Flight of the Code Monkey
Chapter 2

Copyright 2015 Kid Wigger SOL

Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 2 - Join Jameson the code monkey in space. As an uber-geek programmer onboard, he manages to make a life; gets the girl; and tries to help an outcast shipmate. Doing a favor for a new friend, he discovers a chilling secret. Also follow a boy running for his life on a mysterious planet; how will their paths cross? Read of Space Marines, space pirates, primitive people, sexy ladies, and hijacking plots. There's a new world to explore and survive. Starts slow, but worth the effort.

Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Fa/Fa   Coercion   Consensual   Drunk/Drugged   Magic   Mind Control   NonConsensual   Rape   Reluctant   Romantic   Lesbian   BiSexual   Heterosexual   Fiction   Crime   Military   Mystery   Science Fiction   Extra Sensory Perception   Space   Paranormal   non-anthro   BDSM   DomSub   MaleDom   FemaleDom   Rough   Spanking   Group Sex   Harem   Polygamy/Polyamory   Interracial   Black Male   Black Female   White Male   White Female   Anal Sex   Exhibitionism   First   Oral Sex   Petting   Safe Sex   Sex Toys   Voyeurism   Geeks   Royalty   Slow   Violence   sci-fi adult story, sci fi sex story, space sci-fi sex story

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.


The boy awoke with the sun coming up over the mists in the direction of what would soon be his course of flight. He was eager to face his second day of travel following along the bogs in the center of the downs.

His first night spent out on the downs had been cold. However, after he’d found a dry section of turf with a large hummock to lay his back against the boy made a nest of grasses. He piled the grasses deep and his efforts protected him from the ever-present cool, night breeze. However, twice during the night he was startled from his sleep under the mound of long grasses.

The first time, the explosive beating of great wings not too far away woke him. He heard the squeals of a mersal rat or some other rodent or small animal attacked by the feathered night hunter. The sounds had slapped him awake to the darkness around him. He blinked his eyes open and saw up above his nest the night’s dark veil, broken by the twinkling sprays of grouped and scattered Swongli hanging in the blue-black bowl of the sky.

Without consciously thinking about it, his present location in relationship to the location of his clan’s territories had drifted into his waking brain. The calculations his father had drilled into him over countless night-sky lessons helped him effortlessly identify the seven major Swongli he’d been using to navigate during this entire unplanned test of his abilities. Those lessons from his sire also gave him a reckoning of the approximate distance he needed to travel to return home. As long as the boy could view the Seven Sentinels up in the night sky, he would know where he was and, approximately, how far he had to go to return to his people.

That is, once he found a way to cross the deep and wide living water he knew as the Toolie River.

The second time, he was awakened by the repeated and faraway howls of a wolf call that flitted into the edges of his dreams, finally breaking into his slumber as he nestled under his grassy cover. All around him, grotesque shapes seemed to be looming up from the scattered hummocks surrounding his grassy bower. The faint silver, quarter-light cast down by Jaypai made for a weird landscape until the boy came fully awake.

Now that he was alert, and not hearing the phantom wolf calling again, the boy decided the ghostly sounds had been Jaypai’s doing. Turning his head on his grassy pillow, the boy had watched the sliver slice of Jaypai hanging a third of the way up the wild starry, starry climb of the arcing-trail Jaypai followed this time of the season. Part of the boy had memorized the track followed by the invisible skyvine that Jaypai climbed along each evening. The silver slice of Jaypai seemed to float suspended in the deep blue-black of the heavens. The boy admired how what he could see of the small one was set-off by the glittering Swongli scattered and clustered above as they looked down on the actions, struggles, and dreams of all men and beasts.

Then, the boy saw it up in the heavens. Its path came into being just over Jaypai’s crescent shoulder. A flashing, long greenish-white trail of sparking fire streaked across his vision as a star fell from high in the night sky. Then the tail of fire turned golden. Feeling his hackles raise at the mystery, the boy said the proper words in his mind: Welcome new man to this good earth. May you survive to complete your fall. May your crimes in the unbound heavens be forgiven by the spirits of this land in exchange for the coming labors you will perform to absolve the errors of your previous ways. May your living make the clan who joins you to them proud of the happenings this night. The boy felt awe in what the spirits had just allowed him to witness for the second time on his unexpected journey.

The shamans of the tribes told the story at each congregation on the night of the summer solstice so all who heard knew that the first men came down to this land from the stars in streaking blazes of fire. Storytellers also crafted yarns about why individual Swongli had lost their grip holding them up in their dark, high places. The boy’s favorite tale was about one Swongli who’d been reaching down to earth to try and up-root a bog apple bush with one hand. When his remaining fingers securing his place in the heavens had slipped, the Swongli had plunged down from the night sky.

During the congregation, clan elders sang songs recounting what different Swongli had done to offend their brethren, who then judged each wrongdoer out of their heavenly ranks. The most powerful story the boy felt, was the song of the Swongli who, looking down on the good earth and the dream realms of the people, had fallen in love with a young woman of the clans. That Swongli had decided to send a bolt of lightning to ignite a dead tree near the girl’s camp.

By sending the lightning, the Swongli figured the girl’s clan could capture the element of fire for themselves. With a fire to sleep near, the girl would no longer shiver in the cold of the night. If she did not shiver, she would dream deeply and then the Swongli could visit with his love in her second life of dreams. The girl could also learn the joys of cooking meat and other foods over the flames. Her clan would gain the protection of fire against the beasts hunting members of the clan at night. Knowing these things, the Swongli had sent the lightning. From his gift, the people learned to tame sacred fire.

Still, sacred fire was a precious, but cantankerous, thing. Each camp always kept the sacred fire fed with wood so it would birth a deep bed of red-hot coals. Banking the fire on deep coals before sleeping meant the people of the camp could easily coax up the sacred fire from the bed of coals in the morning. Also with sacred flames in the fire circle at night, a brand of woven sticks used to cage tightly packed, dried grasses at the end of a stout length of limb was an easy torch. When a person thrust the cage into the coals, the dried grasses would ignite. The flaming torch could light the camp, or frighten off large, dangerous beasts.

However, if the sacred fire departed from all the fire rings of a camp for whatever reason, calling the fire back into being was a great labor. While the boy’s camp had never suffered their sacred fire dying-out completely, the boy had seen their shaman use a special stick with the tip pushed into the notch of a hardwood block to summons new fire for sacred ceremonies. The holy man would repeatedly spin the stick between the palms of his flattened hands to invite sacred fire to eat upon the special tinder heaped at the base of the hardwood notch.

If all else failed, the elders of the unlucky camp could send a delegation to a nearby camp for sacred fire. The delegation would carry a sanctified, horned bison skull full of pith and special, dried barks as tinder. Since all the different camps in his people’s territory were members of the tribe, the boy knew they would share a bit of their sacred fire with their unfortunate brethren.

However, they would also talk to other camps about such a calamity. By the summer congregation, many if not all of the camps from the attending clans would know the shame of the camp that let their sacred fire die. During the full turn of the seasons attending the death-of-sacred-flame, it would be difficult for any man of that unfortunate group to attract a suitable bride from outside his own camp.

During congregation, tribal customs allowed the disavowal of an already arranged mating match if one of the two people betrothed was from an unlucky camp whose fire had died. In addition, the honor of leading the great hunts during congregation would go to the three best hunters picked by the combined hunters’ guilds from members of camps that had maintained their luck over the last turn of the seasons. Relatives would commiserate with kin living in the humiliated camp, but would not offer to take them into their own camp for a full turn of the seasons, or until the next falling Swongli was seen by the night watchers of the clans.

A Swongli in disgrace and falling in a trail of fire from the heavens would burn the shame from any disgraced camp by turning the camp’s spirit animal from the trail of humiliation and back upon the trail of grace.

Even a child could tell you that as each Swongli fell from the perfection of their position high up above, the falling star would burst into the most sacred of flames. The Swongli deemed worthy by this world then burned all the way to the ground as the flames cleansed the Swongli as well as any camp seeing the sparking path of the trial-by-descent. The trial-by-descent was a special sacred event, for the cleansed Swongli would then rise up from this earth, a new man. That new man would come among the known men on this world and walk among the people of the clans. The most powerful shaman of the clans could not say what knowledge this new man would bring to the people.

And those Swongli who fell short in the earth’s judgment found their fire fell short of that same good earth. However, the earth’s judgment on each of those ejected from the heavens left behind a blaze of glory to mark their night passing before they were consumed in the white-hot trail of sparks across the heavens.

The shaman ingrained in the clans the knowledge of these things with their recited legends of the Swongli. In knowing these things, the people learned it was better to try and fail in each of their individual struggles, than to not try at all. Because even if no one else among the clans saw, or watched, or learned of a person’s efforts, the Swongli saw the works or failures of each and every person on the face of this good earth.

Knowing these things, the boy hoped he reached the Toolie safely and would find a way to cross. By his return to his family, his camp, and his clan, they would learn of his struggles and of his efforts as he related the tales of his travels and adventures around the camp’s sacred fire in the evening.

However, the boy knew that if he failed to return, at least the mute Swongli above would see his plight and his efforts as they watched over him now. In that way, if one of those watching Swongli ever transgressed the order of the heavens and be cast down to reach the good earth and becoming a new man, then that new man might remember the tale of the boy and his travels—the tale of Ureeblay. Ureeblay’s story might then yet return to his clan in the words spoken at a campfire, as the people listened to the words spoken by that new man.

Looking up at the night sky, the boy hoped it was none of the seven major directional Swongli that ever transgressed or slipped and fell from the heavens above him. His lessons from his sire about those stars had seemed so long and involved, with so much for the boy to learn. Ureeblay was unsure how he would relearn his relationships with the night sky if one of the known lights of the Seven Sentinels above were to disappear from the moving evening patterns he already had memorized and now knew so well. If one of the seven were to fall, it would be as if a beloved uncle had passed from his camp and his life.

Comfortable under the grasses of his nest against the hummock, looking up at all the bright Swongli overhead in the blue-black bowl of the night sky, Ureeblay knew how much he would sorrow the loss of one of the Sentinels. It would wound him almost as much as the loss of his sire.

The boy shook off his maudlin feelings and gazed up at Jaypai in the Swongli-spangled night as he remembered the first lesson his sire had taught him. It was almost as if Ureeblay could hear his sire’s deep voice saying in his young mind, “For this, all the clans know—Father Sun in the morning and Weepai, when she travels the night, both rise from the same direction eternal. Only Jaypai, the small contrary one, rises from where the sun goes to sleep. Only Jaypai follows his own way to bed. The wise men say, my son, even when Jaypai is not seen lighting the night sky, he will always be there looking down upon you.

“They say,” his sire had told him that first night, “that Jaypai guards those who are out of their bodies and living their second life in their dreams, as we all do when we sleep, my son. Jaypai sees the acts of those who would do things in darkness they would never do in the light of Father Sun. And for those willing to sit and listen long enough, Ureeblay, I am telling you right now that Jaypai will, although grudgingly, teach you how the animals talk among themselves in the night when no men should be about to hear their secrets.”

Soon after that memory, Ureeblay had fallen back asleep.

The next time he woke from his twice-interrupted slumbers, the boy got up from out of his grassy nest, ready to face the new day. Ureeblay had rubbed his underarms well with dewy mosses, as well as his legs, arms, and chest to clean his body and mask his own odor, as his smell would carry on the breeze. Then he gathered his quiver with his caster and two lightweight spears. He pushed his long, black hair into a new tail behind his head and tied it with his soft leather strap. With his travel kit completely settled on his body, he moved into the dawn, feeling the chilled dew wetting his travel-hardened, bare feet as he slipped silently through the grasses and over the mosses. He listened to the small birds calling to rising Father Sun as they flitted from hummock to hummock through the light morning mist.

Not more than a four hands of paces from his night nest, the boy found the shredded fur and gristle of the night hunter’s meal in the grass near another big hummock. The silver-grey-tipped hairs and dark roots clinging to the scraps were all that was left of what must have been a large, plump, knee-high lesser babbit, also called a grass babbit by his people.

The night hunter had not even left behind the long-eared head. The smell reminded the boy of his hunger. The scraps of torn fur reminded the boy he must continue to move toward the Toolie lest those who hunted him tear at his own skin and flesh for his temerity to be thieving a sliver of frozen lightning sent down to earth by none other than a Swongli.

Perhaps, Ureeblay thought, he was the one who the Swongli wished to help that night they let him see the first star fall from the heavens. Whatever the logic in heaven had been, it was Ureeblay who had prospered from the trail of fire that night by the river deep in Hurstmon territory. Although he did not see the new man who had made it all the way to this good earth, he had found his sliver of frozen lightning at the site where the new man landed.

Who understood, the boy asked himself, what the Hurstmon knew of the ways of the heavens and the judgments and actions of the Swongli. He knew they had hunted him since that night. However, he did not intend to be in a position that he would speak with a Hurstmon, himself, to ask those questions. For the Hurstmon would most likely answer his questions with the flint tips of their lances.

The boy popped his smooth suck-stone into his mouth and then he fingered the horn handle of his flint blade. Ureeblay ran his palm over the big travel pouch hanging from his belt, feeling satisfied with its placement on his hip and thigh. He looked around to the limits he could see of the surrounding downs in the early dawn light. He made sure his quiver strap was comfortable over his shoulder. With a little snort of anticipation, the boy started to lope along between grassy hummocks and patches of gray-blue heather, and wide areas of thick mosses and a few patches of wild flowers. He trotted quietly along and his eyes took everything in. All the while Ureeblay was hoping to find a seep for water as he headed down the immense, green swale toward the Toolie.

From time to time, the joy of moving through this new landscape would intrude on his ability to keep watching for threats as he traveled. This was partially due to the one fact his mind came back to; that, dangling from the leather plait around his thin neck, he possessed the cold hard shard of frozen lightning. With each stride, he felt it bounce against his growing chest inside its thin, hide sleeve—safe under the little tie-down flap. Each small impact made his feelings sing with pride and growing confidence as part of his attention focused on that soft thumping on his bare skin.

Then a bird would flush from the edge of a heather copse and startle him back to proper vigilance. Once, his subconscious would see a certain arrangement of leaves and branches and think, bog apple bush! So far, that most unlikely vision had only been wishful thinking on his hungry body’s part. Ureeblay knew he had a very good chance of startling a lesser babbit out of the grasses or the heather. With his quick, nimble reflexes, he felt he had better than a good chance to nock one of his light, feathered spears in his caster and taking down a fat, fleeing babbit.

He hadn’t seen, smelled, or heard any sign of his pursuers in three days. Ureeblay did not think any members of the Hurstmon tribe hunting him would dare to venture across the last wide, long bog he’d managed to cross. There had been thin sheets of green water standing in places through that bog. The water had been too uninviting for the boy to consider trying to drink, no matter his thirst. In addition, he knew that fever spirits often hid in such water, waiting to enter into the body of the unwary.

Vigilant as he traveled, in the distance on either side of his snaking way and at least a day’s travel to his right and to his left, he could just see the tops of the ridges that were shepherding this boggy landscape he traveled toward the huge valley of the Toolie. After moving into the breaking morning, Ureeblay had noticed that the further he traveled toward the Toolie the firmer the surface of the grassy and mossy swale was getting under his running, bare feet.

He had loped, then walked, then loped again for three travel lengths in the almost cold, unfolding morn toward the rising Father Sun when he found the seep in a small but widening depression of shorter grasses and mosses. This was more that just a dew catch he told himself. He decided to follow the growing seep, as it seemed the depression channeling the moisture was becoming a ditch in the long, but shortening shadows cast by Father Sun’s golden morning light.

Having not traveled along the depression very far, the thirsty and hungry boy found the seep becoming a tiny flow of gathering water. Then it became an actual moving, three–finger wide runnel along the verdant decline. After following along the rill for a quarter of a travel length, his luck was holding as the ditch now held a tiny clear stream of flowing water. The course took a small turn to the right, and there was an actual pool a full stride wide, with a span of cress growing to one side. In the exposed soft peat at its verge, there were the footprints of small animals who visited the spot to drink.

Testing what breeze there was in the slowly warming morning mist; Ureeblay put his suck-stone away and placed his quiver with his last two, small spears and his spearcaster well clear of the wet grasses and low plants. Then he turned and knelt, making sure his hair didn’t dip into the small pool as he cupped the refreshing, peat-tasting water into his mouth. He took two good, cold swallows—smacking his lips followed with a long ahhh. Reaching forward, Ureeblay pulled a handful of cress and watched the resulting peat from the tiny roots muddy up the little pool. The water slowly cleared as the disturbed soil flowed down the tiny stream. Removing the roots off the crisp cress, he stuffed his harvest into his waiting mouth.

Oh, what a tangy joy! He munched on his meager break fast meal. He took in his surroundings as he slowly chewed. He noticed that now, this part of the swale angled steeper toward the valley of the Toolie. He should be able to see the valley soon he thought, once the sun climbed up over the highlands on the far side of the great river.

He judged those heights were less than a hand of days travel distant from where he stood, if he could find a way across the deep wide Toolie. Ureeblay felt that in the time it took him to trek half a travel length, Father Sun would clear the hanging morning mists and illuminate the meadows, the wild grain tracts, and forested expanse of the glaciated basin of the Toolie valley.

He continued to thoughtfully chew the tasty watercress and look about. The far ridges to his left and right seemed higher now. In the angling light, he could make out on their slopes the darker blue-black splotches of what would be pine breaks; the dark-grey brush; the green-yellows of grasses and grains, and the dark greens of forests interspersed with stone outcroppings and tumble-downs.

Ureeblay moved away from the tiny stream and the pool, chewing and then swallowing the cress. When he’d gone what he thought was a safe distance, he freed his flaccid young man-part and aimed his stalk up at an angle. Once again he experienced the simple joy of the voiding pressure as his piss arced up and the fell on the far side of a waist-high grassy hummock. He would show Crosof and Achinay who had the best pressure when he saw those two sorry friends of his again; he chuckled to himself. Well, he admitted, if he managed to return to the territories of the clans. What was he thinking, he asked himself; when he managed to return home. With one last contraction of his groin muscles, his stream finished.

Shaking his young stalk dry first, he tore out a handful of grass and wiped before putting his part away inside his clout and getting comfortable. He leaned over and vigorously wiped his hands along the cool, thick grasses. Then Ureeblay hurried back for another drink and two more heaping handfuls of cress. One for his mouth and one to take in his free hand while he picked-up his quiver. At the first chance, he would find a way to contrive a way to carry water along with him, he told himself.

Slowly chewing, he checked the tracks pushed into the fine peat around the tiny pool. There was a long print of a lesser babbit’s hind foot. On the other side of the short pool, there was the distinct mark of a heavy seeragle’s talons. Three deep marks spread out forward and one mark from the rear talon behind printed the fine peat where the huge raptor had hopped up to the water for a drink. Ureeblay wondered if the seeragle that made these tracks was the same night hunter that had wakened him last night.

Casting his focus further around the small pool Ureeblay found there were enough minktus tiny fore and hind prints for a cat and her kits to have been out last night hunting salamanders or bog voles and causing chaos with their playful joy.

Just as Ureeblay turned to go he noticed, back just far enough from the drinking spot for the short grasses to start thickening, the right hind paw print of a small wolf. The boy judged the wolf to be only a full four seasons grown by the size of the print, or it was truly a runt. In addition, the paw impression was no older than last evening by the springing-back edges of the small exposed pocket of peat, which displayed the print. That was odd, he thought. One that young should be with the pack. He immediately cast about for larger tracks but saw no other prints of wolves anywhere.

Chewing his shrinking mouthful of cress and looking all around with squinted long-seeing young eyes, the boy started off again. He made his way slowly at first as he continued munching the tangy, succulent leaves and tender stems. Then as he swallowed and refilled his mouth with the last of his morning watercress, he broke into the length-eating lope that never seemed to over-tire his young weedy legs.


Third Mission, outbound aboard the Federation space vessel DSE Glenndeavor, 2401 CE


Two days after I won Juliet’s incredible IOU, I returned to my compartment after my duty shift. I had just removed my service-ribbons plate from my shirt and then changed out of my Class E-2 duty uniform. I’d gotten into an off-duty tee shirt, light-grey warm-up pants, and a zippered, warm-up jacket with my proper rating blazes and name patch on it. I put on a fanny pack, hooked my POC on the belt, and I then put on a pair of running shoes. I started out of my quarters.

As the hatch rolled smoothly back into the bulkhead, I almost ran into none other than the diminutive crewmember Blaugelt. She was standing in my hatchway for some reason. And I nearly knocked into her.

OH!” she gasped, but she didn’t take a step away from me. She was deep in my personal space, with only a few centimeters between the two of us.

“Ah ... ah, yhou are... , Setzsvhell?” she asked in an incredibly young-sounding voice, looking up at me.

I took a step back from her. The first thing that struck me about Blaugelt was her thick accent. She made my name sound like Setzsvhell when she asked her question.

My second impression was just how much, up close, she looked like a startled, young, curly copper-haired, very young teenager. She could easily pass for a fourteen-year-old dressed in borrowed clothes. A quite well endowed, young teenager, I could tell through her overly large off-duty shirt.

S.W. Blaugelt also had the deepest-blue eyes I think I have ever seen.

Coming out of my shock at nearly running into her, I got the impression that S.W. Blaugelt had dressed-down, I suspected, to de-emphasize the charms of her chest. She was wearing a quite loose-fitting, light-grey, long-sleeved shirt. I noticed the cuffs came down onto the backs of both her hands. Her name patch over her right abundant breast and her NG rating blazes were in place, so the shirt was hers. The dark-grey trousers she wore fit much better, showing her slim hips and the hints of curves down to her pant-legs, going into the tops of her slip-on, ship boots.

I was still so surprised at almost running her over that I didn’t say anything. In addition, I couldn’t figure out why she would have any reason to be standing here, outside of my compartment down here on Seven Deck. I figured I would let her explain herself.

She glanced down the passageway to her right and then back to her left before she looked up at me again with her deep-blue eyes. She shook her head just a little, sending her curly, copper-colored hair jiggling against the bottom of her aristocratic jaws. She was barely controlling what I would call a fidget, with her hands clasped together in front of her belt buckle. I also noticed the crew-issued POC she was required to wear by regulations, was nowhere in sight—unless she’d clipped it to the back of her belt.

The very next thing that had struck me was her voice again. For her small size, her voice matched exactly. She sounded girlish—not squeaky, but hinting that she could break into nervous giggles at any time. From what I had heard so far, I couldn’t place her accent for a second or two. Then I realized her accent was vaguely similar to ones I’d heard in several of the political thrillers and action movies in my Earth media collection. Especially those Earth movies from the 1970s and 1980s depicting bad guys from a country called the Soviet Union.

I shook my head and really looked at her face. I was shocked to remember that she had asked me a question before I went off on a tangent of my own. I realized that she was waiting patiently at the open threshold of my quarters for me to answer her question.

S.W. Blaugelt bounced slightly on the balls of her feet as she gazed up at me with her dark-blue eyes peaking out from her long eyelashes. Her half-closed eyelids were nicely spaced on her very young-looking, aristocratic face. Her bouncing again translated to her coppery curls, giving them little springy wobbles down just below her well-defined jaw line. She had no baby fat on her face at all. She had high cheekbones with a smooth, creamy complexion, generous glossy lips, and a dainty, straight, aristocratic nose.

Returning my searching gaze, she raised her left arm and rested her hand on the gasket-surround of the open hatchway close to my right side. Her movement gave me a feeling she was boxing me in. Then I noticed her loose, light-grey shirt didn’t quite hide her ample breasts with one arm up like that.

“Ahhhh, yes,” I told her, aware I’d been staring at her, and taking another step back—now just into my quarters. “Yes, I’m G3 Jameson Sitwell. And you ... are S.W. Blaugelt. That is, if I may be personal—Anika, correct?

“Lost?”

“No-mmm-yes, ah, you may be using Anika.” the girl said rapidly in her accented voice, which I found I actually enjoyed listening too. The focus of her eyes darted from my face, down my body, and back to my face. She grinned at me. “I must be telling, you are being first person on Ship ... using first name, after asking of permission. Good manners. Yes?”

“My Mother would love to hear you say that about me,” I heard myself mumble to her.

“Also ... no ... ah, I am not lost. Gowno ... may ah, I ... be coming in?”

She gestured quickly with her right hand toward the interior of my compartment. Then she dropped it back to her side. She bounced on just her left foot now as she leaned against the gasket-surround of the open hatchway and watched my face.

“Well ... Sure, I ... I guess so,” I told her and I took another two steps backward into my quarters to get out of her way. “I was just heading to small stores. To get some personal stuff ... but I can go there later ... so, well ... yeah, come on in.”

“Ahh ... thank-you. I am being new neighbor. Yes?” Anika said. She aimed a whopping fine, perfect-white-teethed smile up at me as she followed me—retreating—into the compartment. As the hatch closed behind her, she held out her small hand to shake.

Suddenly, I was acutely aware I was alone with her in my quarters, and she was smiling at me with such—energy. Finding myself a little overwhelmed by that smile and her big presence pouring from her small frame, I clasp her offered hand in mine, almost just to have something to hold.

“New address—Seven Deck, Section Fifteen, Compartment zed, zed, three...” the young-looking girl told me and tilted her curly, copper-haired head in my direction, “You, being C, zed, zed, one ... ahh...”

“Yep,” I said, starting to shake her hand. “Good old Seven -D S-Fifteen C-zero-zero-one, that’s me...”

I realized the skin of her warm palm and fingers was much softer than any other Engineers Mates I remembered shaking hands with—not that I’d personally met so many Engineers Mates that I’d shaken hands with them. Our hands went slowly up and down, then up and down, about five times as we looked into each other’s eyes. We stopped for a bit before either of us released our easy grip on the other’s hand.

“Yes. I being this Mission... new-face ... you know? Ah, I am being now assigned to Seven Deck, for ... Well, not knowing of good reason,” Anika said, shrugging her shoulders in her over-sized shirt and quickly turning her curly-haired head this way and that, checking out my quarters. I couldn’t help noticing that her moist, pink lips were slightly open and showing those fine white teeth that had nearly blinded me before.

“Am thinking old compartment mates no longer wanting to be ... ahhh putting-out with new-face such as me...” she told me. And when she noticed the look on my face she asked, “Or, is words, putting-on, putting-up; how do you say?”

“Ah, I think you mean, putting-up with,” I told her as I tried not to grin.

“This Fedenglish is being difficult for me,” Anika said. “Putting-out, putting-up, putting-off, putting-on ... is confusing, yes? Each meaning very different thing.”

“Putting it that way,” I told her and surrendered to my grin, “I can see how it could be confusing.”

“New quarters, being same as in here ... reversed but big,” she said, slowly looking around my compartment. “All quarters here, in this ah, section ... being for only one person; and not, perhaps, for committed couple?”

“I was just as surprised, myself,” I told her, realizing I was still grinning at her, “when I moved into this compartment for the first time at the beginning of this Mission. I was worried someone made a mistake and would show up and tell me to move back into my old hamster cage with three other crewmembers as roommates. But, that hasn’t happened, so I think I’m supposed to be here. I don’t know why, either; I’m a G3 after all. But as I say, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You’ve got your printed orders which contained the password that opened your hatch, right?”

“Yes ... Having orders, password... ,” the strikingly attractive, young girl said, looking in expectant admiration everywhere but at me. Her liveliness and zest seemed to fill every corner of my compartment.

“I could never be imagining so much room ... for Nil Grade such as me. Are officers knowing of ... ahhh ... ah, opu-lent ... rooms being here?” Spacewoman Blaugelt asked me. Her accent and trouble with Fedenglish making me grin at how cute this young Null Grade crewmember actually was.

I found I was basking in her radiant emotional energy. It was almost as if she mesmerized me with her presence. I inhaled deeply and nodded my head to her, realizing her surprise and awe at the size of the single compartments on this section of passageway was several magnitudes greater than I had experienced when I first entered my new quarters. Well, greater than I had expressed out loud to anybody else, truth told. If her new quarters were exactly like mine, I wondered if she had discovered there was a water shower in her private head.

“You being aware...” the little, curly-haired teenager asked me with a look of concern now and sounding a bit worried at her question, “you are only crewmember along section, being home at this time?”

“I’m not surprised at that,” I said, and offered her the chair at my wall desk with my open right palm. “It is second watch, after all.”

I saw Anika considering the offered chair, and then she just stepped into the center of the compartment between my row of closets and my footlocker and stood there checking out my large, neatly made, bunk. Turning back to face me, she tilted her head slightly toward her left shoulder and focused on me, while the palms of each hand were slowly rubbing against the dark-grey material covering the sides of her trim hips.

“There are not a whole lot of us,” I told her with a chuckle, “assigned to this section. And I am; or, I guess I was, the only one that does duty on first watch.

“You too?” I asked the young-looking copper-haired teenager when she finally gazed at me with her dark-blue eyes shining. She was still slowly rubbing the sides of her hips as if she wasn’t aware she was doing it. She lifted the toe of her left ship boot off the carpeted deck and balanced that heel on the deck. Blaugelt started slowly swinging the tip of her boot back and forth.

Right now, I would almost believe any crewmember’s assertion if some one told me she was somebody’s little, kid sister who had come aboard during Family Day back at Challenger Station before the Ship’s maiden voyage. And that this kid sister had stepped into some kind of a time warp that dropped her in front of my hatch just moments ago.

I asked again to clarify my question, “I mean, is your duty watch first watch also?”

“Yes. I am being on first watch duty,” she told me, her eyebrows going up, “Engineering Department.”

“See, there you go,” I told her. “That’s why we’re the only crew in this section who are home right now—it is duty watch for the rest of them. Still, this is not a bad neighborhood. Not very many crewmembers are billeted along this section ... like I said ... so, not a lot of traffic. It’s a quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood. However, we’ve only got the Catacombs, the outer hull, and shielding underneath our feet for protection—between us and the Big Black as it is.”

The whole time I was filling her in on her new neighborhood; I couldn’t help but see again just how damn young Anika appeared to be. She seemed to me to be a bundle of contained nervous and emotional energy. And, I had to admit to myself, that energy was all wrapped-up in a hell of an attractive, dainty bundle. A dainty bundle with, I suspected, substantial gravity-defying boobs, I told myself.

“But, on the other hand,” I finally said when she didn’t say anything. And I found myself trying to pay attention to just what I could come up with to tell Anika about her new neighborhood so I would not pay attention to her youth and ... her ripe, little body ... as I gestured with my hand at the now closed hatch, finding I was at a loss for words.

The silence between us was not uncomfortable as I looked at her and she looked at me.

I was basically a geek, so I was losing the growing battle with myself between being a conscientious host and being just some other guy. First, I suddenly found myself blatantly and slowly checking-out her impressive chest through her loose, light-grey shirt; then I gazed at her slim waist; and finally I stared at the prominent, wide swell of the vee in the crotch of her dark-grey trousers, set off by her slim hips. That area of her teenaged body actually held my attention for as long as it took for my focus to get there.

When I looked back up in her dark-blue eyes, I saw a blush come to her smooth cheeks as she shyly lowered her gaze at my attentions. She certainly had to know what I’d just looked at—and how long it took me to look.

She didn’t seem to be overly offended by my rude evaluation of her charms.

I became conscious of our being together here in my quarters. It was a connection-awareness centered in my brainstem. Anika Blaugelt, I could sense, was cognizant of that feeling also, but she was responding in a subdued way, maybe because of my blatant sexual appraisal of her body. But, she wasn’t reacting as if she were offended by what I’d just done.

The back part of my mind was wondering why I could be so cool and confident around Juliet Mindenhall, the most beautiful and glamorous woman on the ship, when this young, copper-haired girl was causing me to revert to my old code-monkey nature of ogling a hot body.

“Oh yes,” I said and remembered I was trying to tell this captivating young woman about her new neighborhood. I added, “Well, umm, we do have an evacuation station, ahh, and escape pod slideway, right across the passageway from our ... ah, front doors—actually the slideway accesses an eight person evacuation boat. With it so close, you’ll never get written up for arriving late to your assigned evacuation station during an abandon ship drill if you’re anywhere near here...

“If there is ... ah, anything else I can help you with,” I told her, realizing I was rambling, “ ... well, you just let me know, okay? I know this is your first assignment. This mission, that is ... So it is my duty to help a new-face crewmember, such as yourself, get settled in and all...”

Looking down into her upturned attractive, young, and now expectant looking face; I couldn’t remember what it was I wanted to tell her next about living down here on Seven Deck, or about being my new neighbor. I found, I was sort of mesmerized, and still trying to fight it.

“So...” I told her, deciding the only way to free myself from the thrall she seemed to be casting over me was to just tell her the truth as I felt it. I took a deep breath and then shook my head.

“Well—damn ... You know ... truth be told—you look like you’re only, well, fourteen years-old or so. A very sexy fourteen, if you will forgive me for pointing it out to you. So it’s a little hard for me to believe you’re not still in some secondary school, let alone graduated, out on your own, and here in the Service, and posted to a DSE on top of that ... I’m sorry for being so blunt. I guess I have to warn you, I’m an ass sometimes.”

No!” Anika burst out. She clutched both hands together between her very young, but still very well developed, chest. That chest which, as I’d already noticed, was well displayed inside the loose, light-grey shirt she’d chosen to wear while off duty. I noticed again the name patch above the right breast of her off-duty shirt that proclaimed Blaugelt.

“No ... ahhh. Yes!” Blaugelt repeated, looking deep into my eyes when I looked back into hers. “You being, right now, naughty with your eyes ... yes? You like looking at body ... ah, my body? Yes?

“But ... ah,” Anika said, sounding flustered but not able to break eye contact, “I be, ah ... not angry, and ... ah ... this being ... blunt between us ... is good ... I am needing of someone being blunt, and telling true...”

I could only memorize her face at the moment; the well proportioned forehead slightly curtained by curly copper hair above and rising from her graceful eyebrows, her nicely spaced dark-blue expectant-seeming eyes on her very young-looking aristocratic features; the high cheekbones; smooth creamy complexion; her dainty, straight, aristocratic nose; and, my goodness, those generous, glossy, glossy lips...

And she held me spellbound with her dark-blue eyes, almost as if she were searching for a certain response from inside me. I could only smile at her and nod my head, hoping she would continue talking so I could discover exactly why she was here. She’d already introduced herself, but I could sense there was something more bubbling up inside her.

“You are wondering, perhaps...” she ventured. “Yes. Reason of this visit...”

Anika took a deep breath and spread her boots a shoulder-width apart, still clutching both hands against the material of her shirt and making apparent her previously semi-concealed but now impressive boobage. She smiled at me and fluttered her long, curving copper eyebrows above her dark-blue eyes.

Anika took another deep breath, which only called more of my attention to her tits. I knew Juliet would kill me if she discovered I couldn’t keep my eyes off this girl’s boobs during a conversation.

I heard the little, copper-haired, Null Grade exhale and watched the effect it had on her torso and the light-grey shirt material draping her assets. I decided I better look back at Anika’s face so I could pay attention to whatever she was trying to tell me.

“I be learning recently ... ah ... that you, Jameson Sitwell, being only crewmember to ... ahh, step-out, step-up ... to be defending of my honor, against disinformation from certain crewmember, which he be relating to others on Ship ... in which he is proclaiming I am promising of...” she said, and then she couldn’t seem to continue. She took another breath, and gathering up her courage, Blaugelt captured my gaze with her own.

“But, ah ... such assertions as this crewmember be making, being not truth told ... I would not ... I being still... Gowno, is difficult explaining,” Anika stammered to a stop, looking down between her boots at the carpeted deck.

“A simple thank you,” I suggested with a slightly relieved grin, “might work best for you right now.”

“Yes?” the teenaged Engineers Mate asked, looking up at me as if I’d interrupted her thoughts.

Oh!” Anika said, a huge smile lighting her up from the inside and making her refined features seem to glow with pleasure. “Yes. Thank-you ... so, very much.” She nodded her head and set her curls to bouncing.

“Yes. I am wanting to be saying...” Anika said as she bent her elbow, turning her right palm up between us as if to release a butterfly, her face searching mine intently. “I be seeming as young girl. Yes?”

I nodded in answer to her question. Anika did look like a young teenaged girl; fourteen-years-old, maybe a bit older, like I’d thought before. And she looked very well endowed for a teenager that young.

“And I knowing I am being some times... gullible...” Anika told me, her accented voice full of energy and admission. “But now, I am guarding of self, and of what I am being told by those not being my supervisors. Yes? And, I will tell you true, I am not certain how ... with ah, repu - reputation of ExServ, I be passing some of Service training; or, how Service be deciding of posting me aboard DSE Ship so very, very soon. Being now here, however, I am admitting of making mistakes.

I could only nod my head to her, hoping she could feel my encouragement.

“And...” the young NG Blaugelt continued, her cute voice getting more insistent and filling with emotion, “many crewmembers I am making acquaintance of, be disrespecting. I hear the talking of behind back ... Some giving slights of hand to face, which I am knowing—I am not imbecile ... Also, few of crew nice, but be acting as if I am ... little troublesome sister to them—

“Know this, Jameson: I am teenager, but soon not be anymore. Therefore, I not wanting of ... ah, you be treating me as ... as ... how you say... kid. However, not young goat. yes? You not be treating me as kid,” she told me, in such an emotionally forthright manner, I felt uneasy. “Is true. I being Neuholm’s girl. And so not be having first of hand experience of things concerning ... ahh, man woman, adult... togetherness ... of sex ... Because of where being born...”

Okay, I told myself, this personal information she was sharing with me was starting to be a little overwhelming now. The geek, code monkey in me was thinking we’d just met, and here she was just jumping right into the deeper end of her life with this confessional of hers, and taking me with her.

“After I leave Neuholm’s Planet...” my new neighbor said, plowing on with what she seemed to need to get off of her chest, “ ... and after basic training over. I be seeing two of the... adult ... videos...” She made a cramped-looking face, of irritation, or resentment, or embarrassment at her admission, as she glanced down my body. She looked at my crotch actually, I could tell.

Looking back up at me, her dark, coppery eyebrows went up as she realized I knew where she’d been looking. Her hands came together and she clutched them against her shirt, between her teenaged breasts again. What she was telling me of her homeworld certainly supported the preconceptions of her planet the rest of us Federation members seemed to hold, I told myself.

“I be studying of biology,” Anika told me quickly, her energy flooding out around me, seeming to fill my quarters, “in Service schooling, and doctors explaining reasons body experiencing ... rapid growing. I be studying of training manuals and ... adult interacting conduct videos—”

“—Some of those vids were just, you know, made...” I said, as I leaned toward her and grinned, “ ... to scare us, I think. So we stay on our toes on shore leave and don’t ... well...”

I shrugged my shoulders at her, hoping she would relax as I tried to get myself to relax at the same time. She grinned back at me and took a step closer to me. She was into my personal space, again. However, I found the experience was not as annoying now.

“I am thinking, such conduct vids being ... little propaganda,” Anika said and grinned at me.

Then Anika seemed to become thoughtful as if remembering something, and she slowly un-clutched her fingers in the center of her light-grey shirt. Her dark-blue eyes unfocused as the young-looking girl started to move the fingertips of both hands out across the grey material covering her full tits. When her hands gently grazing over where I figured her nipples must be, I heard myself suck in a lungful of air. When she didn’t respond to the sound I made, it struck me that she wasn’t aware at all that she was caressing herself in front of me. At least, I didn’t think she was.

“However, these two ... how you be saying—civilian, ah, fuck?—yes, civilian fuck videos ... I experience once,” the small, young-looking woman asked me in her girlish, accented voice as she partially came back to the present, “not being propaganda?”

She quickly arched both dark-copper eyebrows up as she realized just what she had asked me, even while she continued moving her fingers further across her breasts.

I saw the fine skin of her face was taking on a flush.

“But ... ah...” Anika said, taking a quick breath, “at time, I not knowing I would be seeing such videos ... at time invitation presented and being from, I learn after, ah, dis-repute-able, yes? A disreputable member of base staff, just before I be receiving orders to this Ship...

“Telling true,” Anika said, seeming to look at me for understanding, “when seeing, I be feeling and thinking small fears. Not Oh, Goddess, Run Away Children fears. Yes? But, ah, How be penis fitting in there, yet not hurting terrible? And I am thinking; Oh, my goodness ... this girl I seeing is liking penis in that way ... I am never seeing such things before, not ever growing up...

“But...” the dark-blue-eyed teenager softly said, looking down at the carpeted deck and blushing at what she’d just admitted out loud, while still caressing her endowed chest, “I now be some times thinking of such fuck videos ... and, my new body, it ... is wanting...”

She stopped moving her fingers on her breasts and shook her head vigorously, sending her coppery curls swinging wide, as if she were trying to free herself of the images that must be the cause of her present distraction. Then she took a deep breath, expanding her shirt and moving her hands inward, slightly compressing her boobs against each other. I got the feeling that my new, young-looking neighbor was actually proud of her chest and was subconsciously preening, hopeful I would notice them, or something.

I nodded my head for no good reason at Blaugelt and looked back and forth between Anika’s young, down-turned face and her hands on her breasts. Anika’s hands had come to the outside-edges of her light-grey-covered chest again. However, now her hands started to move up over her collarbones and to her shoulders and then back behind her neck. Her elbows were going up and out from her body as the ends of her shoulders arched backward, causing stressing of her shirt as it molded against her chest and definition appeared under the material.

Totally captured by her vamping posture, I was unable to look away from her ripe body. Part of me couldn’t believe she was acting this wantonly without at least being aware of what she was doing. And, I asked myself suddenly; just what the fuck was she doing?

Through the now tight, light-grey shirt, I could easily see her large, defined nipples, which tipped her small melon-sized breasts. Now I could tell Anika was wearing a thin, small-cupped bra. She’d be displaying her underarms if she’d been wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, I told myself. And then, she’d also be dousing me with her pheromones right now.

The geek factoid engine in my brain informed me the arms-up elbows-out posture was one instinctual behavior some women used to signal being sexually receptive to a man. The way I was feeling, there was little doubt in the small part of my still functioning brain; it was her pheromones which had me so entangled and was causing my blatant, crude response to her.

And right now, I was aware that my cock was rock hard.

As if finishing a stretching motion, the copper-haired refined-looking, sexy girl finally returned to her normal posture as she dropped her hands away from behind her neck and down to the sides of her slim hips.

“So...” Anika said to me, looking back up at me, the muscles around her eyes squinted as she began focusing her determination while coming out of her possibly unaware, sex-bomb mode, “I being born on Neuholm’s Planet. Yes? And ... all jokes Feds taking enjoyment of relating? Concerning Neuholm’s people ... and, our... foibles ... concerning sex—also that which Federation considers long time for children’s physically development ... Well, I am telling you ... jokes being truth told.

“And, now I be placed under close watch ... ahh, how does Engineering Supervisor be saying ... by baby sitter.” Anika told me, sounding pissed and seemingly oblivious to her previous actions as she quickly became more animated again. “Supervisor saying is so because I am idiot ... Also being made to studying the, ah ... remedial classes ... And assigned to be doing of on-line studying.

Gowno!” she blurted out and I could see the anger and frustration in her eyes and face, “I am not believing! How you say ... home-working!” Anika Blaugelt looked at me as if she was trying to will me to acknowledge the strength of the frustrations she was feeling.

“However...” she said, getting her anger somewhat under control with some effort, “I be admitting of needing to learn more of right stuff ... of job ... In such way, not to be killing people, ah...” and Anika gave me a look as she shrugged the shoulders of her overly-large shirt, “ ... ac-cidentally.”

As opposed to, my paranoid ass-wipe wondered, on purpose?

“Being also of another ... ah, problem...” Anika told me, as I noticed her respiration starting to increase by the movement of her shirt in response to her breathing.

“But I am finding no Service, how to fix manuals for problem. Perhaps, naughty videos...” my teenaged neighbor suggested to me as her concentration began faltering. Then she blushed again and bowed her head, lowering her eyes. “ ... this new body now be growing fast. And, I find I be needing of...”

“Of what?” I asked her. “You can tell me.”

“Please be calling me, Anika. Yes?” she said to me with a smile and I could sense her relaxing.

“And, please—be calling me, Jameson,” I replied with a smile, “Anika. Yes?”

“Jameson Sitwell ... is difficult to be saying...” she admitted to me as she looking deep into my eyes. “I am my Father’s good girl, always before ... well, concerning such as...”

I could feel her tension return inside herself as well as inside my quarters, as Anika looked for the words and, I guess, nerve ... to say whatever it was that I could see she was struggling to express to me. Part of me was afraid of what she was leading up to telling me. And, I had no more ideas as to what I could do that might help my new neighbor, which was frustrating in itself. I knew that I wanted to do something to make the things she was going through easier.

“Every day...” she said, softening her young voice, her accent becoming even more pronounced as she gazed back up at me, “I am growing. These changes in chemistry of body, ah ... I am becoming on edge; knowing ... feelings of sad heart and some times little tears; and, how you say ... the antsy ... word? Ah, of being ... on horns?”

I just stood there looking down into her dark-blue eyes and trying to absorb her emotional turmoil and give the young woman back some kind of reassuring energy vibe or something. While part of me was sort of ready to flinch at what was happening.

“New feelings coming with growing of body and being new-face ... alone...” Anika said, searching my eyes. And I saw some kind of resolve coming over her. “Being minimum twenty ... perhaps more months, yes? Before Mission be finishing. And ... I am finding no ... more pleasing and, ah, honorable crewmember...”

Wait a minute, I told my self, feeling slow on the up-take. Is this admittedly hot teenaged neighbor of mine... hitting on me?

“W-wait,” I said, “you don’t even know me...”

“Jameson Sitwell, are you being willing to...” Anika asked me, with an almost pleading look in her flashing eyes, “be breaking me in? Teaching, please, of sex?”

My god, I finally admitted to myself; that is exactly what’s going on here in my very own quarters right now! She is asking me to—and... shit! I guess all those jokes about naive people from Neuholm’s Planet are based on more than stereotypes after all!

Wait!” I said, sort of breaking the train of thought that was threatening to derail me as I decided I needed an affirmative answer from my new neighbor. “Wait, okay? So, you are asking me to...”

Yes, Jameson,” the young Engineers Mate told me, looking up at me as she blushed deeply. “Am asking you, please be one teaching of these things ... and is not Neuholm’s Planet joke...

“Will you ... be breaking ... ah, me in? Please? Being together for Mission ... Ah, to be teaching me? I not want being, backward girl ... from backward planet ... ever again ... not knowing how to please man ... Also being alone and wanting of human comfort. Please, share feelings of pleasure, of excitements, of perhaps ... joy ... Will be helping, I am thinking also of my concentration—on duty, studying of job and rules...”

I could only look at Anika’s attractive, expectant face, framed in curly, copper hair, and gaze into her open, honest, searching dark-blue eyes. I found I was allowing myself to now feel what I had to admit was the deepening connection between us.

“I telling you true, of homeworld ... key being in water. But not ... ah, fountain of youngness. Perhaps, being for me ... liquid, ahhh, retard-ation. I being over two years from Neuholm’s Planet, I now without home waters and growing up from young girl quickly. Now in world of Federation and finding so many thinking down to me, acting as I am slow in mind. To so many of you, I being seen as young girl having only atmosphere in head; or suffering of re, ah, retard-ation.

“Now of some things—yes. I saying I am retard. Also, I being, ah ... unexpected virgin to many. So, to all of you, I am sex retard also. Not knowing of how to do this, ah, fucking, but by seeing video. I am no longer wanting of being such... fucktard!

“I am having much luck, in meeting this nasty person McCord and him being ... rude, how you say ... so much asses hole! Making so easy to say to him, FUCK OFF! Easy not choosing him.”

Part of my mind noticed her mention of McCord. But, he would be the type to make his presence known to a vulnerable new-face like NG Anika Blaugelt. And with the way she seemed to struggle with Fedenglish, McCord would probably claim she’d misunderstood his use of slang expressions if she had happened to complain about his conduct with her; whatever had transpired between them.

She looked down at the deck and sadly shook her curly, copper hair. Being dragged deep into her own personal confusion, and still brave enough to be making this plea for help with her needs, she was tugging at my heart strings. The tones she was wringing out of them were sounding really whacky to me right now, but they also did send tingles to my hard cock, I had to admit to myself.

“Don’t worry your heart about McCord,” I told her. And I stepped near her and put my hands on her small, soft shoulders to offer her some human contact. “He is a waste of skin most of the time. He’s the fucktard, not you. The only thing you need to worry about is taking care of yourself ... Now, I don’t know about this, well, ahh...”

“Breaking in?” Anika asked, hopefully, and looked up at me from under her dark-red eyebrows and curls of coppery hair.

“That is one way to put it,” I said. “Yes.”

“Yes, is being one of ... ah, correct terms,” she assured me, nodding her head with certainty. “I hearing and seeing, in both two sexy videos ... Breaking in of teen girls. Yes? Using hard cock. First times painful, exciting ... but then... Ooohhh, yes?”

“Ahhh,” I replied, feeling stunned by my vulnerable, young-looking neighbor, “of course.”

“And,” this girl I had my hands on told me, her voice now sounding very business like in spite of her young voice and accent, “not wanting of only intercourse training.

“Wanting also you to show use of mouth ... and, how you say... hot little ass, too? As in naughty video—you like taking pleasure in mouth and ass of woman? Yes?” Anika asked me and stepping partially away from me, she swiveled both her knees and hips around to show me a side and rear view of her slim, ripe bottom in her trousers. “I am knowing ... I looking like boy behind...”

“But boobs growing ... much bigger since leaving Service schooling station,” she told me in a matter-of-fact tone of accented voice. “Now getting in way often. I hear one crewmember saying of me; top heavy. But, you look, you decide... okay?”

I tried to hold on to her, but Anika brushed my hands off her shoulders and pulled the front- and then back-tails of her loose, light-grey shirt out of the tops of her dark-grey trousers. To my shock, she worked the large shirt right up her body without unbuttoning it.

I saw the tops of her shapely hips curve in to her petite waist. I noticed the smooth skin and a sexy bellybutton. As her elbows when up over her shoulders, lifting the shirt, I saw her sleek, muscular stomach concave below her rising rib cage. As the shirt went higher, the teenaged girl revealed the pale tangerine, diaphanous material of her filled, very low cut bra. As she dragged the shirt up over her head, I noticed the demi-cups of her bra clearly displayed Anika’s hard, seemingly stylus-thick, chocolate-colored nipples. Both were poking against the filmy-orange wrapping from out of poker-chip-sized dark areolas in the slightly above centers of her bra-displayed small melon-sized tits.

My copper-haired neighbor just dropped her shirt on the carpet. She looked at me and stuck out her chest and colorful gauze-covered, gift-wrapped boobs. The small rod of her crew ID stick was half way down her amazing cleavage at the end of its thin, silver chain, subtly reflecting the illumination from the overhead off of its minutely incised marking as she breathed.

“You’re ... ah,” I stammered finally able to speak as I felt the blood throb in my cock, “ah, taking off your clothes?”

“Affirmative...” Anika said, considering my question as she undid her trousers and opened them up.

Spellbound at the display, I found I was focusing on the skin of her bare, lower abs down to the elastic top of the pale orange, silky panties she was wearing as she held the top of her pants wide. I saw her look down at my crotch at the evidence of my growing excitement and a small grin appeared on her attractive features.

“Ah ... I am looking like boy now?” the young woman asked, her accented voice was bordering on a smirk. “So ... you are saying, not wishing to be seeing of more?”

She started pushing her trousers down over her hips, putting the entire front panel of her pale-tangerine, see-thru panties on display for my mesmerized viewing. She stopped lowering her trousers with the tops down on her upper thighs. The wispy material shaping her camel-toe had somehow tightened as I watched; rendering her mound with a blush of tangerine, which was wrapping the split of her young muffin. Her mound was highly defined and was set-off between the smooth, naked skin she revealed at the tops of her exposed thighs and just above her partially dropped and opened, dark-grey trousers.

No!” I barked out, startled but thrilled at what I was seeing. What will Juliet say? I asked myself suddenly. But still, I continued staring at Anika’s exposed treasure, instead of excusing my rude staring and then running down the passageway outside for safety.

“I mean, no; you don’t look anything like a boy,” I told my new neighbor as I shifted my gaze upward to her magnificent, bra-encased rack, which her shirt had been masterfully hiding when she had first entered my quarters. “Wow—you are top heavy...”

“Told you true,” the teenaged-girl smirked and rocked forward on her boots—setting her boobs to jiggling all over my eyesight, and causing them to threaten escaping her tiny orange-ish gauze-like bra. “I be removing clothing so you knowing what you, ah ... are having to work with ... Yes?”

With that statement, Anika pushed her trousers down to the drop-point, where gravity overcame the resistance her butt and thighs presented to the weight of the material of her dark-grey trousers. And like magic, all by themselves, those trousers just slipped down her shapely legs, passing her delightful knees, and piled up over her boots.

She moved both of her feet as far apart as her trouser-restraints allowed and gave me a perfect view of the material covering the full, ripe split of what part of my mind saw was her creaming teenaged-mound. There was a damp spot, I couldn’t help noticing, on the width of the tiny, reinforced panel that ran snuggly back toward her ass. Through her gauze panties, I could easily see there was only a light fuzz of coppery hair beginning to come in above her ripe, almost pouting lips. I was in awe of all her glory, swathed in the pulled-tight, misty material of her delicate, see-through panties.

“Well, actually...” I managed to say, feeling dry-mouthed and slightly light-headed, with my voice sounding bemused even to my own ears as I unabashedly looked at the massive, unconditional promise Anika was showing me, “a girl’s clothes sometimes just need pulled up or down, or pushed out of the way ... not completely removed...”

God, I asked myself, what would Juliet say about that line?

No! I didn’t mean that...” I said, as a shot of adrenaline fought with my ramping blood sugar sex magic and I was able to get my attention back to the situation I found myself in right now. I began trying to overcome my code-monkey nature that had completely firmed-up my cock to rock inside my trousers.

“Damn, ahhh, I don’t think that bra is regulation, is it?” my code-monkey nature mumbled.

“Being not on duty, what is matter? Panties also not regular,” Anika said, tilting her chin to her chest so she could look down and see herself as she arched her spine backward and pushed her hips forward. She pointed the flimsy wrapping which now covering her delight directly at me. “Because, off duty, crew members having choices. Yes? I am knowing this, at least.”

Anika flexed her bare right hip up, and pushed her tiny, tangerine, panty-covered mound forward again. Then she moved her feet restricted by her trousers at her ankles. She started clumsily working the toe of her right boot against her left heel, try to get her foot free.

“Oh... yes...” I moaned out loud, “I mean, YES! They are allowed. Correct ... Nice, ah, nice panties.” Oh, Juliet, where are you when I really need you, I found myself wondering.

“I leaving panties on ... you like? Yes?” Anika asked me, beginning to smile, her eyes warming up as she continued to work one boot against the back of the other. “I am telling you, now... You being saying, ‘Anika, take panties down’ ... or, ‘Anika, take panties off_.’ And, panties be down or off for you. Yes? Or, be asking and I take panties down ... slowly ... to be more exciting for you ... Like I see in fuck videos.”

My eyebrows were rising so high into my forehead, my ears felt as if they were growing.

“So?” Anika asked, her copper eyebrows rising, as she balanced her arms out to her sides to steady herself as she worked her right toe against her stubborn left boot heel. “You be teaching me ... how to... put out ... for you? I buying many of sexy under clothings, using sign-up monies, before I am coming onboard ... You liking sexy panties too! I knowing.”

“Yes. I do like sexy panties,” I told Anika, not quite completely lost in the growing blood sugar sex magic, which was warring with the adrenalin in my system. “What little there is...”

Anika stopped pushing with the toe of her right boot and, dropping her arms, she gave me her undivided attention, standing in her see-thru tangerine bra and panties with her dark-grey trousers around the ankles of her boots.

“Good,” she said, preening for me without really moving a muscle, as waves of her teenaged-sexuality flooded my quarters and increased my heart rate. “I be wearing sexy somethings for you. Be meeting here, in cabin, or ... next door, one hour, perhaps two everyday? Perhaps more? You wanting to be breaking in young Neuholm’s girl I see? Yes?”

I found it was actually hard for me to say much about what I wanted right then; except I definitely didn’t want Juliet to kill me about this situation when I admitted everything to her. And, I knew I’d have to tell her everything as soon as possible.

“And, we be doing sexy things before sleeping, also,” Anika told me.

Then her face broke out into a big, beautiful smile that just made her look so adorable—well, beautiful, actually. She just stood there like that ... in her underwear, with her pants around her boots in the middle of my carpet-covered deck between my footlocker and the huge bunk and my five clothes lockers. She really managed to fill up my quarters. And then, I caught a whiff of aroused, teenaged girl that was filling up my quarters. My heart rate increased even more.

“You not be knowing ... how much ... I am wanting of you ... penetrating... every part of body...” the young Anika Blaugelt gushed to me, and opened her hands to me, “ ... many times over...”

“Well... ackmmm ... Anika...” I coughed out, as I drank in her naughty, sex vibes. My code monkey was ready to start bouncing off the bulkheads. No one would ever believe this was happening to me. Not that anybody other than Juliet was ever going to hear anything about this from me, either.

“I be,” the almost naked girl told me with her previous smile becoming an amazingly quick pout, “understanding ... if you not wishing to be doing so. You only person, I am having ah, such long ... conversation together ... since, ahhh, I arrive on Ship...

“Telling true,” the panty- and bra-clad teenager said, her pout becoming anger, as she started working her right toe against the heel of her left boot again with a vengeance.

“Yes—being talking with crew persons in line of duty,” Anika said, her agitation building and her face reflecting it as she pushed against her boot heel, “also one time ... every week ... speaking to doctor or medic concerning of Neuholm’s problem for I no longer drinking of water from home ... Also talk when getting directions ... Or, on line of duty; or, ‘may I be eating at this table’ ... Most crew persons making me so angry. Is as if crew thinking I having NPID ... And they be bloating-up and be dying if breathing of same air as me in just a little time! This being so for ... for, since coming aboard!

With the frantic push accompanying her yelled comment, Anika got her left foot free of her boot and causing her boobs to dance around in her tiny bra cups. She then, by stepping down on the left cuff with her right boot, pulled her leg and ankle out of her restraining pant leg. The copper-haired young woman pushed the empty boot away with her small, white sock-covered foot and straightened back up and looked into my eyes.

It seemed to me the girl before me had lost all of her fire and energy getting her shapely left leg free of her dark-grey trouser leg. Now suddenly, her posture was reflecting her vulnerability. She stood with a visible lean, her shoulders pulled forward with a slightly lower right arm, her hands clasped together just above her tangerine-mist-covered mound, her right knee pushed out a little bit.

“My god, Anika, I didn’t realize,” I said, really starting to come back to the here and now reality of my life and responsibilities. I was focusing on the anguish bubbling up through her young voice, and holding on to it like a life-line that might save me from my worst geeky code-monkey self if I allowed this situation to continue as it had been going.

“Jameson ... I am being so... lonely ... And, and, yes ... how you say, horning?”

“Ah,” I found myself saying in a soft voice. “I think the word you want is, ah, horny.”

“All antsy feelings and wanting of something, I now know being penetration—being what you meaning as horny? Yes?” Anika asked me while looking all that much more vulnerable because she was standing there in only her tangerine bra and panties with her pants down around her right ankle and boot. “Wanting of touching between legs? The putting of your arms around shoulders? Having tenderness of nipples?”

“That is one way, I guess, a woman could use in describing being horny,” I told her and nodded at my young, upset neighbor.

“Why was no one ... warning me of this ... before I am leaving home?” she asked the compartment in general.

“I am sorry for your pain,” I told Anika, my heart going out to her.

“And, I am hearing what some of crew saying...” she told me, “ah, concerning ... NG Blaugelt, also...”

Okay ... I told myself, I’ll ask.

“What are they saying?” I asked Anika, looking her in her dark-blue eyes and trying not to let my eyes wander below her neck. “You know ... about you?”

She looked back down at the carpeted deck and took a ragged breath.

“You...” she slowly asked me in a quiet, surprised voice, “are not hearing?”

“Not really,” I told her. “I try not to listen to that stuff. That’s why I stood up for you, when a friend of mine was trying to tell me rumors about you.”

I felt bad, remembering it had taken me a little while before I sort of stood up for her.

“Well ... Some saying ... I am on Ship, being for Executive Officer’s pleasure girl ... Some saying, same officer never wanting me. Also, being against regulations ... for officer and gentleman having sexual knowing of enlisted person ... All rumors because Null Grades never being on DSE duty before, I am learning now.”

I was shocked. I had never met our Executive Officer, but I’d heard from several people I respected that he was a very cohesive guy—for the second in command. How, I wondered, could crewmembers come up with this crapola? None of us could be that bored yet. And I was surprised at just how insultingly rude and unfeeling some of my fellow crewmembers must be, for Anika to overhear this stuff they were saying about her.

“I didn’t know,” I told her, feeling as if I were apologizing for my fellow shipmates.

“Or, some saying I am hearing ... I truly being young girl, not of age to be legal in Service. They going on to say Executive Officer’s Grandfather, using politick power and much wealth, to ... pull on the strings ... with Ship’s Purser, making so I be on board ... being as paying passenger for research, or some gowno. But, I am truly enlisted...”

My young neighbor wrapped her arms around herself, just under her boobs, making them stand out even more and causing her big, chocolate-colored nipples to really strain at the flimsy, orangish-colored bra material while threatening to pop-up out of the cups. Anika turned her head and looked down at my footlocker.

I felt even worse because I noticed her nipples in spite of the personal horror Anika was relating to me.

“Or, some saying,” Anika addressed my footlocker in a measured accented voice. “I am daughter of Czar Nikallas of Neuholm’s Planet ... And with present social violence and possible coming of civil war, Czar is using politick power and much wealth ... for hiding Crown Princess ... until crisis ... ah, resolves ... And being again safe for her returning home. But, I am not having Neuholm’s water for drinking now, so ... How can be going home ... if such were true?”

“Wow...” I said, almost to myself. “Like I told you, if I can help it I don’t listen to that crap, Anika. I’m just a geek code monkey, and so I’m not privy to—or try to pay any real attention to—a lot of the Ship’s crappy scuttlebutt. But I have to tell you, I wasn’t aware of any of that stuff...

“I have heard the stories about the different, well, things ... people say you’ve screwed up while on duty,” I said in a soft voice, feeling uncomfortable at having to admit I had heard some of the gossip about her. “But I think it is unfair for people to spread those tales without you being there and having the chance to defend yourself.”

“I am glad for you not paying attentions to such ... idiots’ gowno,” Anika said, her accent thick with disdain for the people spreading the tales as she turned her young, fine-featured face back to me. “I am knowing of this word; geek. But—what being ... ahh... cold monkey?

“I am willing to be taking you in arms if you, Jameson, are being cold. And ... I am seeing... no tail,” stated the undressed teenager who was my new neighbor, with a hint of grin warming-up her attractive features. “Perhaps it is only small tail? Yes? Maybe you should being taking down pants to be showing me of this small tail?”

“Was that a joke?” I asked her, smiling and grateful for her small bit of levity when the gravity in my quarters had been pulling us both down so far.

“You are man of ... ah, perception,” her smile actually made it into her dark-blue eyes, “I am seeing...”

“Why, thank you, Anika. And, the term is code monkey. I work on programming data systems. Writing computer code; so I am called a code monkey.”

“Ahhh,” Anika said, understanding lighting up her eyes further. “Computer programming ... being good employment. Yes?”

“Yes, it can be,” I agreed with her, unable to come up with anything witty myself. “Better than plastics, which was what some adults thought I should go into.

“So...” I asked her, my curiosity coming forward, and trying to change the subject from the insults she’d endured from disrespecting crewmembers, “what does gonow mean?”

“Word... gow-no,” she said, knitting her eyebrows in thought. “Is naughty word. Other thing than ... pee. I getting spankings, when in Father’s household, for saying this word as young girl.”

Gowno,” I repeated, my tongue lazy compared to her pronunciation. But I did get an insight into her accent.

“You being bad boy,” Anika giggled, pointing her finger at me, “saying this thing. You be looking for spanking saying such word!”

“Oh no,” I chuckled, shaking my head at her. “This is my ... ahh ... household. I am the spanker here. You are the one teaching me a naughty word, so you should be spanked, not me.”

“You spanking woman who not obey ... or being naughty?” Anika asked me, her copper eyebrows going up with her question. But she didn’t sound affronted at the thought; she was just asking for clarification it sounded to me.

“Only if it is necessary,” I said, teasing her, and grinning at the same time.

“So, Jameson,” Anika asked, her inner demons seemed calmed a bit and allowed her to become serious as she gave me a measure looked. “What you believing of my story to be? Why I am being on Ship? What being story you are wanting for me?”

“Well,” I told her, not really knowing what to tell this almost naked, young-looking woman standing there in my quarters, sort of offering herself to me. So to stall for time, I said, “When you are ready to tell me, I will be more than willing to listen and believe you. Okay? Right now, you are just a properly enlisted and posted Null Grade spacewoman as far as I am concerned ... Granted, one that still needs seasoning so you can become an even more effective member of the Engineering Department of this Ship.”

“What means, seasoning? You be saying, you are wanting to eat me?” the curly, copper-haired, nearly naked young woman teased me as she stood up straight and jerked her shoulders back, and that made her incredible big boobs wobble for a moment. “As I see such activities in exciting adult video?”

“It means, gain experience,” I told her in a warning tone of voice, holding up both of my hands trying to forestall our return to any discussion of sex between the two of us. “Work experience in your department.”

The old geek part of me did want to put my up-lifted hands out and grasp both of Anika’s tits.

“I am understanding,” Anika told me, and she took a deep breath, looking into my eyes. “However ... I am telling you true—right now, growing body be demanding of ah, hard cock ... But, I be wanting nice man. Yes? Being for myself ahhh, maybe even his girl of friends...”

Anika searched my eyes to see if she was making herself understood, and if I realized just what she was proposing, while looking for my reaction. I was sort of stunned, and then I remembered Juliet. And I knew I’d be telling her everything about this encounter.

“But ... I be willing ... to just,” Anika told me, looking defeated by whatever she had seen in my eyes. Her posture collapsed as she shrunk down into her shoulders and her spine sagged. Her accented words, mumbled, sort of trickled out of her, “ ... how you say ... put out for you, Jameson Sitwell. Yes? Only for you ... Any way you be wanting ... I be putting out ... I be your fuck bungee, or ... ahh ... how you say ... friends of benefits ... anytime you wanting ... If you not ... wanting for girl of friends with me.”

“Girlfriend ... you mean. And, that, is ... ah,” I said, finding myself talking before I realized what was going to come out of my mouth. “Fuck bunny—an attractive girl who lets a guy friend screw her ... or, you might mean, fuck buddy—a friend you get together with from time to time to have ... ah, sex ... And, it’s friends with benefits, I think ... those were the term you were looking for.”

My young neighbor took a deep breath and gave me an indecipherable look. Anika stood up straight, putting her hands on her panty-covered hips. I saw resolve, maybe motivated by a good dose of fear, starting to come back into her deep-blue eyes and her aristocratic jaw line. This girl really could turn her state of mind around quickly, I told myself.

“In Father’s household ... I am always good girl. But now ... without drinking of Neuholm’s water for long time, body is changing, growing ... I know I must be putting out soon. Or I be going oblakany, ah insane, I am feeling—and, so say doctors... Gowno! No one telling me of possibility of ... ah, puberty ... being so... terrible, if leaving home!”

Anika’s young features broke again and her resolve crumbled as her face turned red and scrunched all up. I saw that tears started to leak out of her tight eyelids and run slowly away from her amazingly long eyelashes and down her ruby cheeks to the clenched muscles of her elegant jaw line. She clutched her hands together between her breasts again.

Hey! It will be okay, Anika,” I said, feeling my guts wrench in response to her pain and misery, as I reached out and gently cupped the naked flesh of her soft shoulders again. Her warm skin made my palms and fingers tingle with life, even as I felt her trembling as she silently cried.

“It is not that I am not attracted to you, because I am ... Damn my soul, I am. It’s just, I’ve got to think about this ... and, there is someone else on the Ship besides the two of us I have to take into account about this, ah, request of yours.”

“You ... are already having ... ah, this girl friend?” Anika asked me, looking up with her eyelids red and irritated from crying.

I felt her warm shoulders tense up against the palms and fingers of my hands.

She was tilting her head to the left and scrunching her eyebrows down momentarily, her deep-blue eyes, leaking tears, and popped wide open. At the same time, she targeted me with what looked like a flare of temper. “I am not knowing of this girlfriend ... before I come here...”

Lifting her arm, she pushed my right hand away from her left shoulder and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Not knowing what to do, I took my other hand off her right shoulder.

“No. Well, yes,” I corrected myself and looked at Anika with what I hoped was deep affection. “Yes, I really do. Have a girlfriend that is ... It happened just recently ... two days ago actually ... Over a card game...”

“So...” the young Engineering Mate asked; the look on her face was one of tear-stained concentration. “Is this girl you be wanting for breaking in? I am knowing of no other virgins here on Ship. In last quarters, those women telling me of sex with men on Ship, or sex on liberty. One I be telling of virgin ... she laughing and saying that cannot be.

“So,” Anika asked, her voice filled with accented angry sarcasm, “this girl friend knowing of sex already ... and making very good for you, with sex?”

I was flabbergasted at the change in Anika’s emotional response. Distraught tears to angry tears? Well, I told my self; angry tears were healthier, I guessed.

“Be telling me true. She being good? No?” Anika asked me, her eyes filling with steely determination and her voice heavy with her accent. “I tell you, Jameson Sitwell, being young virgin, I am promising, I be very good for you, Jameson...

“Telling true, perhaps I am sometimes ... ah, of the bull’s head, you understand? Yes? And, yes, sometimes I am acting as child, wanting own way ... Sometimes I do not listen first ... I am doing, not thinking, and be sorry for later. I not be pleasing you—you spank me as said and teach me true. Yes?”

Anika was watching for my reaction to her words, and it seemed to me she didn’t like what she was seeing. Her anger that I had seen flair up and her determination appeared to be short-lived and was fading away just as quickly—again, like she was on a rollercoaster ride. Now, I thought I saw fear starting to bloom in her dark-blue eyes again. She took a deep breath.

“I willing to be doing anything for your wishes...” Anika said, her voice now throaty from crying and taking on an accented edge of desperate determination that sliced at my heart.

“But... please, be not turning me away? I take panties down now. Yes?” she asked, and moved her hands down to her slim hips. She slipped her thumbs into the waistband of her wispy panties and pushed, and as she was leaning forward, her ID stick swung away from the deep cleavage where it had been nestled.

“You see,” Anika said, as her panties slipped down over her mound. “Now I am growing more hair. Or ... should be shaving off? You liking for me being smooth as little girl?”

Her misty-tangerine panties began slipping down the tops of her thighs as she pushed them with her thumbs inside the elastic waist. Not being able to avert my eyes, I saw the flimsy material turn inside out, as the crotch clung to the bottom of her ripe mound.

“I ... I am sorry,” the young curly copper-haired teenager explained, sounding contrite, “With body growing ... ah, puberty ... is being ... ah, how you say ... messy? Happening more and more ... body always becoming ah, excited ... lubricating...”

She took a deep breath and looked up at me. Her left cheek sort of quirked-up with her lips tight together, as if in concentration. The ID stick was swinging on the end of the thin silver chain and seemed to be trying to draw my attention to her tits, which were displayed by the wispy material of her filmy, tangerine bra.

“I am creaming in panties...” Anika crooned, actually started to sing. Her rising young voice, sounding to me like an accented parody of a badly singing porn starlet. With her singing, her whole demeanor took on such a degree of desperation that it gave me shivers. She raised her right hand out from her body and moved it in rhythm to the unheard music. Her movement dropped her panties down around her thighs as she straighten up.

“... tell true ... I be lubing up my tubing ... to screw...” the young looking woman sang as she started tentatively swaying her hips and thighs, making her transparent panties slip further down her legs. “Am having naughty, naughty, wet-dreams ... about youuuu ... I being hot and being ready ... so, so please doooo ... do do me, just do me soonnnn...”

The tangerine wisp of material slipped past her cute, bare knees as she swayed her naked bottom. Her panties ended up at her ankles; one foot in a boot, which was wrapped in one leg of her dark-grey trousers and her other ankle clad in her short white sock. She lifted that foot free of her panties.

I just stood there, now well and truly shocked at the surreal place where I found myself. And I was wondering what kind of porn vid actually had singing in it? Damn, that kind of vid might even have some kind of a plot line, I told myself. Then it hit me what a pitiful state Anika must be in to present herself to me this way in her attempt to entice me into a sexual relationship. And that thought drove a deep twinge into my heart.

“See, I be doing research ... ahh ... of sex lingo,” the almost naked young woman told me. “We not knowing of your ... little language ... back home. Yes? Because, if learned such back home, mother church be surely purging us ... Be shunning us. But is no church here in Big Black. So, you can be teaching me ... how to ... as you say—talk dirty... Please?”

I was nearly at my wit’s end now. How could all those jokes told about the people from Neuholm’s Planet have developed if any one of the comedians telling them ever were to see and hear the anguish this young woman was describing to me in what I once thought was the safety of my own quarters.

My goodness, I told myself, I wished Juliet were here to help me figure out how to help this girl. Hell, how to help me.

“Anika,” I said, “you have really got to calm down. So we can figure out a way to help you get though this. Okay?”

Calm down? You saying nothing I not knowing of and wishing for,” the exposed girl rebuked me. “But, you be thinking ... on this request? Yes? Is much to accept at once, for good man as you, I am now thinking...

“But ... as good man...” Anika asked with her voice full of raw emotion as all the energy seemed to be draining out of her while she stood there before me nearly totally undressed. “I ask you ... perhaps ... to hold in arms? Please ... for ... ah, little time? When touching me on shoulders, was feeling sooo much of goodness.

“Is possible? I am needful of, ah, is called, hug? And little sleeping of baby.”

“Okay, Anika. I can do that,” I told her, feeling relief there was something simple I could do to offer her human kindness. And I opened up my arms in an invitation. Yes, I was glad to do almost anything to help this girl relieve some of the tension and heartache she had found onboard the Ship. “I would be honored to offer you that.”

The young girl stepped into my embrace and snuggled her head into my chest. Oh my goodness, my body vibrated—her incredible firm, big, bra-encased boobs ... against my chest.

Before she could make contact with her naked groin to any part of my body, I backed up. Holding her in my arms, I moved us toward the side of my bunk near the hatchway to the head. I was partially aware of her dark-grey trousers and the tangerine gauze of her panties caught on her right boot and trailing behind her as we sort of slow-danced, with her encumbered leg dragging behind as we made it to the side of the bunk.

“Let’s get on my bunk,” I told her, sort of babbling in the shock of her being in my arms. “Are you cold? You should get under the blanket. And then, I can hold you so you can get to sleep.”

Oh, Juliet save me with your love, I silently prayed as I got Anika up to the side of the bunk.

“Please ... be touching ... until...” Anika said into my shirt, “I am sleeping?”

I pulled the blanket and sheet back with my right hand and maneuvered the small, coppery-haired girl until she sat down on the side of the wide bunk. I knelt and removed her remaining boot and then the tangled clothes, tossing them at my footlocker. I was not about to touch her bra to make her any more comfortable, I told myself.

Then I was aware of the tantalizing smell of her arousal; the heat from the closeness of her body to mine; the hardness of my straining cock. I rotated her legs toward the foot of my bunk as she slowly dropped her head down onto one of my pillows.

“Try to relax,” I told her and chuckled as I thought about her last request of touching. I pulled the sheet up to her chin. “No touching. Just holding. That’s not on-line right now. Here...”

I covered her with the blanket and then hurried around the bunk and got on the blankets behind her. I moved across the bedclothes to her slight form, and I stretched out and rested beside her. I got my arm under her neck and she roll onto her side and up against me with the sheet and part of the thin blanket between our bodies.

“Mmmmm ... Oh, Jameson ... yes ... so good ... I am feeling safe ... Nice ... strong...”

And just like that, she was asleep.

I started one of my meditation breathing exercises to calm down and try and center the crazy images of Anika’s body and Juliet’s face that flashed around in my head. My mind was going at light speed, even though I realized I felt emotionally exhausted as the breath control started to take affect. If I wasn’t careful, I realized, I’d fall asleep too...


I jerked awake and recognized I must have nodded off. I reached back to the headboard of my bunk and tapped it with my finger tips in a three touch rhythm. Up on the padded overhead above my bunk a light-blue readout of Ship’s time appeared. I figured I’d zonked out for maybe twenty minutes. Being the good code monkey I was, I’d developed the ability to power nap at an early age and come back awake, refreshed, and alert.

I managed to extract my arm from under Anika’s neck and got up off of my bunk. I immediately started picking up the young woman’s discarded clothes. While finally deciding it was best to tell Juliet the whole truth about what had just happened, I folded the shirt, trousers, and Anika’s sexy tangerine panties, piece by piece, and stacked them on the seat of my desk chair.

Then I pulled my POC from my belt. I opened the clamshell of the case and softly said, “Juliet,” as I held the device to the side of my face.

After four buzzes I was flooded with relief when her sweet, low voice said into my ear, “Owww, what does my very favorite code monkey want with little old me now?”

With my thumb, I hit the volume rocker-button Up on the side of POC.

“Ah, hey, Juliet,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Are you busy right now? I mean ... I seem to have gotten into a situation here that is ... well, so far beyond me that I would really appreciate your opinion on how to proceed ... Somehow, well, I hope you can sort of relate to this ... you know, or at least give me a woman’s perspective. Okay?”

“What is it, Jameson?” I could hear the concern in her voice through the POC. “You aren’t in some kind of trouble, are you?

“I guess that depends on how you react once I fill you in on the problem that just came though the hatch to my place a little bit ago,” I said.

“Okay,” Juliet told me, “you have piqued my curiosity, my sweet man. I’ll be over as soon as I put my boots on. Okay?”

“Thank you, my love,” I said. “See you in a bit.”

“Okay...” she said, her voice sounding funny all of a sudden, “Now, I’m going to run to your quarters, my Jameson! Bye!”

And then I was holding my port-a-comp next to my confused head listening to only the steady hum of the no-signal tone.

I decided it would be best if I delivered my side of the story outside of my quarters ... to start with. I had re-keyed my hatchway mechanism to respond to the Service ID stick Juliet wore around her neck. That way she could just walk right in to my compartment, even if I wasn’t here. However, I was here now, and so was the naked, sleeping NG Blaugelt. I figured there would be a whole lot less recriminations if I prepared my girlfriend Juliet for what she would be seeing once we did go into my quarters.


I felt myself starting to wince as I finished talking.

“Oh. My. Goodness...” Juliet sputtered out after I finished the graphic, in-depth recounting of my meeting with Space Woman Blaugelt. “Why ... that poor dear. Some people on this tub can be so cruel! You know, sometimes they make me so mad ... I could ... just spit!”

“I was so shocked,” I told her as we stood together just outside the closed hatchway to my quarters and near the bulkhead of the passageway, “my very first instinct was to get in touch with you for help in figuring out what to do ... well, after I woke up from my accidental nap.”

“My sweet geek...” Juliet breathed out in a sultry, low voice as she pushed me back up against the bulkhead wall and kissed me gently. And then it was all soft, soft lips and wet tongues as the kiss built into a grinding mouth-to-mouth and crotch-to-crotch activity that sucked the breath out of me and left my head spinning and my knees weak.

“You realize, don’t you,” the beautiful sex-bomb that had me pinned to the bulkhead whispered in a raspy voice, “this development will postpone the vid debut of my very first striptease and blowjob ... right?”

“Guhhh,” I managed to get out as I caught my breath and I focused on her green, smoking eyes. “Juliet ... sex is the last thing on my mind right now...”

“You know,” Juliet told me as she gave my crotch one more, slow grind, “if you were any other man, I wouldn’t believe you one bit ... But I am getting to know you, and strange as even I find it to believe, I know you’re telling me the truth.”

“You do?” I said, confused. “I am?”

“Of course Sweet Geek,” Juliet said with a big warm smile. “You don’t know how much trust and affection a woman feels for her man when he is the one to say he loves her first. My oh, my ... yes.”

“Really?” I asked. “I told you I loved you?”

“You most surely did. You said it when you called me, My love right before we said goodbye on our POCs.”

“You ... you, love me?” I managed to squeak out as Juliet rubbed the big mounds under her shirt against my chest.

“For a G3, you catch on real quick,” Juliet giggled.

“About paying off your IOU,” I said. “I just want to say again ... Well, you know we won’t do that until, ahhh, well ... we’re both sure about it. Right?”

“Oh, I’ve been sure about it since I first read what you were going to make me do on that note you passed to me at the poker game,” Juliet said, her eyes gleaming. “Goodness; and you did it right in front of all of those people in the Enlisted Lounge, too ... Ohhh ... You were so confident and commanding. I’ve had to change my panties two or three times a day ever since. Every time I picture myself having to slowly, take off my clothes for you ... to reveal the outfit you picked out ... and then having to kneel down before you and take your hard cock deep... in my mouth...

Mmmmm,” my sweetheart moaned as she bit her lower lip and her eyes rolled up in her head as her lids fluttered.

Then I felt my penis starting to harden-up into a cock again and push into the thin material of my trousers against Juliet’s groin, just above her crotch.

“Oh, yessss...” Juliet sighed as she became aware of what was coming up between the two of us and pushed back on it, “ ... you like the image of me doing that for you, don’t you ... Well, since you are going to be my man, you need to know that there is nothing I won’t consider doing to make you happy ... You are the guy who is finally going to get all the benefits of my Neo Catholic upbringing. You do realize that, right? I hope you can learn to deal with being the one in charge in our relationship, because sometimes when you are trying for cool detachment—well, I think it comes off to other people as a bit wishy-washy and lacking confidence.

“But when you pushed that brazen note across the poker table to me in front of all those people... well!”

I could tell she saw the confusion in my eyes. Juliet just grinned and got a naughty, evil look on her beautiful face and giggled.

“Neo Catholic doctrine states: the man is God’s representative in every committed relationship. And the man shall transmit God’s will to each of his women, and each woman is to obey her husband’s will in all things of the flesh and render her body unto her man for all of his earthly desires, denying him not one. No matter how unseemly or base each may strike his woman’s sensitivities, she is to perform for him, lest her man be made to take her to task with the strokes of his rod. And so it shall be, for each wife in his household to obey him and make his household fruitful in the eyes of the Lord...

Wow,” I choked out, “nice ... ah ... religion.”

“Right,” she said with a giggle and kissed my cheek before stepping back away from me, as she looked me in the eyes. “You should live to be so lucky.”

“Yes dear,” was all I could think to reply.

“See,” Juliet cooed as her green eyes lit up, “there is something to be said about taking my rightful place in the ranks, or ratings in my present case, as a citizen in the greater family of this wonderful Federation of ours.

“So what, oh what,” the apparent love of my life asked me, as she planted her hands on her trousers that were covering her delicious hips and Juliet started tapping her right boot on the deck in front of me, “ ... are we going to do? You know, with that naked young lady who right now is, I’m sure, dreaming hopefully of all the wonderfully vile and nasty acts you are going to be training her to perform, not only for your pleasures, my Sweet Geek, but for... us ... and our pleasures? You know, over the rest of this Mission, at least...”

I could only look at Juliet, maybe with a glazed expression of shock.

What,” Juliet asked me, seeing my confusion was growing and not abating. “You didn’t forget did you, that on Proxima Secunda, all good Neo Catholics are supposed to practice polygamous relationships? If we are going to be together, Jameson, you are going to have to meet some of my closely held cultural beliefs for this to work in the long run. Right?”

I felt my mouth slowly fall open.

“Huh,” Juliet said, and looked at my crotch as she bit her lower lip, “maybe I did gloss over that part of my extended family when I was telling you about my life. You know ... I always figured the reason Dad left was because Mom wouldn’t hear of allowing another woman join their marriage ... All my friends at school and in the neighborhood used to feel sorry for me, even pity me sometimes. I could see it in their eyes. When I was little I used to ask my Pawmaw, ‘when am I gonna get my next mommy?’ She’d just shake her head and give my Dad a look ... I should have been asking my Mamaw I guess, since it was my Mom who was the one being petulant and selfish.”

When I was able to get over that info-shock, I took a deep breath.

“Bu ... but, wait,” I managed to get out. “Don’t I have anything to say about this?”

WELL!” Juliet blurted out, giving me a speculative, almost disdainful glance. “You certainly do not! Not if you just roll over and let me walk all over you all of a sudden!

“Where’s the man that dominates me at the poker table? Huh? Where’s the man that is going to make me strip down to those sexy things he picked out just for his pleasure? Where is the guy that will then force me to kneel down before him and demand I suck his cock? And record it all on vid as he cums in my virgin mouth? Yes! And even makes me like it? Makes me want more...

“Right now, all I think I’m seeing ... is a little nerdy boy...”

I felt like I’d had my heart slapped. Where in all the Big Black was this attitude suddenly coming from? I asked myself. But instead of retreating like a pussy-whipped puppy dog; I felt myself getting angry. I pushed myself away from the passageway bulkhead, clenching my teeth together. Why did it always seem to come down to taunting the geek? I asked myself. I had had enough of it in my life.

Juliet was my friend, and yes, I even was falling in love with her. But I wasn’t going to start letting anybody mind fuck with this nerd boy anymore, not even her. She might have a claim on my emotions, but not my very soul. If there was going to be anybody whipped in this relationship, I decided, I was just going to be the cock to do it.

I saw Juliet’s eyes get big at the expression on my face and I heard her gasp. I stepped up to her and brought my right hand up to the back of her head. I got a handful of that silken blonde hair in my fingers, right up against her skull. I pulled her to me and got in her face.

“Well, then—my dear, sweet love—I think...” I said in a controlled monotone as I searched deep in her green eyes for any sign of resistance, “it’s time we go into my quarters and see if our little Engineers Mate Blaugelt gets your juices running like she does mine ... Because right this minute, I just might decide to cast two hot babes in the upcoming first blowjob vid...”

I tilted my head a bit toward the closed hatchway of my compartment.

“Are we on-line now? Or do I need to spank your bottom and point out the error of you ways? Humm? I’d be more than happy to do that right here in the passageway for you.”

“No ... ah, no,” the beautiful woman before me squeaked out, as she tried to look anywhere but into my eyes while I controlled her head movement with my handful of silky hair. “I’m good, right now ... So ... I guess I need to have a talk with crewmember Blaugelt now, huh?”


I would like to say that is how I, a lowly geek of a code monkey, ended up with not one, but two hot babes as my girlfriends. And ... that they were both were devoted to me and only me ... heart, body, mind, and soul.

But that is definitely not what happened.

Juliet did start talking with Anika, once we entered my cabin and my girlfriend woke the little, copper-haired teenager up.

Then after about five minutes of three-way conversation around my bunk that amounted to the following: introductions; a very brief history of Jameson and Juliet; Anika graphically asking me—again—to please break her in; and then Anika graphically hinting that Juliet should join in with her training. At that point, I found I was sort of kicked out of my quarters by my new girlfriend. It happened all in a nice, polite manner, of course. That way, I was told, the two of them could have a girls’ heart-to-heart chat. I could understand that, right?

I did use that time to go to Ship’s small stores, which had been my goal to begin with when my new neighbor showed up. Once I got to small stores, I really looked around the place. I bought some of their nicest shampoo—not the crap they issued free for the few times a week a crewmember was able to get clean with real water. I got some snack items—four small bags of carsi nuts, parsnip chips, and amazingly a small tub of fresh red-pepper hummus. I wondered how the Supply Department came up with fresh hummus on this Mission? The Hydroponics Department must really be busting ass, the geek in me figured, for there to be the ingredients to make enough fresh hummus that there was a surplus to sell in small stores. Then I reminded myself that the food on the Glenndeavor during this Mission was excellent.

I was surprised to discover there were also quite a few kilos each of different kinds of surplus fresh produce from Hydroponics; too. But I didn’t know when I’d be able to get back into my cabin to get my cooking gear. So I passed on purchasing any of that. It did look very good, especially the green-beans and the big Roma-type tomatoes. I could even smell the ripeness of the red fruit before I even picked one up out of the small hopper.

I discovered on the front counter that one of the small stores attendants had sliced up a few of the tomatoes and put them out on a plate so customers could sample the luscious wonderful flavor of the offering. There was even a salt-shaker and paper napkins. After having a taste, I went back and bought one of the tomatoes. I borrowed the cutting knife from one of the G2s on duty and ate my tomato, lightly salted, right there at the counter. The flavor was rich and just heavenly.

As I swallowed my last bite of true, ripe-tomato tasting tomato, I vowed to myself that I would start checking small stores every other day or so if surplus produce this good was going to start showing up for sale on a regular basis. The food and the menu choices offered in the Enlisted Mess had been getting better and better with each mission, which was unheard of in the Service. Still, I also liked to cook my own meals whenever I had the time and the supplies.

I looked at everything in each aisle on my side of the counter two or three times, not wanting to return to my quarters without first receiving an all clear call from my girlfriend. And I was sort of scared at what I might find when I returned, so I struck up a conversation with an older guy hanging out at the front counter. He was maybe early to mid-40s and was wearing G5 blazes, which are a white star a bit bigger than a poker chip with G5 stitched in dark-blue thread in the center of the star and worn on the upper arms of his grey duty coveralls.

Marines used chevrons on their sleeves denoting their ratings, done in khaki, black, or gold—even red thread at times—stitched on a light-grey or bright-yellow background, depending on the class of uniform they were wearing at any given time.

I had noticed the G5 had walked into the small stores compartment while I’d been perusing the aisles and he had gone behind the counter. He had on a duty cargo vest with no nametag that covered the name patch on his shirt; which I knew wasn’t strictly regulation. But when on Earth, do as ... and all that, and this was a different Ship’s department than my department after all.

He was now leaning on the Supply Department side of the counter, and we just chewed the fat, talking about nothing in particular and everything around the suns. I wasn’t too surprised when, from time to time, he would suggest to one or the other crewmen who were working around the compartment that they go do some specific short task. He was a G5 after all, and they were only G2s.

It turned out the guy, ‘just call me Merch, ‘ admitted that right now, he was in charge of small stores and just happened to stop in to check-up on things on his way to do something else that need checking on. So I figured Merch was maybe the acting watch supervisor in here. The funny thing was, I told myself, was that Merch didn’t look like the Supply Department kind of guy; if there is a type of supply joe.

Merch had a ruddy complexion that reminded me of my paternal grandfather, who was as big of an outdoorsman as my Dad and my brother and I was. Merch also didn’t have that G5 40ish beginning of the thickening around his middle; no, not at all. He looked really sort of fit in an I-don’t-want-to-piss-this-guy-off-in-a-bar kind of way, and he was my height or a few centimeters taller.

Merch told he’d just been promoted to his new post. It turned out a general court-martial conducted onboard Ship had convicted his previous boss of crimes that Merch was not specific about. I figured this G5 that Merch was promoted to replace must have done some high crimes and misdemeanors to a hurry-up court-martial. I’d never heard of the court-martial occurring during an on-going mission on any ExServ ship. I did know of a few instances where the Captain of an ExServ ship had locked some officer in the ship’s brig until the mission was over. In that way, once the ship returned to port, it was easier to form a court of impartial officers and peers from outside the ship to try the culprit.

I’d have to look it up later, I decided. I did know of instances when my geekness had either read accounts of, or seen old Earth movies depicting, some event concerning a court martial onboard one of the ocean-going ships belonging to one or another of the old Navies.

As we continued talking, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I wheedled more information out of Merch. I learned the old boss, a guy named Trellaway, had gotten pinched for what amounted to dereliction of duty, bribery, grand theft, and criminal falsification of official records. Then Merch suddenly didn’t seem like he wanted me to know any more about it. I think it dawned on him that he was running his mouth off to a G3 not even in his department about internal departmental affairs. He did tell me that within a day or two all of what he was telling me would start to be known around the Ship, but that he better not find out I’d started any of the rumors.

I swore to him he’d not regret tell me anything, and then he asked me some more questions about what exactly I did in my department. I attempted to downplay my skills; I didn’t want Merch to think I was bragging. After a few questions to clarify his understanding of my normal tasks, Merch asked me to follow him back into his new little cubbyhole of an office to see if I could help him with something he didn’t understand about the small stores database.

I told myself that here’s one of those operator error, smack-yourself-in-the-forehead, how could I be so stupid problems that always really made me feel like an IT Help Desk flunky. However, I figured, I’m helping out a fellow crewman and a new pal—so, what the heck.

We get back in this little compartment of an office and Merch plops down at one of the two workstations and logs on, inputs his ID password, and up pops the database menu against the light-blue background of the holographic display over his desk. Then he stands up and offers me the chair, asking me to see if I could tighten them up for him so he could make more sense out of the files. He actually tells me he was afraid of the kind of mess his predecessor might have left behind.

My innate, early-warning trouble detector started going off right there. Because a G5 just doesn’t take it on himself to ask anybody to dick around in any departmental software applications without authorization from at least his immediate commanding officer. There are forms that have to be filled out and properly submitted, if only electronically—this is the Service after all. When I walked into the compartment, I’d figured I’d just be standing over his shoulder pointing out some obvious goof he was making using the software, not this tightening up stuff.

So I asked Merch, just what he meant by tightening up his files. He told me that earlier when he’d done a basic files tune-up with the Supply system’s normal utility-suite, he’d notice that the size reported to be allocated to the Supply Inventory Database was significantly larger than the total size of the data-clusters he was able to access. I told him that was because there were most likely secure sections of the database he didn’t have clearance to see or manipulate.

Then Merch sort of shocked me when he smiled at me and said, “son, that is not the case.” And as we both leaned over toward the desk and the holographic display, he showed me under the About User command, and then under the Restrictions pull-down menu, that the ID string that activated the database had no data level restrictions. After I got over my momentary shock that his ID as a rating had no data level restrictions, well then, that definitely started to seem fishy to me. However, I didn’t know what the particular sensitive data protocol as it pertained to the enlisted members of the Supply Department was either.

So we got back to discussing his problem. We both agreed that the difference between the reported total size of the database allocation and the sum of the data-clusters Merch was able to access could be the result of just poor file maintenance over a series of missions by the sloppy ex-boss underling who Merch had recently replaced. The electronic data files would fragment a bit each time an item was removed from the inventory or had data about it manipulated in one way or another...

Fragmentation occurred when all the data in a complete data file was not stored in a continuous strip, or contiguous strips of memory addresses in the Supply Core. Then the data file was stored in fragments at different memory addresses throughout the memory Core. Millions of data files might be stored on a department’s main memory Core. The fragmentation of data files could even result in blocks of data that were no longer valid but were just hanging around taking up memory addresses while waiting to be overwritten by new data. That would cause the file allocation table that recorded and kept track of the memory addresses of every file stored on the department Core to get larger and larger.

Regular maintenance of the file allocation table was required. A utility would check the valid data addresses versus invalid addresses. The utility would then erase the invalid data address and gather as much of each valid data file together in continuous or contiguous data addresses as space in the memory Cord allowed. That made the file allocation table smaller and quicker to access for information.

Some departments had their file allocation table maintenance utility set to run automatically when there was downtime on that particular system. Some departments couldn’t predict when there would be sufficient downtime so they turned the utility off and then it became someone’s responsibility to see the utility was activated on a regular basis while alerting all the department comp users that the particular database or system was going to be offline while the maintenance occurred.

It seemed in the Supply Department that one of Trellaway’s responsibilities was being that guy.

We both agreed that if this Trellaway hadn’t done any file maintenance on the Supply inventory database while he had been in charge, then the extra reported file spaces Merch was wondering about could be invalid data that the file allocation table maintenance utility hadn’t dealt with and purged.

That was when Merch told me he thought some hotshot like me might be able to save him a whole lot of time and trouble and get to the bottom of it without a whole lot of fuss.

“Yeah, right,” I told Merch. “But that trouble would be due to a crooked, sloppy, ex-boss, who had obviously not been following standard operating procedures in the maintenance of the department’s data storage allocations on the Ship,” I reminded him. I told him that to try and fix the problem would require a definite chain of official authorizations we didn’t have. In addition to that, I was off duty.

Once again, the G5 leaned one hand on the desk, Merch directed me to look under the About User tab, and I saw, under the Authorization Level pull-down, that the ID string that activated the database had full authorization to manipulate all levels of the database.

Now my bullshit collision warning was blaring. I looked my new friend Merch in the eyes and asked him what was going on. He looked back at me and grinned, as he slowly rubbed his thumb down the right side of his nose and just as slowly moved his hand away from his face to point his index finger at the authorization information on the hi-def holographic projection just above the workstation.

“My ID string cannot tell a lie, son,” Merch said with a calm voice. “So, tell me, do you think you can solve this dilemma? It would save me a whole bunch of time and trouble and general bullshit. And, I am the one logged-on to that workstation right now ... if you know what I mean?”

Hey, I am a geek code monkey. I can see a challenge to my problem-solving skills tossed down as good as the next nerd. I had to admit, it was Merch’s ID string that did come up with no restrictions, complete authorization, and was the ID logged on to the system right now. His ID and password would allow me to tackle this new data mystery and see if I could solve the problem without going through all official channels that would just slow down the whole works.

This situation was sort of like seeing three cherries, bing-bong-boom, come up on a stars slot machine at one of those seedy casinos on liberty that are there for the expressed purpose of taking away lots of Service members’ pay. However, this was pay-off time for me, part of me thought, not the you lose situation the small voice of my paranoid ass-wipe was warning me I might be facing. Because with Merch’s ID and password to shield me, I could win all the glory with none of the risks of committing a non-regulation hack—technically speaking.

I asked myself, who would know? Besides, I could figure this conundrum out. It was what I did, after all. Merch would be impressed and he would owe me.

With that logic in my mind, I sat down in the offered chair, putting my bag of snacks and shampoo on the left side of the keyboard as I took a deep breath. I asked Merch if I could introduce one of my geeked-up programs to his subsystem to try to get to the bottom of his problem. He nodded his head, but wanted to know what the utility did and why I didn’t use an off-the-shelf utility already on the system.

I explained what I proposed to do and why my utility was the exact tool needed and that there were no substitutions available. With his agreement, I opened up my POC, hooked it up with a handy data cable to Merch’s workstation and downloaded my hot utility. I’d designed this gem for simultaneously analyzing file structures, checking software implementation and update histories, mapping user-traffic trends, and capturing logged ID authorization strings so I could always discover who had been doing what, when, and how with any piece of software. In this case, it was the Ship’s Supply Department Inventory Database. In addition, my utility didn’t have to take the database offline to work.

Merch told me he liked the way I was thinking; and to please continue my investigation at his direction and authorization.

Well, that sounded sort of official to me now, and almost officer-like—so, I guessed I wasn’t doing him just a favor anymore.

I gave Merch a running account of what I was doing as I worked, and while we waited for the different queries to return results, we talked about a wide range of things to sort distract us, at least me, from the elephant in the room. For a while.

During that conversation at one point, Merch admitted to being the new Head of Ship’s Stores, which was still vague, rank wise. That would mean he now was getting farther up the chain of command in the Supply Department. I was beginning to think that, with his present uniform aside, Merch definitely had to be commissioned even if he was technically out of uniform because he couldn’t be just a G5 and have that responsibility ... maybe a G5 Commissioned, but not a G5. Something was up, but I was committed to my hack.

His having some kind of a commission would explain the magic returns from his ID string—and that, I hoped, would cover my ass if this got back to the Head of my Department. However, if Merch did have some kind of commission, the question I should be asking was why he was out of uniform. On the other hand, why didn’t he seem the least bit worried that he was out of uniform, if that were the case? I told myself that maybe he hadn’t had time to upgrade his ratings flashes on all of his uniforms yet and didn’t even realize this particular uniform he was wearing did not meet regulations.

It could happen, I told myself.

Sure—yes, my paranoid ass-wipe agreed with me that the uniform discrepancy could be just a momentary oversight. That was just as likely to happen as I could swim all the way home through the Big Black.


So, by trying to help out a nice guy who happened to be not only a higher Grade crewman, but also a newly appointed something, was how I discovered all the data-blocked stuff that came up listed as either: redundant supply items; original miss-labeled stock; discontinued inventory items; or, exceeded shelf-life items.

All of these categories Merch told me, he considered as non-standard inventory items on a DSE. Except the exceeded shelf-life category, which although it seemed to be self-explanatory, Merch said was not an actual in-use Service designation on any DSE. And, he said, that included the older class DSEs as well as here on the Glenndeavor, which was the first of its class.

He told me, other than fresh food, some medical compounds, and special research mediums, all the supplies the DSE Glenndeavor carried in Ship’s Stores by the Supply Department he knew had to be guaranteed by their vendors as having a shelf life that exceeded the 36-month minimum spelled-out in every purchasing contract. He said mean shelf-life for most dated inventory items found in the Supply Department was more likely to be 60 to 72 months, if there even was a shelf-life limit.

Then he sort of changed the subject and wanted to know if I could determine what exactly had happened to cause the discrepancy between the over all size of the entire inventory database and the smaller part he was able to access.

After about twenty minutes of data diving and me rechecking some of the information my search was supplying, I informed Merch my geeked-up utility told me that we were not looking at the results of poor or non-existent file maintenance. What we were seeing was the results of a data blockage of some type. My utility reported there were valid data files populating the size inconsistency Merch had encountered.

According to my hot-rod utility, I told Merch, it was a data blockage which could have been caused by a simple upgrade glitch. It seemed that glitch could produce incomplete date retrieval when anyone looked-up information about inventory. It looked to me from my partial findings, that anyone with a proper password could still retrieve and modify data about any inventory items normally stocked by the Supply Department that was listed in the database.

But information retrieval for any items in what Merch called the non-standard inventory categories wasn’t available because those data returns were being passively hidden by the glitch. The glitch in the programming sent the information requested on those items to a data register address different from the register address the database Graphic User Interface was programmed to check for search results. Finding nothing in the expected data register the GUI reported there were no items found matching the search request.

Merch shook his head and told me the routine stock and trade of small stores was standard inventory, so that might be a poor excuse as to why nobody in the department had noticed this glitch before. He said it would take a true inventory geek to think about ever searching for non-standard items that might be available in the system. He told me he had quickly discovered on coming aboard at the beginning of this Mission that the enlisted crew assigned to small stores duty seemed more than happy to meet the routine day-to-day demands of their duty and not be inquisitive about discovering the extent of exotic inventory items that might actually be hidden away in the department’s database.

Merch said it had been his experience that the attitude of the Head of a Department set the tenor of the entire department. He told me in most cases it was the nature of any hierarchical organization that officers and enlisted members of a department adjusted their performances to satisfy the expectations of their superior officer. In this case, the previous sloppy Department Head had fostered a sloppy department.

His us of the terms ‘previous sloppy Department Head, ‘ set off alarm bells down in my brainstem.

Merch told me he’d been shocked at the lax nature of the Supply Department once he got a feel for his new posting. Most of the department did what was expected of them by their immediate supervising officer and didn’t question those above them if something wasn’t done quite the way they’d been taught in advance specialty school.

When I gave him a questioning look, he told me there weren’t any adventurous, nosey was his exact word, geeks like me in the Small Stores Division of the Supply Department that he’d was aware of who would test the limits of the Department’s database system for the fun of it if they didn’t have anything better to do, on say, first watch. And his bushy right eyebrow went up as he looked at me.

I got a creepy feeling I resembled that remark. However, I didn’t say anything in rebuttal. My geek self-preservation instincts all came on-line at once, while my paranoid ass-wipe repeated several choruses of, ‘I told you so.’ And that motivated me to point out to Merch that he knew about non-standard items. Merch just told me to ‘bite my tongue.’

Then Merch wanted to know why I said the data-block could have resulted from an upgrade glitch. So, I told Merch that according to what I was seeing, early-on in the Ship’s short commissioned life there had been an upgrade to the Inventory Database program that I felt sure was the cause of his problem. The upgrade resulted in the creation of a new data register where information on non-standard inventory enquiries would be stored, and that data register location did not have a pointer to its address from the graphical user interface, and blah blah woof woof, as I’d speculated before.

But, I told Merch as I continued reading through my updated information returns from my utility, according to the ID authorization string history my utility reported, that upgrade had been implemented by—uh oh—the old boss, Lieutenant Commander Trellaway, and not the Data-Systems Department—my home turf—who should have installed the up-grade under normal, standard operating procedures.

Shit, I thought, as my nervous system went into full alert, did Merch replace a Lieutenant Commander? The Head of the entire Supply Department!

I shook off my rush of righteous fright and then continued. I told Merch that because non-standard inventory enquiries were not part of the standard operating procedure for most users of the database system, it was more than likely that nobody other than Trellaway would have experienced the glitch. And he obviously had his own reasons for not bringing the problem to the attention of the proper authorities in the Ship. And the proper authorities as defined by ExServ SOP in this case would have been not only Trellaway as Head of the Supply Department, but also the Head of my department.

Then the gravity of the situation hit me. I admitted to myself now that my new buddy Merch had to be some flavor of officer, because you didn’t replace a fucking Lieutenant Commander, which was Trellaway’s rank before his trial, with a lowly G5C, no matter how dynamic that Grade Five Commissioned’s personality might be.

I told Merch I’d seen instances before when—and knew of regulations that demanded that—a Department Head, for security reasons, had loaded an upgrade themselves. But they had always gone through channels and received clearance to DIY the upgrade. And in each instance the Department Head installing the DIY had sent along copies of the notification paperwork to my department before hand. I told Merch my ID string was only good for data through Restricted and up to and including Confidential Status.

I told Merch, I’d have to dig into my Department’s files to see if the upgrade we were talking about in this case was a DIY of an official Service-wide upgrade, or a DIY authorized fix to a problem discovered and reported through the Ship’s chain of command.

After all, I told Merch, any initiative on the part of a programmer which resulted in a value-added tweak that made a program more agile in responding to the intended purpose of a program was not only allowed by the Service, it was encouraged. Superior tweaks or completely new programs or utilities, when once evaluated and adopted by ExServ’s Research and Development department, were issued to all ExServ vessels which could use the tweaked program or that might benefit from the new program or utility.

The author of the innovation then received a monthly cash bonus for the life of the accepted fix or unique program, even if the author left ExServ. A formula published in ExServ regulations determined the amount of the bonus to be received for the licensing of such intellectual property produced by a geek while in the Service. However, there was a cap of 25,000 Federation Credits on the monthly bonus awarded for any one innovation. And that was a fucking lot of credits. Being the geek I was, I knew of programming authors in the Service who had as many as three officially adopted tweaks or programs and were receiving huge monthly bonuses for their initiatives.

I told Merch that that was my goal with the different tricked-out utilities I’d developed or was working on. The utility right now delivering all dirt on Trellaway’s data block was a perfect example of the tinkering I was capable of producing, I let him know. But so far, I hadn’t had any of the five or six toys my Department Head had submitted in my name accepted by ExServ R&D.

I told Merch that digging for a history of the upgrade in my Department’s files would have to wait, as certain command chain protocols had to be followed and approved before that kind of data mining could proceed.

I said I’d have to call the Officer of the Watch in my Department to get authorization for that kind of search, since I was not only off duty, but dicking around in another Department’s system without proper authorization.

Merch didn’t think I needed to go that far right now. I heartily agreed with him, but didn’t express my feelings out loud.

Merch told me to keep digging with what I was able to do, off duty, while he took care of a few things, and I was to report what all I discovered when he returned. Then he left his office.

So I bucked up all my fears and reservations and started digging even deeper into the data tree. Not only because I am just a good code monkey, but because I could.

The next thing I found was a partial data-block on the returned stock category too. My utility told me the data concerning any returned items, starting from the beginning of this Mission was being blocked. I did find data concerning previous missions’ returned items was accessible.

The shocker was when I looked over the user-traffic trend information and realized there had to be a backdoor to the data-block on the non-standard items and the dead-end data register, because the ID string that was assigned to this Trellaway character had somehow successfully queried the database for reports on non-standard inventory items four times during the Ship’s previous mission and twice this Mission!

I did a quick fix to the Supply Department database software by pointing the GUI to the data register where any query results for non-standard inventory data actually showed up. As a test, I requested a report of all non-standard categories of inventory items that I knew about in the inventory database. A 3D window in the holo-display opened up and started to scroll down with a cascade of non-standard inventory data. Then I executed a command to print a hard-copy listing of all the non-standard items my test query was returning.

As the pages of the report came out of the printer on a shelf against the bulkhead to my left, I scanned over the information up in lights in front of me. I was shocked at some of the items even I was able recognize. I reached over and grabbed the first stack of printouts in the printer tray. Scanning over the data as the printer spit out more pages, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The paranoid ass-wipe inside me started to whine. I asked myself—how did this stuff get smuggled onto the Glenndeavor? Where did they put it so nobody onboard noticed? The numbers of some of the items listed on the pages in my hands were staggering.

I brought up a 3D layout of the Ship in another work window in the holographic display and with several mouse clicks, I asked the inventory database to show me where different items I recognized were stored. I learned that, other than the obvious bigger type storage compartments onboard, there were all out-of-the-way little stowage spaces and compartments located all around the Ship. I was astounded at the growing list of smuggled items there seemed to be onboard as more pages of the records kept coming out of the printer.

The only thing I could figure was the good ship DSE Glenndeavor was a hell of a lot bigger in reality than I had ever realized. I mean, I thought I understood her size from the previous research I had done before being selected to join the Ship. And that understanding was upgraded during my introductory familiarization classes onboard before the Ship departed Challenger Station on our first mission. I just shook my head and continued looking through the growing pile of printouts.

Besides some of the lethal individual items I recognized, I was shocked at all the items listed on the printouts that I had no clue about from the Service-speak abbreviations, model numbers, and any other identifying codes accompanying each line item. As I read deeper into the printouts, the paranoid ass-wipe in me was jabbering about secret, dark-forces plots because of some of the recognizable items stored around the Ship, which Trellaway had access to before he was court-martialed. Besides weapons and ammunition I identified from the listings, I spotted two listings of what I thought were supposed to be highly controlled explosives ordnance.

I had to stop reading and calm down. If I didn’t relax, the paranoid ass-wipe inside my mind would have me peeing myself. It seemed to me, now that Merch must have a pay scale that included command decisions as part of his job description, it was my duty to dump this entire load of scary crap into his lap. But, I would have to ease him into the true scope of the craziness I’d just uncovered.

The printer was done kicking out sheets of non-standard inventory data by the time Merch came back to the office to see how my geek-work was coming. I told him first about the quasi data-block on returned stock items, to sort of break the news to him gently.

Merch told me according to the Supply Department’s standard operating procedure, returned stock was supposed to be re-entered into the system under one of several categories. One category was returned-items determined to be defective. The Supply Department put those items aside so the Service could receive a credit from the vendor for the defective item once the Ship returned from the Mission.

Crewmembers, he told me, returned some items because the items were not what the crewmember really wanted. The Standard Operating Procedures called for re-listing those items in the inventory database as seconds. Those item were then re-issued as needed, or resold at a reduced price. My utility showed me returned items on our present Mission were being logged-in as returned; but I didn’t see that any had been re-classified as seconds or defective.

Merch wondered aloud where Trellaway put the returned stuff from this Mission. It sounded to me that Merch knew where the returned stuff from other missions had ended up.

Next, I told Merch that the data-block problem most definitely was not due to any accidental upgrade glitch. I told him it was intentional. I pointed him to the holographic documentation showing the ex-boss getting reports on the blocked data items, and the dates he’d gotten them. Then I informed Merch I could isolate the backdoor to the block given time, and given the official authorization to do so.

I handed him the stack of hardcopy I’d printed, telling Merch I’d temporarily fixed the Inventory program. However, I informed him, once his ID string logged-off from this session, my temporary programming work-around would be lost. When Merch looked at the 24 pages of printouts that my non-standard items search turned up, his face turned red and he started a string of expletives and descriptive sentences that impressed me almost as much as some of the seriously dangerous items I’d seen in those 24 pages.

I could come up with no benign logical explanation as to how some of those items could end up onboard anything less than a Fleet warship or a Marine Corps attack support ship. Now, my paranoid ass-wipe was ready to run screaming down the passageways.

I did not like the official turn this off-duty favor was taking or the nauseating threat these items implied. I was truly starting to hope whatever I could find out about this system bug-up would be important enough to mitigate my breaking regulations. I certainly hoped that my discovery would sound an alarm to the command structure of the Ship. As red as his face was turning as Merch cussed, I still had a hope I might skate unscathed. Other than this moment of turning red, Merch struck me as a smooth operator. I figured he’d had a lot of experience covering his butt in the Service. If nothing else, maybe I could pick up some tips from hanging around and watching him.

When Merch finally quit talking to himself, he took a deep breath, still scanning the page of the printouts—he was about to page 12 I figured. Then he told me in a soft voice, “You looked over some of this, didn’t you.”

“Yes I did Merch ... I mean, Sir? I scanned through all of it.” I said, remembering he was at least an Acting Supervisor after all. His present true rating or rank was still officially unknown to me other than his uniform being that of a G5. I made a conscious decision, one friend to another, to let his authority be a fuzzy item between us so I didn’t lose my ability to stay cool, relaxed, and focused on this hack.

“Ah, well ... that can’t be helped,” Merch said. “Can’t be helped.”

He took another ten minutes to finish glancing through the listings while I sat there trying to stay cohesive and looking friendly and obedient. I was waiting for another of my knocked-together utilities to search out the backdoor to the data-block on this operational software, in spite of my not having official authorization to do so. I figured I would take that risk because I recognized the very nasty nature of some of the items on those pages. These 24 pages of itemized nightmares proved, at least to me, that this Trellaway had be up to serious no-good and the command structure of the Ship need to know about every detail of what Merch and I just discovered.

Also, I knew that some programmers and serious code monkeys often left behind what amounts to programming signatures in their work. It might be a weird but inventive subroutine here, or an obtuse or arcane—but effective—logic flow there. Those signatures can all add-up to sometimes give an on-the-ball investigator a key to who was responsible for some virus, or a net hack, or even a specialized malicious worm or Trojan Horse program.

I knew that once the Ship got back to civilized space and access to healthy wide-bandwidth net service; visits to the correct geek sites, chat rooms, and bulletin boards that posted information on known data-pirates could help a good investigator sometimes pin-the-tail on the bad guy, if that guy had a history of electronically buggering other people’s systems.

Once I discovered the backdoor in this data-block, I might have enough of the programmer’s fingerprint to help the Service identify another actor or actors in whatever the hell was going on. I was sure this Trellaway guy didn’t have the skills to originate what at first look seemed to be the passive nature of the hack I’d discovered that caused the data-block. However, I knew the problem I’d found in the Supply Department Inventory database was not some accidental, passive, software glitch—it was a malware hack with evil intent. I knew that by the nature of some of the items I recognized on those 24 pages.

So, those were some of my motivations to keep hacking at the problem Merch had dumped into my code-monkey lap.

My other motivation was—I loved this stuff.

“I’m sure,” Merch said in a calm voice, looking up from the hardcopies he had thoroughly studied for so long, “I can count on your discretion in this matter. Am I right G3, ah, Stillwell?”

Okay, I told myself, his use of the word discretion was officer-speak, as sure as I was a code monkey. Therefore, it was time for this code monkey to proceed accordingly.

“Ah, that is G3 Sitwell, Sir. And yes, Sir. You can rely on my discretion, Sir. I’ve ... well, handled a few sensitive data issues while onboard. Nothing of this scope, that’s for sure ... However, no unauthorized crewmember ever became aware those other situations or of my role in mitigating any of them, Sir. None of those situations came to the attention of anyone who didn’t have need-to-know clearance, ah, Sir.”

Merch looked over at me sitting in his chair at his workstation and gave me half of a warm smile. Then he looked back down at the stack of printouts and started going though them again, starting at the first page.

“Just look at some of this stuff. How in the hell could some of it ever end up on this Ship?” Merch asked the room. Then he chuckled and smacked the shelf beside him with the thick sheaf of printouts, and he stood up straighter.

“I’m thinking the officers of the recent general court martial might decide to start a new investigation, once they’re aware of some of this stuff stashed way on the Ship. That smug assho—excuse me, I mean—the recently demoted Mister Trellaway might find out he’s online for serious retribution before this Ship returns to port,” Merch said, his voice taking on a cold edge as his eyes seemed to light up.

Then the still undesignated Merch seemed to realize I was hearing all of his speculations too, and shut up about Trellaway. He still projected a confident, competent air that I knew I’d gladly follow if I ever worked for him ... well again.

“Mister Sitwell, I am sure by now you realize you are going to have to testify about the crimes you have diligently brought to light with the investigation you so admirably, and quickly just performed at my, ahhh, discretion and direction?”

Shit, I told myself, that was sooo officer-speak. However, his use of the terms discretion and direction certainly sounded like the get-off-of-report-free card I’d been hoping to find.

“Ah, Sir, yes Sir,” I said, realizing I was going to have some official exposure over this while finding I was somehow sitting at attention.

“You done good, my boy. You done good.”


And so ten minutes later, I found myself and my bag of snacks and shampoo from small stores escorting the, I guess, Acting Head of something Merch on his way to inform the Ship’s Captain of the skullduggery that he, along with my able assistance, had just uncovered.

This was not good, I told myself. Going directly to the Captain was unheard of. The Executive Officer of the Ship was the gatekeeper to the Captain as far as any officer or crewmember assigned to the Ship was concerned.

There was a proper chain of command to follow. But here was Merch who with one well -placed and immediately answered call on his POC, in which I overheard him saying “Captain, I have uncovered some more information concerning Mister Trellaway’s activities that you must hear about immediately,” now had us both heading to meet with the Captain. I realized that Merch on a much grander, sweeping scale than I’d ever dared to imagine, operated at times like me. No wonder we’d developed a sort of affinity for each other during just a small gab session over the counter in small stores.

“Ah, Sir ... Permission to speak, Sir?” I asked Supervisor Merch as we strode along the passageway toward the lift he wanted to use to take us to Officers’ Country. Merch didn’t answer me. He seemed lost in thought. We walked on, toward whatever lift my new buddy intended to use.

My brain was spinning. Officers’ Country was located on Four Deck and some of Three Deck. Actually we were headed beyond Officers’ Country, we were headed for One Deck.

Two Deck was reserved for the Main Data Cores and a lot of other essential Ship’s systems and equipment. One Deck, which no body referred to as such, was the Bridge and the Bridge Block. One Deck was nestled at the very center of the Ship’s spherical Main Hull. The Main Hull contained everything but the Warp Engines and the Reaction Drives used to move the Ship at anything below warp or fold velocities. Both drive systems attached at the other end of the three-hundred-meter long, re-enforced and enclosed Drive Boom that stuck out aft of the Ship’s main hull. Actually there were some In-System maneuvering thrusters located at different points around the Ship’s spherical hull section. Those could be accessed from the Catacombs level below Seven Deck, although the Catacombs actually was the outside layer of all the Ship’s decks located in the spherical hull section.

The Main Hull held the crew’s living accommodations, the majority of the work areas of the Ship, and most of the Ship’s systems. The Drive Boom was the intermediary structure separating the Main Hull from the Drive Section of the Ship. The Boom contained two cargo-type, lift tubes running the length of the structure as well as two personnel lift tubes and two emergency passageways. There were also five Jefferies access tubes with all the necessary piping, conduits, data cable runs, the electrical and plasma feeds for the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Ship’s systems connecting the Main Hull with the Drive Section.

As I had discovered using the information I found in the printouts Merch was holding in his hand when I brought up the schematic of the Glenndeavor back in his tiny office, the Drive Boom housed an assortment of stowage compartments located along the length of the thing that I doubted very few of the officers or the crew knew existed; if they thought about such things at all.

“Permission to speak, Sir?” I asked Supervisor Merch again. He still seemed to be lost in his own thoughts as he walked beside me.

When I spoke up this time, Merch looked over at me for a moment as if he’d forgotten I was there.

“Mister Sitwell, please feel free to resume, until we reach Officers’ Country and beyond, the off-duty nature of our relationship we were happily discovering before the latest excrement impinged the proverbial propeller. Okay?”

We both knew casual friendships between officers and crewmembers were actively discouraged. On top of that, the paranoid ass-wipe in me was yammering at me. My PAW inside my brainstem pointed out that Merch was wearing the dark-grey duty coveralls of a G5 that might be considered necessary as his work apparel in small stores, but was not Uniform of the Day material now that we both were headed to the Bridge. No, his outfit was not UoD, especially because he was an Acting Something, as the magic of his ID string surely backed-up. All of this was just not good at all my PAW reminded me again.

“Fine with me, ah, Merch...” I finally managed to answer, wishing I could at least chuckle at his ever-increasing line of official shit. “It’s just that since we are going to see the Captain, I know I would feel a whole lot more comfortable if I were in my duty uniform, at least ... And, I’d like to drop-off this stuff.”

I held up the bag containing my small stores purchases and shook it for emphasis as we walked along the passageway.

“Guess we could stop by your quarters, kid,” Merch told me with a grin, “to get you into more officious duds. The Captain said I should get this information to her sometime in the next hour. She does have other things do, as she likes to remind me from time to time. So—where to?”

“Seven Deck...” I told him, shocked that this Merch talked so casually about the Captain. I knew I needed to present the proper respect to her and her office on the Ship. I would do as best as I could, even if I had only an uneasy idea of what I’d gotten myself into here. Wearing the Uniform of the Day when I marched into her presence was the way to show that respect. At least Merch was agreeable, saying we had the time to stop by my quarters.

Shit! My quarters! That was where Juliet and Anika were, doing whatever they were doing since I left to get myself into this whole mess!

“Ahhh, my quarters,” I spoke up to Merch, “that’s just it, ah ... Merch. See, the reason I was in Ship’s small stores was—well, I was sort kicked-out of my single occupancy compartment by my, well—my girlfriend,” I told him as quickly as I could. I saw his eyebrows go up at my mention of a single occupancy compartment.

With a nod of his head and a look from his brown eyes, he also let me know I should elaborate.

“You see, she was performing ahh, I guess you could call it an intervention for me with another, ah, crewmember. Someone who presented me with a very personal problem of her own, that I had no clue on how to handle. And I don’t know if my girlfriend has accomplished her mission, so to speak...”

We were approaching two Marine NCOs wearing the Marine’s basic desert-camo uniforms. Their outfits were in shades of grey, dusty-browns and light-olive greens and called Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniforms. The geek factoid engine in my head recognized their uniforms were MCCUU model 2000, or something.

The top of the uniform was a long-sleeved, camo over-blouse—really part-shirt and part-jacket. It buttoned from just above the breastbone, so you could see the olive-green tee shirt underneath it. The buttons continued to the belt of their matching cargo trousers. The over-blouse then split and continued down about a hand-length below their trouser belt all around their bodies. Deep cargo pockets festooned each of the combat blouses and trowsers. While I knew that high-topped Velcro or laced combat boots finished off the uniform, I didn’t look below their faces. Their heads were without cap or helmet.

One of the Marines was a very tall, obviously muscularly framed, blonde woman with buzzed-cut hair. Her companion was a surprisingly short, bald man. They both nodded at Merch, seemingly in recognition, I guessed, before they walked by us. I was suddenly uneasy because I’d recognized the Amazon woman. I’d gotten just a hint of her unarmed fighting skills one time when I’d gone to the Ship’s Gym. I’d been looking around that compartment for somebody as a sparring partner when I saw what she was capable of on the mats. I left the Gym before she and the big Marine she was taking apart on the mats had the chance to notice me, I hoped.

“So, your girlfriend did that? Ahh, to be young, dumb, and full of cum once again,” Merch said and chuckled in response to what I’d told him about my household situation. “You could maybe contact said girlfriend with your POC? Ascertain the status of said, ah, mission?”

“Yessir, I can do that, Merch,” I said as I pulled my POC off my belt with my free right hand.

“Mindenhall,” I stated into the opened clamshell of the POC. Then I listened to the ring start to cycle. I didn’t want Merch to think I was pussy-whipped to the point I used my girlfriend’s first name to voice-active a call, even thought I did have my POC set up to do that. I might be a code monkey, but I didn’t want to look like a needy nerd to a superior rating or rank. Especially a superior rating or rank that I realized I sort of admired in spite of this whole, going-to-report-to-the-Captain thing he had gotten me into just by doing him a favor.

On my saying the name, Mindenhall, I noticed in my peripheral vision that Merch turned his head and looked at me. His eyes got big and then he snorted and slowly shook his head. I tried to ignore him and not trip as we continued walking down the passageway.

“Well, I’ll be damned, my boy,” Merch softly said with a small grin and what might even be a bit of amazement.

Owww, what does my very favorite code monkey want with little old me—this time?” Juliet’s voice rang out of the POC speaker held to the right side of my face and loud enough that I was startled. Merch must have heard what she’d just said, part of me realized.

“Ah, Juliet,” I asked, un-nerved to the point I didn’t even think to try and fumble with reducing the volume of the speaker output. “how is your talk with ahh, crewmember Blaugelt going?”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Merch’s mouth as it opened—or, maybe he yawned.

“It went very well,” Juliet’s voice told me. “Right now she is back asleep. And since I didn’t have anything else to do—well, I’ve been snooping—for about the past twenty minutes. I’ve been going though two very interesting bags I found in the bottom of two of your closets.

“I could I tell you I found them while I was looking for a robe Anika might wear once she wakes up again.”

“Really?” I asked, not knowing what else to say, and fearing Merch was following the conversation.

“But if I did that, it would be a lie,” Juliet admitted with a chuckle. Then her voice took on a younger, teasing tone and she asked, “So ... are you going to spank me for being a naughty nosey-puss?”

I heard a strangled noise beside me as Merch and I paced down the passageway. I could feel my ears heating up with my blush.

God, I wondered, what must Merch be thinking about me right now? Then it hit me. Damn it, Juliet found my SHTF bags!

I looked at Merch who was slowing down, and I realized we were approaching a lift station along the passageway.

“Lift, to Seven Deck, Section fifteen,” I said to him, shielding my POC as best I could with my hand holding my bag of snacks and shampoo, my right index fumbling for the virtual volume slider on the left of the small control screen. Merch and I both turned to the platform and walked into it after the hatchway door opened for us.

Merch punched the Seven Deck button then the Section 15 button and hit Initiate and the hatch closed. There was no noticeable movement of the lift car, except for the incremental lighting-up of the deck and section indicators as we went on our way.

“Ah, Juliet,” I said into my POC. “Honey, I’m on my way back to the compartment. I’ll be there in about eight minutes or so. Something came up, and I need to get into my duty-uniform. Are you and Anika going to still be there?”

“Well, of course,” Juliet said, her voice still loud. I must have missed the control surface with my fingertip. “That sweet little girl was so exhausted she fell asleep while we were getting to know each other. It would be plain cruel to wake her up just to make her go back to her quarters right now ... Besides, I think she’ll rest better in your bunk. Your pillows are so—well, I’ve noticed both of them have your wonderful scent on them and all.”

I think I actually rolled my eyes, and then remembered Acting Supervisor or Acting Something Merch was able to hear everything Juliet was saying to me, because for some unknown reason, I’d left the speaker volume on 11, which was actually a speakerphone setting I had hacked onto my POC. It was an inside joke from a great old film I had in my collection.

“I’ll see you in a bit, then,” Juliet told me when I didn’t say anything more. “My Sweet Geek, once again you amaze me with your tender-hearted concern for another fellow being.”

I heard the no-signal tone after Juliet closed her POC, terminating the call, and I pulled the POC away from my face and just stared at the screen for a few seconds. Then I careful fingered down the volume to 5 before I closed my POC.

The hatch of the lift opened and we walked out onto the Seven Deck passageway. I wondered if Merch had been watching me out of the corner of his eye the whole time I’d been on my POC, and what he must be thinking about me now from whatever he had overheard of that conversation. I could only look at him as I gestured to our left. The lift had deposited us around the corner from my section of passageway this time.

“Damn, son,” Merch told me, raising his eyebrows at me as we started down the passageway. “You and I are going to have to have a sit down with some good, single malt scotch and have us a talk...”

“If you say so, ah, Merch, well ... Sir,” I replied. “My quarters will up on the left after this upcoming intersection and just passed the next collision bulkhead. And, Sir, when we go in ... well, there most likely will be a crewperson sleeping in my bunk. And as it seems to me you have an extremely good eye for details, you’ll soon notice that crewperson’s clothes will most likely be on my footlocker, or desk chair, or on the work surface of my bulkhead desk. Well, I want you to know that I did not take advantage of the crewperson at any time. I will admit it, I was sorely tempted ... but my girlfriend would kill me if ... I, well...”

“Not to worry, son,” Merch said as we passed through the open collision bulkhead. “I want you to know, G3 Sitwell, you’ve impressed me more than a little—

“—with just about every step we’ve taken,” Merch said with a hearty belly laugh, “I have to say.

“And, I mean that literally,” he said as his laugh resolved into a big friendly smile and he actually patted me on my back, sort of like my grandfather used to do before I enlisted.

Merch and I reached my place. The hatchway door to my quarters opened as the threshold sent out an electronic ping that returned data from the ID sticks on thin chains around both of our necks. With that information, the threshold recognized my ID string as being on the Authorized to Enter log for the compartment. As we stepped inside, I sensed Merch was actually speechless for a moment.

Back in my wide bunk for all to see was a small lump that I knew to be Anika Blaugelt snuggled-up under the covers and resting on her side near the right edge of the mattress. Only her curly, copper-hair was showing on one of my pillows. As I sort of predicted, her clothing had been moved to the work surface of my wall desk.

However, now her folded bra was on top of the pile of her other folded clothing. The misty-orange panties had been unfolded and set to one side on the stacked clothes. The panties were inside out. I could not help but notice on the now exposed, tangerine, reinforced crotch material what looked like damp stains. That was easily visible from where Merch and I stopped as the compartment hatch closed behind us. All you had to do was look down at her clothes to see it.

In the middle of the carpeted deck between the front bulkhead lockers and my footlocker, Juliet was on my chair and facing the left bulkhead with her back to us. Bent over at her waist, my girlfriend was rooting through my wide, meter-and-a-quarter long, black tote bag resting on the deck in front of her. My smaller, meter-long tote lay opened beside the larger one. I could see she had taken many items out of the bags. Those things were now stacked in somewhat neat piles or groupings on the grey carpet all around where Juliet worked from the chair. Some of my SHTF supplies were even on my footlocker.

Near the footlocker was a group of five different waterproof canisters. The label of one was visible and was marked Flour 2.5 Kg. Close to Juliet’s right foot, I saw my small, rolled sleeping bag and two tightly folded, red insulated tarps. Just behind the chair were several meter-long composite tubes; a collapsed pack frame; a hammer; a meter-long compact drawstring bag marked 6 man igloo tent. Next to the left bulkhead were a pile of my folded, silk tee shirts and long underwear pants; several coils of nylon rope; small composite boxes not showing any markings; small stuffed bags; and two pair of hiking boots. All kinds of things for camping.

“Don’t mind me,” Juliet said in a soft voice, not looking back as she concentrated on getting something out of the tote. She nodded her blonde head toward the bunk that held Anika Blaugelt, giving a partial warning the younger woman was asleep. Juliet was so engrossed in what she was doing she didn’t seem to be aware that there were two people watching her.

“Baby,” the sexy woman said softly to me as she rooted inside the big tote, “you and I are going to have an interesting conversation about all this stuff as soon as we can find the time. Right?”

I couldn’t help myself.

“Yes, dear,” I said, watching Merch out of the corner of my right eye to see his reaction. He didn’t let me down.

He snorted out loud and then tried to stifle his chuckling while he was eyeing the different piles and groupings of items displayed on the deck of my compartment.

At the noise Juliet looked up and realized I hadn’t entered the compartment alone.

“Oh... hello,” Juliet said in a rich, sweet-voiced welcome that a person might expect to hear from a greeter at a church picnic. “I’m this lug’s ... well, girlfriend. I’m G4 Mindenhall.”

She made to get up to greet our visitor.

“No, no,” Merch said, a big smile on his face while holding out his free left hand, palm up, to keep her seated as he also waved his rolled baton of papers in a quick back and forth motion of negation. “As you were. Keep digging. Just call me Merch.”

Juliet looked back and forth between Merch and me.

“Maybe ... I should bring around that scotch I was talking about,” Merch told me and he managed to include Juliet in his comment somehow while keeping his voice down. He gestured with the roll of printouts in his right hand at some of the piles of items on the carpeted deck. “And all three of us have us ah sit down conversation about this ... stuff.”

“ ... gowwwnooo...” Anika mumbled from the bunk, her voice sounding like a pouting little girl.

“Well, hop to it, Mister Sitwell,” Merch told me, nodding his head. “At least, I ... will be waiting out in the passageway while you change into your uniform. We’ve got places to be and people to see.”

I could hear him chuckling as he turned and strutted out the opening hatchway of my quarters. Before the hatch closed, I saw him pull his POC off his belt and he flipped open the clamshell case. I turned back to my now acknowledged girlfriend.

“I brought snacks,” I told Juliet as I held up the small-stores bag.

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