed the armada ever since it had left Departure nine months before. Its mission presumably accomplished, the battle group was now nearly home again.

"Fuckin' aye," Cypress agreed. "Now you can start working her again. As I've told you before, most of the other contacts we've tried to work on their Lemondrop team have bombed out. We've gotten a few stitches of information but no one else is even close to ferreting out anything solid."

"It's nice to know the entire fate of Mars rests on me," she said dryly. "That does a lot for the old confidence, you know what I mean?"

"You're done a rankin' job so far," Cypress told her. "Everything we possibly could ask. And it looks like she's managed to maintain her composure while she was gone. The email you got from her is a very good sign of that."

Julie nodded. Yes, the email was a very good sign. It had come just the previous day, the first communication she'd received since Amanda had left for Edwards Space Base at the beginning of her journey. It was nothing dramatic or shocking, of course. Just a quick, emotionless message from one female friend to another, telling her she was back in the neighborhood and would be home soon and asking how her plants and her house were holding up. Amanda wouldn't have dared send anything else through a military ship's computer server. But the very fact that she had communicated at all tended to support the notion that there had been no more emotional slip-ups during the trip, nothing to cast suspicion upon Amanda's character. "Hopefully she'll send me a more meaningful message once she gets to Departure and they let her have her PC back. My greatest fear is that she's been out there long enough to lose interest in me."

"Possible, but not likely," Cypress said analytically. "Dr. Mowfat has gone over all of the reports from Dr. Ming on Ingram. He seems to feel, as Ming did, that Hesper is really in love with you. True love wouldn't have faded over a nine month absence. It would have only grown stronger. Especially since you had time to fully consummate your physical relationship in the weeks between your first encounter and her departure for deep space."

"Did we ever," Julie said. "I chewed a new hole in her pussy and she damn near swallowed mine."

"Is she any good at it?" asked Cypress, who was not adverse to a little girl-girl action when the mood struck her.

"She'll never be as good as a Martian woman," she said. "Or even a Martian man, for that matter. These people are just too repressed in their upbringing to let themselves go when they fuck. But I did teach her a thing or two and she did have some rudimentary skills of her own. She's getting better."

"So the assignment's not all bad then, is it? You get to teach an Earthling the way of the Martian."

"Well, I do have to hold myself back a bit as well," Julie said. "I wouldn't want her to get suspicious about where I learned all of this. That's where Scramm comes in handy. He helps relieve the tension that develops."

"Yes, I've sampled Scramm a few times myself. I was his training officer, you know?"

"He told me that," she said.

"A good agent. He actually likes living on Earth, which is a good thing since he's been here almost three years now."

"Laura forbid I should have to stay here that long," Julie said, contemplating the horror of being stuck in this place for six of their years.

"You won't," Cypress assured her. "Whatever the outcome is, you won't be on assignment any longer than the activation of their Lemondrop reactor. And our best estimates are less then one Martian year before they have the construction complete and enough anti-matter manufactured for that to occur."

"Less than a year? Are we that critical?"

"They've devoted considerably more of their particle accelerator capability towards anti-matter production than we originally thought they would. They seem quite desperate to get this reactor active."

"Idiots," Julie said, shaking her head. "They have no idea what they're playing with. They could very well end up destroying all life in the solar system."

"They seem to feel this is the only way to save their society. Typical Earthling thinking. Their entire economy and way of life is on the verge of collapse because of their greed, mistrust, and contradictions, but instead of trying to fix that, they try to harm us instead, thinking that will make the problem go away. In any case, the key word I'm trying to convey to you is desperate. They are desperate enough to do almost anything with this reactor, to try anything. We may be able to counter what they try but we must activate our own reactor before they activate theirs-and we must, we absolutely must know what they plan to do. Without that knowledge we may just as well surrender to them."

"I was well-briefed on the stakes we're playing for," Julie told her, a bit of testiness escaping from her mouth.

"I know, Julie, and forgive me for harping on you. I just wanted to make sure you knew we're desperate as well, and time is running out on us. You've got the best chance to get us the knowledge we need so badly but you also are working under a deadline. It's going to take a lot of confidence on your target's part to reveal top-secret information to you."

"I'll get the information," Julie vowed. "One way or another, I'll get it."

"I'm forced to have the utmost confidence in you," Cypress told her. "Your mark comes home shortly. Start working on her right away."

"I will," Julie said. "I'll give her a homecoming she won't soon forget."

Getting personnel and cargo back and forth from orbital platforms and the planetary surface was much more efficient on Earth than it was on Mars or on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The factor that enabled this was the same factor that had made life possible on Earth in the first place: the thick oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. The atmosphere allowed for winged flight during take-off and final landing, which allowed for far less consumption of hydrogen fuel per trip. This, in turn, allowed much larger payloads to be transported. More than 800 metric tons of cargo and nearly a thousand passengers could be taken up or down on each trip.

The Kenfield-Hamiliton Corporation surface-to-orbit lifter was the primary workhorse for such purposes in WestHem society. The fuselage of this craft was 230 meters in length with a diameter of 15 meters. Four semi-rocket engines with a combined thrust of 2500 tons powered it. The civilian version of the craft was called the KHC-950 and was operated by all of the big three corporate owned spacelines. The military version, which was operated by the WestHem Space Naval Forces, was called the SOCL-12.

It was one of the latter that made its fiery entry into the atmosphere on this day, its destination: Edwards Space Base in the southern California region. As the shield on the belly of the craft absorbed the tremendous heat generated by the friction slowing the craft from orbital to atmospheric flight speed, Amanda Hesper looked out nervously from her window seat on the upper deck where the passengers were seated. Earthling society was not quite as safety conscious as Martian society and, as such, two or three surface to orbit lifters malfunctioned every year, usually with all hands lost, and usually during reentry. She could see nothing out the window other than the glowing ionized plasma but she stared anyway, the way a person looks at something that terrifies them. Gradually, as the craft slowed, the friction decreased and the plasma disappeared, allowing a view of the Pacific Ocean some 30,000 meters below. She breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the whine of machinery. The four huge wings were unfolding from where they had been tucked against the fuselage, turning the spacecraft from a falling object to a powered flight machine. They continued to descend, the coast of California soon coming into view. The huge landing gear unfolded from the bottom as they banked into the landing pattern over the desert base. They touched down only ten minutes late, the wheels contacting the pavement of the landing strip at a speed of 400 kilometers per hour and rolling toward the cargo terminal eight kilometers away.

Once the spacecraft was secured to the terminal the passengers began to disembark. Since it was a military flight most of the passengers were naval personnel returning to Earth for leave. Most, in fact, were the sailors who had staffed the ships of the Alberta battle group. Amanda and her team did not talk to them or socialize with them in any way-none of the sailors were even aware that this group of thirty civilians had even been out in space with them all of those long months. They grabbed their bags from the overhead storage bins and made their way into the terminal, gathering in a group near the far end where transportation to the atmospheric flight terminal had allegedly been arranged.

The members of her team all talked quietly among themselves as they waited, none of them including Amanda in their discussions. Though they respected her greatly for her knowledge and skill as a physicist and a leader, none of them had much use for her as a friend. Her reputation was of a cold fish, without humor or warmth. She was, in short, a nerd among nerds. She didn't mind their perception of her. There were few people she wanted to socialize with anyway.

She decided it was now safe enough to try to get in touch with the one person she did want to socialize with. She walked a bit away from the rest of the team and pulled out her PC, which had been taken from her at the beginning of her trip for security reasons and which she had gotten back before leaving Departure. Julie would be at work right now, of course, but, being an accountant, she could usually take coms from friends as long as they were brief. Amanda longed to see her lover's face, to hear her voice. It had been pure torture living without her these last months. What if she didn't want her anymore? What if she had found someone else? What if... horror of horrors... she had moved to another house during her absence?

"Com Julie," she told her PC nervously, hoping against hope that the computer wouldn't tell her that Julie was no longer available for comming.

Her anxiety increased when it took several moments for the connection to go through. Finally, the screen cleared and a hologram of that beautiful face appeared above her screen. She couldn't help but smile as she saw it.

"Hi, Amanda," Julie said, offering a slight return smile. "Are you back on Earth?"

"I'm at Edwards," she said neutrally. "We just got in from Departure."

"It's good to hear from you," Julie said. "I got your email the other day but there was no way to reply to you. Anyway, your plants are all still alive and the house hasn't burned down."

"That's good to know," she told her. There were a thousand things she wanted to ask her lover, a thousand things she wanted to say, but they didn't dare engage in anything other than normal, politically correct conversation on the unsecured communication line because there were a thousand places where the digital signal could be intercepted and eavesdropped on, most notably by the WestHem government, who had legal authority to scan private coms for "indecent images or content." All the better to protect the public morals.

"When are you going to be home?" Julie asked her. "Maybe we can have some tea together after work."

Amanda frowned. "Not until very late," she said. "I'll get back to Livermore in a few hours but we have a lot of computer work to do"-which meant she had an extensive debrief session to undergo regarding the installation of the sub-reactor. Since communication into and out of the Lemondrop site was forbidden, her boss had received no updates.

"Oh, well that's too bad then," Julie said. "Maybe tomorrow after work then?"

"Well, my computer work might take awhile," she said regretfully. "I'll be working late for most of the rest of this month. At some point we'll simply have to get together, though."

She nodded. "Sounds good, Amanda. It's nice to hear you're back. I'll talk to you when you can."

"Okay, Julie," she told her. "Thanks for taking care of my house for me."

They discontinued the com and Amanda had to sigh as she lost sight of that beautiful face. God, she was so horny for Julie. It had been nine long months since she'd last felt her touch, her lips upon her, had smelled her feminine odor. And to make matters worse, she had not had access to pornography of any kind during her trip, not so much as a picture of a breast in a medical journal. Nor had there been much opportunity to masturbate, so close were the quarters. The only time she had been able to accomplish this badly needed method of release had been in the toilet in the mornings, and even then it had to be quickly done, leaving little satisfaction. She needed some real sex, a real set of hands on her body, a real mouth on her skin. She had grown quite addicted to Julie's body in the short time they'd been able to share together before she left. How many more days would it be before they could get together? As much as a week? Maybe more? That was almost as torturous a thought as going on the trip had been in the first place.

The shuttle arrived a few minutes later to take them to the atmospheric flight terminal. As they climbed aboard and found their seats her PC began to vibrate slightly, in short bursts-the signal that a text message had been received. She felt another burst of excitement. The only person who ever text messaged her was Julie and, unlike normal coms, text could be sent undetected and unscanned by anyone, thus assuring their privacy.

"Display message," she whispered to her PC.

The screen cleared and showed her what had been sent. As she read it, her breath hitched and a gush of moisture flooded her sex.

FROM: Julie SENT: 1522 hrs 03-07-2193

MESSAGE: I can't wait to get my lips on your pussy again!

Amanda stepped off the commuter train at the stop near her house at 0130 the next morning. Her eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and jet lag and her body ached in every joint. Over her shoulder she carried the one bag she had taken with her on the trip-a bag that contained everything she'd been allowed to take for a nine-month deployment. The damp wind of early March blew across her as she made her way down the residential street and she wondered if she even had the energy to make it home. Why couldn't that asshole Hentman have let her have just a single day off before the start of the debriefing? Sure the project was important to WestHem, but it wasn't that important, was it?

Her heels clacked along the pavement as she turned onto her street and her house came into view for the first time in nine months. It was dark, of course, as were all the other houses on the street at this hour of the day. That included Julie's house next door to hers. She looked at its familiar outline longingly and with a little depression. She had known it, too, would be dark, since Julie had to go to her own job later this morning, but a part of her had still hoped to see a light in the living room, a welcoming sign that her friend and lover was still awake, perhaps awaiting her arrival. No such luck.

"Home sweet home," she sighed, shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other.

She clacked her way up the front walk and put her fingerprint on the pad. The door slid obediently open, revealing her living room. To her surprise, it was not completely dark in the room-far from it. Instead a mellow glow permeated the gloom, generated by the lit candles that had been laid out across the floor in a trail that led to the hallway.

She stared at this for so long that the door slid shut again, leaving her still standing out on the porch. Numbly she touched her finger to the pad again, opening it again. This time she stepped through, her eyes looking at the gentle flickers of firelight, her nose taking in the scent of vanilla wax. What was going on here? Why were all these candles lit?

"Julie?" she called, feeling a flicker of excitement inside her as the name left her lips. Who else would have done such a thing?

But Julie did not answer. No one answered. The candles just continued to flicker away, beckoning her. Slowly, she put her bag down on the ground and began to follow the trail. She walked through the living room and into the hallway, seeing another soft glow coming from the end of it, where the master bedroom was. She entered her room and saw the candle trail led through it, into the bathing room. Her oversized tub was here and that is where the trail finally ended. The tub was filled with steaming water. More candles had been set around the perimeter of the tub-nearly ten of them-and all were lit, creating a semi-lightness that was quite romantic. In the bathwater rose petals were floating.

"Wow," she whispered softly, feeling her heart patter in her chest. In all her life she had never seen such a thing.

"Welcome home, Mands," a soft voice spoke from the walk-in closet.

She turned towards it and saw Julie standing there, emerging from the small room. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders. She was dressed in a short camisole that appeared to be made of silk. It was tied loosely at her waist, allowing most of her bare breasts to show through the gap. Her long, sexy legs were bare as well and Amanda felt herself becoming wet just at the sight of them.

"Julie," she said, her eyes taking in the sight of her. "What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't wait to see you," she said, stepping closer. "I thought I'd give you a nice welcome home. I figured you would like a nice, hot bath after spending nine months out in space."

"Oh yes," she said. "A bath would be heavenly. But it's even nicer to see you. Especially... you know... dressed like that."

"Do you like it?" she said, twirling around to model it for her. As she moved, the hem lifted up, revealing the briefest flash of her butt cheeks and the darkness of her pubic hair. She was naked under it! Completely naked!

"Where... where... did you get that?" she stammered. Such lingerie was quite illegal under the Public Morals Act.

"On the black market," she said. "I wanted to dress special for you. Do you think it makes me look fat?"

"No," she said, shaking her head numbly. "You look... well... stunning. Very beautiful." A tear tracked down her face and a sob suddenly burst from her mouth, taking her by surprise. "Oh God, Julie, it's so good to see you! I missed you so much!" She rushed forward, taking her friend in her arms.

"I missed you too, Mandy," Julie told her, hugging her back, planting a soft, sexy kiss on the side of her neck. And then suddenly, she broke the embrace, pushing Amanda away from her. "Let's get you in the bath," she said. "Perhaps a little rub-down is in order. What do you think?"

"Oh yes," Amanda said, her sex now juicing up quite nicely. "That sounds like a grand idea."

Julie's hands began to move, going to the buttons of Amanda's top, opening them, undressing her. She removed the top and then the bra, leaving her nude from the waist up. Amanda was not surprised to see that her nipples were starkly erect. Julie rubbed her fingers across them playfully, sending tingles through her body.

"Ohhhh," Amanda moaned, leaning in to kiss her.

"Not yet," Julie told her, dodging the move. "Let's get this bath going first."

"Okay," she breathed, unable to resist running out her hand to touch Julie's bare thigh.

"You naughty girl," Julie giggled, pulling back from this touch as well. She then began to work on Amanda's skirt, undoing the zipper and letting it fall to the floor.

"How did you know what time I would be home?" Amanda asked. "So you would have the bath ready?"

"Oh, I have my ways," she replied mysteriously. "Let's just say that someone gave me a com when you climbed onto the tram in Livermore to come home."

"Someone gave you a com?" she asked. "Who? Was it one of the people in the station?"

"Something like that," Julie said, tugging on her slip. As she did so she dropped to her knees to help her get it off, her face right on level with the crotch of Amanda's pantyhose. With a sexy smile she leaned forward and kissed her right on the crotch, where the dampness was starting to permeate through.

"Ohh, uhh," Amanda squealed, feeling pleasure burst through her just at that simple touch. She quickly forgot all about how her lover might have known she was nearing home.

"Just a taste," Julie whispered, inserting her fingers into the elastic at the top of the pantyhose. "I've had dreams about the flavor of your pussy while you were gone, do you know that?"

"No," she gasped, thrilled, as she always was, with Julie's filthy mouth.

"It's true," she said. "You have the sweetest taste. My tongue is simply in love with it. And soon I'll be able to taste it from the source again. You don't mind me keeping you up a little late for that, do you?"

"No," she breathed. "Not at all."

She pulled the pantyhose down and worked them off her legs, leaving her nude. She then stood back up, her hands going to Amanda's shoulders. She stroked her softly there and then steered her toward the tub. "Inside," she told her. "Let the water relax you. And then I'll do a little relaxing of my own."

The hot water felt divine as she submerged herself in it. It seeped into her pores, easing the tension from her day of travel and debriefing. God, it was so nice to be back in her own home instead of the cramped cabin aboard the Alberta, or the even more cramped quarters at the Lemondrop facility. There had been no baths in either place, just lukewarm showers twice a week. And there had certainly been no Julie to rub her shoulders for her, to caress her, to love her.

"Ahhhhh," she sighed as Julie's hands went to work on her in earnest. They squirted body wash on her exposed skin and rubbed gently, soaping her up, rubbing in circles from her shoulders down to her back and then, deliciously, around to the front, to her breasts. "Oh yes," she moaned as the fingers worked over her nipples, pinching them and twisting them with a delicious pressure.

"My pussy is dripping for you right now," Julie whispered in her ear, her tongue licking just behind the earlobe. "I can't wait to feel you touching me, licking me. Have you missed my pussy as much as she's missed you?"

Amanda was not capable of coherent speech, she was so aroused. She moaned deeply in the back of her throat and then attacked Julie's mouth with her own, jamming her tongue between her lips, seeking out her lover's tongue. This time Julie did not deny her the pleasure. She returned the kiss passionately, her hands now going lower, beneath the water line, seeking and finding the center of her pleasure zone.

"Oh God, Julie... Oh God!" Amanda cried as Julie's fingers plunged inside her and began to move in and out. This was not a tender act at all, but a purely lustful finger-fuck designed to draw a sharp, rapid orgasm from her body. It was a design that worked admirably. Within seconds Amanda felt the pleasure explode within her, her pelvis rocking up and down, splashing bathwater and soggy rose petals to the floor.

"Why don't you get out of the tub now?" Julie asked her, her voice husky with desire.

"Yes," Amanda responded, standing, letting the water drip from her. "I think that's a good idea."

They moved quickly to Amanda's bed, Julie pushing her nude, still wet body down on the comforter. She opened her camisole, revealing her nakedness, and let it drop to the floor. She eased up onto the bed, straddling Amanda's thighs, her own legs spread, her sex wet and dripping. The odor of her arousal was thick about her, making Amanda's mouth water.

"I think I need a little work first," Julie said, easing forward, sliding her wetness over Amanda's crotch, and then up onto her belly. Soon she worked it all the way forward, so it was hovering over Amanda's mouth. "Fuck me with your mouth," she told her. "I'm so tired of using my fingers all the time."

With a growl of yearning, Amanda pulled her down, slathering her tongue all over those wet lips, reveling in the tart taste, the sharp smell of feminine musk. She licked her up and down, back and forth, plunging her tongue in and out of the slit, lashing the clitoris, even delving down low, to the puckered anus, utilizing all of the pleasure-giving techniques her friend had taught her prior to their parting. It wasn't long before Julie was coming, her pelvis mashing up and down almost painfully atop Amanda's face, her cries of ecstasy echoing through the room.

With the edge taken off their lust, they went slower now, cuddling together, pressing their nude bodies against each other, their hands and fingers stroking up and down, their lips kissing mouths and necks and ears. They worked themselves up gradually to a frenzy of desire, taking nearly thirty minutes before Julie finally suckled an erect nipple between her lips, before her fingers probed once more between Amanda's very wet vaginal lips. From there, Julie worked her mouth downward, kissing every square millimeter of Amanda's flesh between her nipples and her vagina, but avoiding that most erotic of zones and continuing even lower, onto the legs. She worked her way down to the feet, sucking and tonguing each toe before kissing her way back up, moving along the inner leg, the inner thigh, before finally reaching the heavenly gates and driving her tongue inside.

"Ohhhhhhh, yessss!" Amanda screamed to the room as she felt that touch on her. "I love you, Julie! God, how I love you!"

Julie stopped her licking just long enough to tell Amanda she loved her too. She then got right back to work, giving pleasure to her. She wouldn't stop until Amanda was a quivering mess, sweaty and panting from multiple orgasms.

They slept together, both of them drifting off into a contented sleep after satiating their lust. The computer woke them up just before sunrise, little more than two hours after they had drifted off. Amanda was groggy and out of sorts from sleep deprivation, wanting nothing more than to remain cuddled with her lover in a naked embrace.

"Are you sure you have to go in today?" Julie asked with a yawn. "I'll call in sick if you do. We'll spend all morning in bed and then I'll make you breakfast."

Amanda groaned. "You don't know how tempting that is," she said with sharp regret. "But I can't. I have to finish the debriefing from my... uh... mission. They'll get suspicious if I don't come in. I don't want to have them scrutinizing me. Especially not now."