STARCROSSED: Lost & Found

STARCROSSED: Lost & Found

Prologue

         The Nostradamus Intergalactic Telemetry Platform (ITP) was situated just outside the Ozurra binary star cluster.  The intensity of the gravity well generated by the interaction of Ozurra-Major and Ozurra-Minor made the safe operation of hyperjump engines  an impossibility.  All traffic within thirty parsecs had to slow to sublight speeds and crawl through the sector until they were clear of the effect.  Yeah, it was a pain, but the twin stars made for an incredible backdrop...

         ITPs were open ports, veritable oases in the depths of space.  Used by commercial transport lines and private interests alike, they afforded vessels a place to obtain repairs or resupply, as well as a stable locale where the passengers and crews of those vessels could take some time and stretch their legs.  After all, if you had to slow down anyway, why not stop...?  Nostradamus, while isolated, was always congested, filled to capacity with all manner of visitors.  Services of almost every variety could be obtained from a wide cross-section of vendors and merchants.  I had been here for nearly a day, awaiting the connecting flight that would carry me on the final leg of my trip.  In the interim, I'd gotten a haircut and enjoyed a fresh meal.  Browsed some shops, picked up a few data streams to read, and flirted a little with a mildly attractive cashier.  Cordial as she packaged my items, she made it clear she was only selling today, not buying. 

         A familiar chime let me know I didn't have time for renegotiation.  I left her to her business and got back to mine.  Bag in hand I stepped out of the shop and paused, listening. 

         "Attention, final boarding call.  Attention, final boarding call.  All validated passengers of TCV Bonaventure, destination: Olyn Prime who have not already boarded, please proceed immediately to gateway:1022  for departure.  This is a final notification, thank you."

         The androgynous voice was annoyingly polite with just enough synthesized impatience to put an edge on the announcement.  It repeated in four other languages, each as different as dead was from alive.  I took a final look around me while the translations echoed.  Habitually boarding last, I liked to get a look at my fellow passengers, see if there were any faces that were familiar in the wrong way.  There hadn't been, I'd watched the gateway earlier and the people that filed through.  Unremarkable, nonthreatening, average, they were all as innocuous as filtered water.

         Heading down the concourse, I threaded my way through the crush of people coming and going.  The diversity of species I'd seen since arriving said a lot about how far the ConFed had expanded.  It seemed as though new worlds were aligning every day, bringing with them new resources, new cultures to learn, and new territories to protect.  The TranSpace Militia-- organized way back when Terran exploration hadn't gotten beyond the Centaurus constellation--  had now ballooned  into a conglomerated monster with responsibilities that literally spanned the galaxy.  Coexistence had an endless list of benefits but it didn't come easily and diplomacy wasn't always pleasant.  That undeniable fact kept me employed and, like now, on the move.

         1022 was ahead and on the left of gateways 1026 and 1030, but was the only one of the three currently in use.  When I was ten feet from the gate my skin tingled as a passive bio-scan swept invisibly over me, confirming that I was registered, unarmed, and free of contagion.  With no alarms triggered, I stepped into the connecting gantry, realizing that was likely the most excitement I could expect from this voyage...

53h: 22m: 19s...

         I almost died fifty-three hours, twenty-two minutes, and an odd number of seconds ago.  Died, for real.  So much for boredom...and famous last words.  Death had run up on me enough times in the field to let me see I'd been lucky, damn lucky.  Like time, luck eventually ran out; even the worst gamblers understood all hot streaks ended.  As you win, so too must you lose.  One day, I wouldn't be the better man.  One day, I would lose.

         One day, but not this day.

         I stared across into the dozing face of Shysaanah, my Nystari companion.  She had been on the transport headed for Olyn Prime before it docked at Nostradamus.  Blinking, her long lashes fluttered as she focused, easing from sleep and dreams into our here and now.

         "Mmmnnh...  How long was I out?"

         "Ten hours," I answered, never consulting the chronometer.  "You slept like a baby."

         The corners of her mouth quirked upward, managing a smile.  She had full lips; plump, kissable...perhaps two shades darker than the pale, Honeydew melon green of her skin.  The smile set off her high cheeks and pulled into play every other element of her aesthetically astounding face.  The Nystari were rightly celebrated as one of the most beautiful species ever encountered, but in a race of beautiful Shysaanah was gorgeous.

         "Stress," she said.  "Sleeping that hard after what happened, pure stress.  I have been running on adrenaline for more than a day, I guess my body decided enough was enough."

         I nodded, I could definitely relate; it had been fifty-three hours and out of them I might have slept for five.

         She made the most of our small lifeboat.  Designed for survivability not creature comforts, the Magellan Beta-class escape pod was built to get you home alive.  It could sustain four adults for forty-eight days, perhaps longer if we conserved supplies, but even at two shy of max occupancy, we still felt cramped.

         But cramped beat dead.

         Shysaanah stood and stretched, the one-piece enviro suit clinging to her like the second skin it was meant to be.  On the first day we had both traded our scorched and torn clothing for the enclosed survival gear.  Surprisingly, back when we had gotten changed I honestly hadn't peeked.  As I watched now, her lithe body undulated beneath the black and silver material in ways that made me yearn. 

         She held her arms above and behind her head, that thick, straight hair  so black it seemed to have highlights of purple both framing and contrasting her light face.  Left hand tugging her right elbow inward, she spread her booted feet and leaned slowly to the left.  Seemingly oblivious to how this elevated her already buoyant breasts or to how they tumbled and shifted when she moved, she took a breath then exhaled, cramped muscles limbering.  A few more beats and she straightened, our eyes meeting as she came to center.  Bright, grey-green rimmed in emerald, her eyes were entrancing, unwavering, perceptive; she knew what I was doing, what she was doing to me.  An expression I couldn't identify played quickly across her features before she closed her eyes again and reversed, leaning slowly to the right.

         My dick tightened reflexively, inspired by her...exercise.  I could've looked away, been more discreet, but she was Nystari, she was accustomed to being stared at.  My interest had likely been as foregone a conclusion as night following day.   

         "What are you?" she asked, bridging the silence.

         My brows drew together and I scratched my brush-cut scalp.  "What do you mean?"

         "Two days ago you saved my life.  Pulled me clear of that debris, got me into this pod before the Bonaventure exploded.  You saved me, and still I know nothing about you."

         I folded my arms.  "I'm not what you'd consider talkative."

         "Try, please."

         Her stretching done at last, she rolled her shoulders, her cleavage offering another teasing bounce to monopolize my attention.

         "Please," she repeated, her melodic voice surprisingly insistent.

         "Fine," I conceded with a shrug.  "I've had all sorts of...occupations.  Started as a soldier, Eighty-fifth Ranger Battalion, TranSpace Militia.  Served eleven years total, nine of them in combat.  Another four years in the Five hundred and first Recon, dealing with the Kurukk invasion."

         "A soldier, that explains it."

         "Explains what?"

         "What you did for me.  Once a protector, always a protector."

         "Ancient history, I'm a freelancer now."

         "You are hardly ancient."

         "In my line, thirty-eight is a senior citizen; plenty of younger jerks flooding the corps looking for action.  Besides, protection wasn't my--"

         "Shhhh," she said, pressing two slim fingers against my lips.  "When I needed protection, you protected me.  The only other thing I should know is your name."

         She slid her fingers from my mouth, idly teasing the two-day stubble along my jaw.

         "Solomon," I replied.  "My name is Solomon."

         "Solomon.  I like it, the way it feels on my tongue."  She edged backward, never looking away.  "I think I like it so much I want to say it again and again."

         "Not the best use of our atmospheric supplies."

         "You misunderstand," she said, hand going to the suit latches at the hollow of her throat.  "I want you to make me say your name."  With a press and twist she deactivated the latches.  A polarized seam parted down the center from collar to crotch.  She shrugged the suit off and stood naked and proud before me, a butterfly freed from a chrysalis.

         She didn't have to do this, I helped her escape that wreck because in that moment I could.  I didn't misunderstand, but I wasn't demanding any...repayment.  I hesitated but she was assertive, intent.  She wanted this...wanted me.  This was one hell of a serviceman's discount, fuck if I was going to stop her.   

         Triggering my own latches I rose, abandoning my suit as I stepped to her.  Her arms snaked around my neck as my hands found the sculpted cheeks of her ass.  The feel of her silky skin and those perfectly sloped breasts  against my scarred, combat-hardened body was electric.  With impulsive urgency we kissed, sharing our desperate needs.  I lifted, supporting her as she arched her back and drew her thighs up and over my hips, her feet leaving the floor behind.  Solid in the right ways, she was barely 53 kilos if she were a gram and I could curl twice that weight easily.   

         "Make me," she panted.  "Make me say it."

         Climbing me like a tree, she moved until she felt the branch she wanted.  Forceful, ravenous, I entered her and with abandon she surrendered, joining her soft to my hard.  We grunted and moaned, feverishly sweating through one explosive release after another, my name a song on her plump lips.

         The pod had forty-six more days before power failed and supplies were spent.  Forty-six more days of this, of her.  Suddenly, rescue didn't seem so important...

188h: 03m: 51s...

         Blocks of data scrolled across the interface panel and I ticked off each status-marker in my head, alert for anything that wasn't what it should be.  Synchronized intuitive processors intent on assuring our continued survival tirelessly managed tasks ranging from navigation to our caloric intake.  According to everything I was reading, after nine days and seventeen hours, the escape pod was still performing optimally.  I'd had flight training, could get this tub on the ground in a pinch, but I wasn't a pilot so the degree of automation was a good thing. 

         But it never hurt to double-check. 

         At least once every twenty-six hours I did just that, keeping myself apprised while also keeping the command/control network on its nonexistent toes.  The system never complained and it never lied.  When the diagnostics completed, summary equations involving our current heading, velocity, distance traveled, and estimated time and distance to the nearest registered worlds took over the display.  I looked at the estimates and rubbed the bridge of my nose; honesty was not always comforting.

         Following the escape protocol I chose when we ejected, the pod was obediently continuing along the course the Bonaventure had been on.  Space was big and we were very, very small; best to be in as obvious a location as possible.  Agencies handling search and retrieval would backtrack the logged flightpath but they weren't regulated and they never worked for free.  Last I checked I wasn't wealthy enough for anyone to care and there wasn't enough of the Bonaventure left to fill an ashtray, much less salvage.

         Simply put-- and mathematically confirmed by the computer-- we were fucked.  Insult to injury, the propulsion system was built for minor maneuvers, not the superluminal speeds needed to cover interstellar distances.  At it's maximum velocity the pod might reach Olyn Prime in a few thousand years.  I deactivated the interface and went back to my chair, the numbers stacked against us pissing me off.  Shysaanah-- still sleeping-- nuzzled up against me.  Warm and soft, she laid her head in my lap like a cat finding its place in the sun.

         She said I'd saved her life but I was a soldier, I knew my job wasn't done.  Yeah, we'd escaped that explosion but if we weren't picked up by a passing ship or didn't find a hospitable planet we'd die in this can.  The way she was, the way she made me feel...Shysaanah deserved better from the universe.  Karma had its past-due accounts on me but she was different.  Carnality notwithstanding she was...innocent, something I hadn't been for a long time.

         Amid our bleak situation we'd found an incendiary intimacy and she'd opened much more than her delicious body to me.  Over the past week I was truly coming to know her, I'd even exposed things about myself that possibly nobody but me had ever known.  She believed in me, trusted in me to make everything right.  Watching her sleep, so at ease and tranquil, it calmed me, tamed the knot in my gut telling me things weren't right, and I needed that.  I stroked the high curve of her cheek then down and across her lips, her exhaled breath hot on my fingertips.

         Moving, she rolled over, curling toward me.  Beautiful.  Her heavy lids opened and she looked up with those impossibly bright eyes.

         "Didn't mean to wake you," I apologized, wondering what my face was giving away.

         "You didn't wake me," she smiled.  "And I'm not sleepy anymore."  It was a lie but I accepted it without question.  My hand was on her cheek again and she interlaced her fingers with mine, keeping my palm tight against her skin.  "I know you didn't sleep, have you eaten?"

         "Nope, figured I'd wait."

         "Solomon, as good as I must taste you need actual food as well."

         I laughed and she squeezed my hand, smiling.  She was so addictive, everything about her was a confection for my senses.

         "These rations are absolute pa'Zuhkt, but it's all we have."

         "Pal-zooked?"

         "No," she giggled.  "pa'Zuhkt, it means shit."

         "Trust me, plenty of emergency rations taste worse."

         "Worse...?!?"

         "So bad it makes day-old dog shit seem gourmet.  Raw protein cubes reconstituted with an amino acid-heavy gelatin they laughingly called steak & gravy.  Fuck, after that nightmare you could eat dirt and smile."

         "Well, since you put it that way..."

*****

         The dispenser prepped two meal packs and every so often as we ate Shysaanah would look at me studiously, like she were making a decision.  I kept eating, knowing she'd speak up eventually.  She was from a different world, another species, but women were still women.

         "I had a dream today, the most wonderful dream."

         Bingo.

         "You were between my legs, in me, tickling me with your tongue and your fingers.  I felt you; you licked me, you stirred me, but I couldn't see you."

         "Maybe I was invisible."

         "No, it wasn't that.  It was...well, my belly was in the way."

         My mouth went dry.

         "It was so strange, so round and full.  I'd never thought of myself that way before..."

         "You were pregnant?"

         "Yes, and what you were doing to me...oh, Solomon, it felt so good it even made them move--"

         "Them...?"

         "The Nystari always conceive in twins...or triplets."

         Well, that was new info.

         "Uhm, are you actually--"

         "Pregnant?  Oh, no...no.  It isn't nearly my time, but, when it is-- after we are rescued-- would you like me to be?"

         You've only known me nine days!

         I finished chewing and swallowed with effort, using the mouthful to stall my response.

         Damn, these meals really did taste like shit...

73h: 05m: 11s...

         Reaching between her thighs, Shysaanah gripped my shaft, tugging rhythmically until it stood upright on its own.  Poised over my lap she straddled me, her breasts pendulous, the dark green nipples brushing my lips whenever she moved.  Those thick buds were pure temptation and I couldn't imagine a better way to enter the day.  If breakfast was the most important meal of the day then Shysaanah's new name was breakfast.

         I flexed in her silky hand as she coaxed me relentlessly, keeping the nearly smooth folds of her pussy just beyond the swollen head of my cock.  With knees bent and her bare feet tucked up under her ass, she would stay above my reach for as long as needed to obtain my body's undivided attention; this massage was her oh-so-sweet alarm clock.

         I traced the line of her back and she arched away as my coarse fingers went south, not pausing until my fingertips were at the vee of her tail bone.  Head tipped, eyes closed, her hair was an indigo cascade whose ends tickled the back of my hand.  Her breathing quickened and I pressed my face forward into those heaving slopes, smothering myself, kissing and biting until I had a nipple.  Suckling noisily, I dipped my fingers lower, gliding into that shadowy divide until they teased the rim of her tightest hole.  She shuddered, trapped between my mouth on her nipple and the dual threats of my fingers plunging into her from behind and my dick impaling her from below.

         “Solomon,” she hissed.  “Pazlykti lyah vyrassi koh siiden Ah,” she whispered,  sinking straight down, filling herself with every one of my inspired inches.  Her hand had been at the base of my dick but now she was cradling my bloated sac.  The sound I made when she grabbed me there urged her on.  She began rolling her hips, clockwise and counter-clockwise with a swivel that ground her clit hard against me, glazing me in her  hot, Nystari syrup.

         Interlocked, we struggled and writhed, working towards an explosive release.  Never thought being stranded would introduce me to the most incredible woman a career bachelor had ever met.  Her light green skin and exotic features, her enticing accent and sexual athleticism...it was nearly too good to be true.

         But that was then and this, well, this was now...

214h: 52m: 01s...

         Minutes evaporated and the silence thickened.  We were edging into our second week together in this cramped escape pod and somewhere, amid a flash-fire of surprisingly unrestrained sex, Shysaanah had managed to envision me as the man she wanted fathering her children.

         Me.  Our suits had a dermal hydration/ moisture reclamation system but right now it just felt like I was sweating.

         It had only been nine days.

         Nine.

         And the Nystari always had twins.

         Or triplets.

         Unfortunately, repeating the proposition didn't make the idea any less ridiculous.  Dodging the paternity bullet all these years hadn't been luck, it had been a choice.  Considering the work I did, it was a very practical choice; families were a liability, a distraction a fighting man just couldn't afford.

         Pushing away from me Shysaanah stood, bringing that round, deeply cleft ass of hers eye-level.  She began to pace, her back and forth all the more agitated for the minimal room in the compartment.  Even in frustration she was sensual, her body a beautiful confection shrink-wrapped into survival gear she made look like lingerie.  My next words, if honest, would likely end our...involvement.  The taste of her, the feel of her...that would all become the stuff of memory.

         "S'koteh pahg suhk!" she spat, suddenly full of venom.  "Kujnahkt ahn, leesh pah jah mysh RAH!"

         My jaw tensed,  this was going to be ugly.  I didn't need to know Nystari to understand pissed off.  It was probably better that her anger came out in her own language, insults had less bite when you didn't know the details.

         "Nypilaadet sonabi teh jun--"

         "Shysaanah--"

         Pausing, she turned, folding her arms over her breasts as she faced me.  Corners of her mouth dropping, disappointment and betrayal wept from every pore.  “You hurt me.”

         “I--”

         “You hurt me,” she repeated, the beginnings of tears moistening her green eyes.  “I offered you...everything, and, like a vuKOKT, you said nothing.”

         Voo-cocked...  Safe bet she just called me a dick.

         “Shysaanah, you asked me a question I couldn't answer.”

         “No, Solomon, I asked a question you wouldn't answer.”

         Cheeks flush with unfulfilled rage she bit her bottom lip and didn't say anything else.  All I could do was look at her and wait, you didn't have to be a linguist to translate the silent treatment.

         The conversational vacuum was shattered when an alarm wailed punctuating a single, repeating message: "Proximity alert, inbound vessel detected.  Proximity alert, inbound vessel detected--"

         Son of a bitch!  "Computer, distance to vessel?"

         "Thirty-one point seven million kilometers and closing."

         “We've been found,” I said, incredulous despite confirmation.  “We're being rescued.”

         “Being rescued will not make me less hurt.”

         Thirty-one point seven million kilometers; depending on the class of the approaching ship that distance could take days to cover.

         Or minutes.

         If this wasn't fixed before then, it would stay broken.  When it rained, it fucking poured...

254h: 36m: 27s...

         A ship was coming.

         For us.

         The command and control system was excited, its processor matrix frenetic as it executed this scenario's  contingency protocols.  Retrieval, it was a survivor's-- and an escape pod's-- dream come true.

         But I--we--weren't out of the woods yet.  Avoiding the ultimatum I envisioned hanging over me, I sat with my back to Shysaanah and my eyes on all the new data being displayed.  Squinting, I noticed something absent in our rescuers' telemetry.

         "Computer, show registry verification for the inbound vessel."

         "Registry data is unavailable."

         "Distance to vessel?"

         "Nineteen point four million kilometers and closing."

         Close enough to detect but running without its transponder engaged.  That was...odd.  Could be accidental, malfunctions happened, but it might also be deliberate.  Since we were no threat, who would they be hiding their identity from?

         "Computer--"

         Shysaanah stepped up behind me, her pale green hand settling on my shoulder, the touch an immediate distraction.  "Harassing the computer with questions only slows it down; the ship will get here when it gets here."

         "Watched pots boil sometimes."

         "Watched pots...?  I don't understand."

         "Variation of an old saying about impatience.  It goes: a watched pot never boils, but-- in my experience-- unchangeable things can be changed."

         "That is a denial of the orchestration of existence. "

         "Is that a fact?"

         "A flower cannot decide when it will rain, it can only drink all it can when it does."

         "What happened to the optimist...?"

         Fingers tightening on my shoulder, she tugged me around to face her.

         "What happened to the man who wanted and took me?  Who set me on fire until all I wanted was to take him?  Where is that man?"

         I looked to the floor and said nothing, my mouth a tight line.  Her other hand smoothed backward through my short hair, pushing until I looked up.  Our eyes met.  I had stared down hundreds of enemies without blinking, endured brutal interrogations without cracking, but this woman, this exotic, impossibly beautiful woman from Nystari,  her gaze made me weak.  The anger was gone but under that calm, behind the pools of jade that were her eyes, I think she was still hurting.

         Still...hoping.

         I slid my hands along her thighs, over the flare of her hips to the narrow taper of her waist.  "Shysaanah, I am that man but how could I be a  father?"

         "You believe it was too soon to suggest, too soon even to consider, but--"

         "But it has only been nine days."

         "Eleven," she corrected, smiling.  "You forget, I had a sense of you on the Bonaventure, even before the accident.”

         I considered that, remembered the tingle I had gotten when I boarded.  I'd written it off as the bio-scanners checking me out but what if it had been something else...?

         ”My people...we are not like you, we are not misled by your confusing ideas of courtship.  In the continuation of our race, the Nystari evolved a very specialized reproductive process.  I did not surrender to you on a whim, my body...it, it recognized you; your genetics, your essence, your--"

         "My compatibility."

         "That is the simplest definition, but in your language there is no way to express what every moment of every day since our first...connection has been like for me.  And then fighting...having you so very close yet set apart by a misunderstanding.  I was conflicted, it was torture."

         Shysaanah reached back and undid the cord holding her hair in a ponytail.  Shaking it loose, the mass of hair tumbled down around her face and over her shoulders in soft waves.  She brushed some errant strands away from her eyes and out of her face, tucking them behind her left ear as she watched me stand.

         "So, I'm just a biological impulse?" I asked, unsure how I felt.

         On tiptoe she leaned in, one hand at the nape of my neck, the other against my chest.

         "No," she whispered.  "You are a force of nature."

         So was her kiss.  Tentative then stronger, she covered my mouth with hers and sent her tongue to find mine.  We clung together fiercely, that embrace both an apology and a welcome back.  Clumsy as virgins on a first date, we bumped and banged against every bulkhead and console, struggling to peel each other out of our suits.  We laughed and pulled until the material was gone and we were skin to skin.

         God, she smelled so good...

         Biting and kissing her way down the side of my neck, she migrated lower until she was kneeling between my legs.  My cock hung exposed, heavy and hard, waiting.  She licked her dark lips and curved it upward, nuzzling the underside.

         ”Mmmnnh,” she purred.  “Azyana, sihmaas drelaandi!”

         ”Oh, fuck,” I grunted, feeling Shysaanah chase her last syllable with a mouthful of me.

         Her tongue felt like a velvet snake slithering along my agonizingly stiff shaft.  Head bobbing and twisting, her oral artistry pushed me to delirium, to a place beyond reason and restraint.  I leaned against a panel for support, not trusting my legs to hold me.  When I came it was almost violent; muscles tensed as I emptied, filling her mouth to overflowing.  Rivulets of white spilled over her lips and dripped from her chin, splatters of milky cum pooling on the swells of her breasts.

         Her hands were massaging my spent sac when she leaned away and looked up again.  "Solomon, that is what a father should taste like."

268h: 44m: 09s...

         It was like a dream.

         Like flying and being underwater all at once, Zero-G was buoyancy without pressure; no up, no down.  We drifted around the compartment like clouds across the sky; silent, untethered, free...

         I couldn't outdo the way Shysaanah devoured me.  If I never spent another moment with her, I would always remember that zeal, that passion.  The way she'd sucked my dick, worshiped it until my knees went weak and I couldn't stand, until I erupted as violently as a star going nova.  With milky splatters everywhere, starkly pearlescent against her pale green skin, she was a sexy mess, shamelessly gulping what felt like pints of my cum until I had nothing else to give.

         Ordinarily I would have gotten between her legs  to reciprocate, repaying her lick for mind-blowing lick, but-- good as I was-- I'd never manage to do to her pussy what she'd done to my cock.  Compared to her, it just wasn't my strength so instead, I raised the ante.  Via manual overrides, I disengaged the artificial gravity actuators and treated Shysaanah to free-floating positions that were impossible in standard gravity.  It was more work without the familiar, anchoring stability or leverage but the effort paid off.  Now, after a sexual triathlon of adventurous fucking, an operatic litany of Nystari dirty talk, and her post-climactic fits of giggling, Shysaanah had dozed into an unavoidable nap.  Cradled in my arms, her hot body snug against mine, she was radiant in the afterglow. 
 
         "Mmmmnh," she sighed, crossing her arms over mine.  "One day, you should learn my language so you can appreciate how all those wonderful things you did really made me feel."

         "Is how loudly and how often I heard my name any indication?"

         "You are teasing me.”

         ”Sure I am.”

         ”Was I that bad...?"

         "You were incredible," I said, kissing the top of her head.

         "So were you, I am still trembling."

         She was, and grinding her ass back against my crotch every so often, also.  As if I needed a reminder of how deliciously naked and accessible she was...

         "Amazingly, we let eleven days pass before trying this."

         "There are only so many hours in a day...”

         "It was a delightful surprise...and a first."

         ”For both of us.”

         ”Really?  I thought with the way you handled it...handled me; I thought you had practiced it before.”

         ”Nope.  I spend plenty of time between jobs in transit but it's never recreational.  Silly as it sounds,  I'd always wondered how 'sex in space' would be but I never tried it out.”

         ”May every experiment between us go so well...”

         I smiled; she was subtle, but still prodding.  All I had was a final disclaimer...

         ”I can be a real bastard, Shysaanah.  Mean, stubborn...I'm the guy people don't want to be on the wrong side of.”

         ”Solomon, people who take lives are the same on any world.  As a soldier you have a difficult place in the universe, a necessary one.  Why should being who and what you are diminish you in my eyes when that is what saved us?”

         ”It's that simple?”

         ”It is.  Starting from here you can only be more to me, not less.  And you already know I have a temper.  Imagine how unbearable I would be if  we weren't being rescued and I were denied a real shower, forced to keep using those damned one-step hygiene kits."

         "Ooo, high-maintenance.”

         "Of course I am, what precious thing isn't?" she laughed, lightly stroking my forearm.

         I grinned.  My fingertips idly traced the dark green circles capping her breasts, toying with that sensitive skin until it crinkled.  She shifted a little, arched her back; let me play but didn't interfere.  While I teased, a question occurred to me.

         ”You said 'it wasn't your time', what did you mean?”

         ”Nystari pregnancies never fail because our bodies go through preparatory cycles, every part of us priming for the task.  The cycle peaks one fahjmyrra after a connection triggers it, only at that point could I get pregnant.”

         ”One foshmeera?”

         ”A little more than two Terran years.”

         ”From now?”

         ”From eleven days ago.”

         Plenty of time, all the time in the world compared to what I'd called relationships.  And we had a running start.  My life-- with all its near-misses and danger-- had been solitary.  I didn't want the weight of making promises I had to keep, of being tied down, of having to trust.  But she wanted me and I would be a liar if I said I didn't want her.

         And it wasn't just the feel of her ass, either. 

         She rolled in my arms until she could see me, her hair a wild tangle and her newly stiffened nipples brushing sideways across my chest.  The motion made us pitch and tumble, she spread her legs and hooked them around mine while I held on with my arms just as tightly, almost like she'd drift away forever if I let go.

         "The ship..." she began, glancing sideways at the sensor display.  "It's almost within docking range.  We should restore gravity, get dressed, prepare ourselves..."

         This was it.  Our passionate little microverse was about to collapse and within the hour I'd be back into my old ways, always moving between jobs with little more to show for my existence than having survived the last assignment.  Perhaps a new scar, a little more mileage on my body, but nothing more.

         And she would be gone, inevitably connected to someone else, some other man, a bastard smart enough to seize the fucking day.  Some other man, unless...

         ”Lets do this,” I said, clarity overwhelming me like a compression grenade.

         "Solomon...?"

         I saw little versions of Shysaanah circling me, daughters, our daughters laughing, playing...calling me Daddy.  This woman at the door, beautiful as ever and welcoming me home.  To our home, one we'd create together.  “I can't...I can't promise I will be the best father, it will be all new to me, but I can't let you go.  Lets stay together.  This ending, this rescue, let it be our beginning.”

         "I...Oh, Solomon, we will do this. Together we will do so many, many things.”

         Her eyes pooled, a whisper away from tears.  “Mysjaani opha rish seela londi," she said, squeezing my hands.  "Mysjaani Ka opha rish seela londi..." 

         I didn't question, the emphasis carried.  Something about the concept of I love you was universal and, at times like this, even better for the differences in language.  She was pledging herself, giving to me again, and this time it really would be everything.

5594 words