A few minutes passed, before their lips parted and they looked into each other’s eyes. Kestral whispered, “I’m glad we got this second chance to be together. Let’s not waste it.”
“Time spent with you,” Jones told her, “could never be wasted.”
“Come on,” Kestral inclined her head towards the bedroom. “You’ll see I’m not as fragile as you think.”
Jones allowed her to lead him to her bed, and she stopped him just short of reaching it. They kissed again, and when they parted, Kestral began studiously examining Jones’ robe. “Ah…” she had found a seam, and when she applied pressure with her hands, the seam began to slide open. It revealed a singlet, fit snugly over Jones’ body, and brief enough to display his bare arms and legs, which were muscular without being bulky, and hint at a well-defined figure underneath the white fabric.
Jones undid the collar of the robe, the only thing that held it up against his broad shoulders, and allowed it to drift to the floor behind him. Then he obligingly reached for the collar of Kestral’s tunic. She allowed him to open and pull back the tunic, exposing her upper body as he did so. There had been a good reason she turned the heads of so many in the Rangers; her tall, athletic but singularly feminine build was hard to ignore, and for a lucky few Rangers, impossible to resist. Jones surveyed her body quickly, appreciatively but not lingeringly, then looked back into her eyes and smiled. Sliding his arms behind her, he pulled her against him, and they kissed again.
Jones was a wonderfully sensuous kisser, and Kestral was quickly aware of how flushed she was feeling in his proximity. She could also feel his manhood pressing against his singlet, putting welcome pressure on her lower abdomen just above her crotch. He allowed his hands to drift down to her waist, and below, pulling her tightly against him. Kestral hummed in pleasure, before finally pulling her lips from his mouth long enough to breathe, “I’m sorry I sent you away on Coel. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Yes, you do,” Jones replied, “and you were probably right. But now we can make up for lost time, can’t we?”
Kestral responded by finding the seam of his singlet, and opening it. Then she popped the clasp on her pants. “Can we ever.”
The last of their clothing pooled onto the floor, and Kestral pressed her body against Jones’ and pulled him to her bed. The both of them practically glowed in sexually-charged heat, and the parts of their bodies that moved against each other were already beginning to glisten in a fine sheen of sweat. Jones wrapped his arms around her, and took advantage of his position to lower her gently onto the bed. Then he lowered himself as gently on top of her, and Kestral wrapped a sinewy leg around his as she took his weight upon her. Jones’ hands on her created an electric response on her skin, and she worked her body against him, teasing him, goading him on.
It didn’t take long before Jones asserted himself, and Kestral gasped at the familiar and long-missed sensation of a man inside her. She soon realized that all she had to do to enjoy herself was to continue to hold and caress him, and let him do the bulk of the work. Jones obliged eagerly, working slowly, intently, continuously teasing and fondling her breasts, her mouth, the nape of her neck, and down to her ass, her thighs, the back of her knees, as he worked, following her rhythm.
And, Gods, he was good at it: Kestral found herself inexorably losing all sense of control and inhibition at his hands. Jones managed to bring her close to climax twice, eased off, and kept going each time; causing Kestral’s focus to slowly but surely contract into a smaller and smaller universe, consisting of only them, the moment, and nothing else; and then, finally, he brought her back to the edge and forcibly pushed her over. Kestral cried out in ecstasy as he brought her to full climax, reaching his own orgasm as well, and they finished in a flourish of spasming muscles and joyful release.
When Jones rolled off of her, he pulled her to his side, and they collapsed into breathless kisses and an intertwining embrace. Kestral was first to speak, once they had stopped kissing, and lay quietly against each other on the cooling sheets: “I’m so glad we finally had this time together.”
Jones smiled calmly. “I couldn’t have wished for more.”
~
Tirri rolled over in the bed and, still asleep, extended an arm across the bed to find her husband. She came slowly awake upon not finding him there. Looking groggily around, she saw Sarander standing by the wardrobe, putting his trousers on.
“Ohh… is it time already?”
Sarander turned at the sound of his wife’s voice, and smiled. “Have to spell Mark.”
“Let him work a bit longer,” Tirri protested. “Come back to bed.”
“Go back to sleep,” Sarander replied. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
But Tirri was already propping herself up in the bed. “Next time, we sign on to a ship with two pilots.”
“We did,” Sarander reminded her. “I am the second pilot.”
Tirri made a face at him. “Fine. Go, and leave your wife all alone. I’ll just have to find comfort with someone else, then. Maybe Angel is still up.”
“Angel?” Sarander chuckled. “That rube? Your pubic feathers would scare him to death.”
Tirri grinned wickedly. “I’ll bet Mr. Mark O’Bannon is more worldly and experienced. I wouldn’t scare him to death.”
“No,” Sarander admitted, “I’d bet he’d scare you. Besides, you’d never find him in the dark.”
“Ha!” Tirri laughed. “Then our guest, Mister Jones.”
Sarander smiled widest at that. “You’ll have to pry him out of our Captain’s cold, dead fingers.”
Tirri leered at the wall, in the direction of Kestral’s quarters. “You think?”
“I know,” he replied, also glancing at the wall. “And you would, too, if you weren’t such a sound sleeper.”
~
Conversation aboard the Mary was more friendly and animated at breakfast the next day. Angel prepared potato pancakes, sausages, fruit salad, bread and jam, with paleen juice and coffee to wash it all down, and everyone treated the meal like a feast.
“Nice to see you could join us for this meal,” Angel said to Mark, who sat at one end of the table. Mark had placed a large tablet on the table next to his plate, which he consulted occasionally while he ate.
Mark smiled. “This sector is relatively free of anomalies, so I can move around a bit for a few days,” he explained for everyone’s benefit. “Mary can call me if something comes up, and I’ll have plenty of time to react.”
“Can the Mary fly herself?” Jones asked him.
“To an extent, yes,” Mark replied. “It can handle basic maneuvers, cruise between systems, and even handle simple landings. But there are often little obstacles that get in the way, especially in the more crowded systems, and Quicksilvers are designed to fly efficiently, not smoothly. Sometimes, you just need a live touch to get the best performance out of her.”
Jones pointedly avoided looking at Kestral, who had quickly stuffed a forkful of pancake into her mouth and was regarding her plate with great interest. Instead, he indicated the tablet at Mark’s elbow. The flat silver device was dominated by a touchscreen, with just a few small mechanical buttons along the bottom. “Is that monitoring the pilot’s station?”
Mark nodded. “And the main sensory array. With this, I can keep an eye on what’s going on at helm, how the ship’s flying, and what kind of space we’re flying into. I can even use this to fly the ship, if need be… although the controls aren’t quite as fine as the manual controls on the bridge.”
“You can fly the ship from here?” Angel asked.
“I could fly ‘er from my shower,” Mark replied. He held up the tablet for Angel and Jones to see. The tablet’s screen depicted a number of readings that were mostly incomprehensible to the others, with the exception of Kestral and Sarander. They could all recognize a series of images, all of which represented the view forward of the Mary, processed through the ship’s navigational sensors
to provide information significantly more useful than a natural view outside of the ship. There was no standard visual image… the tesser drives’ interaction with incoming light caused light to separate, prism-like, into a full spectrum of hues, and arc around the leading edge of the ship as it passed, giving the visual impression that the ship was encased in a lens-like crystal swimming upstream through a rainbow. The view abruptly ended at the equator of the field, since no light behind the ship could catch up to them at trans-light speeds. This left a featureless, perfectly black hemisphere surrounding the rear of the ship, an effect which had been known to give people headaches if stared into for too long, and had even sparked mental unrest and psychological disturbance in some. To be sure, it was a fascinating effect that passengers invariably loved to experience, but navigationally speaking, it provided no useful information.
“Without this,” Mark indicated the tablet, “I wouldn’t leave the pilot’s station while we were flying at C, ever. It’s just too dangerous flying out here without always monitoring the ship and the space you’re flying through.”
“And we all appreciate your diligence,” Jones told him.
“And I’m just glad I can occasionally eat with everybody else,” Mark added. “You know, on the last few jobs I’ve flown as pilot, I’ve usually ended up pretty much locked at the helm. Most privately-owned ships don’t have much in the way of automatic piloting systems.”
“But I know a number of small ship owners,” Jones said. “They often let the ship fly itself while they sleep.”
“That,” Mark said, “is because they’re crazy. They think they can react fast enough if something comes up, but they’re fooling themselves. Most of those ships, if they suddenly flew into an uncharted field of anything, they’d be hulled in seconds without a pilot there. Thing is, it very rarely happens… there’s a lot of open space out there, and most recreational ships avoid busy areas. But all it takes is once, you know?” He took a bite out of his fruit salad. “That’s why professional ships keep the helm manned at all times. They know what’s at risk: Their profits. The entire cargo, plus a ship and its crew, that they’ll be liable for. So they keep it covered.”
“I see,” Jones nodded. “And I suppose that’s why military ships keep their helms manned, as well.”
“Well… not exactly.” Mark stole a glance at Kestral, but she gave no sign that she disliked the direction of the conversation. “See, on an Oan military ship, they have the latest and greatest automation systems, including systems that can divert the ship, or particle cannons and tesser projections that can forcibly move any object it’s approaching, without manual assistance.”
“Then why man the helm?”
“To give soldiers something to do,” Mark grinned. “You don’t want soldiers sitting around doing nothing while on duty. So you have a lot of busy-work aboard ship… including things that automation can do even better than the soldiers. It’s to keep them sharp and skilled, and it provides a backup in case the automated systems fail… which they sometimes do, and especially during battle.”
“Isn’t it as important,” Jones asked, “for civilians to know their ships’ systems, in case of problems?”
“Not really,” Mark replied. “After all, if your engine has a problem, you can take your time to fix it… generally nobody’s shooting at you at the same time.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“Should we assume, Dr. Jones,” Tirri asked, “that your past research has not been related to military projects?”
“No, it has not,” Jones admitted. “All of my prior research has been along civilian medical grounds, concentrating on physical acclimation to terraformed worlds. We on Coel have devoted so much of our efforts in that direction that we have become consultants to many worlds with extreme or unusual environments that are difficult for humans to adapt to. But the incubator represents a breakthrough that is particularly desirable to all Oans, and so the Galarchy immediately expressed interest in it.”
“Because it can incubate an antidote to the berserker.”
“Exactly,” Jones said. “It removes the threat of that weapon from the Raians’ arsenal.”
“How long have you had this antidote?” Tirri asked.
“I can’t say,” Jones replied. “Classified, you know.”
“Of course. Sorry.”
“I don’t suppose,” Angel asked, “that there’s any way we could get samples of the antidote for ourselves, instead of waiting for the Galarchy to dole it out to us with everyone else?”
“Well,” Jones replied, “I’m afraid the incubator does not have the antidote ready to give to anyone… yet. It will probably take a few more weeks to be ready. And I’m afraid you are supposed to just drop me off and keep going, in order to throw anyone off the track. So…”
He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished. The others ate silently for a few moments, before Mark began speaking on another subject, and the conversation steered away from the incubator and their covert mission. Kestral, who had not joined in on the earlier conversation, jumped eagerly into the new one.
Anything to keep them from thinking about the mission.
~
After breakfast, Mark had stayed around the galley and conversed with Angel as he cleaned up after the others. Angel was an incredible font of information about foods, much more than the average cook, due to the fact that he grew and tended his own foods. They discussed the difficulty Angel had in growing some fruits and vegetables, which were very sensitive to growing conditions, in an aeroponic environment in a spacecraft’s cargo bay.
Once Angel had finished cleaning up, he and Mark had gone up to the farm. It was the first time Mark had visited Angel’s hold, and he fairly goggled when he stepped through the bay door and took in the sight of a score of rows of aeroponic racks, bathed in artificial sunlight from Angel’s specially placed lamps. Angel had managed to almost finish setting up the farm, and the racks were full of new and already developing growth.
“Wow,” Mark breathed simply, and Angel grinned at his reaction. “You take care of all this?”
“It’s not quite as much work as it looks,” Angel told him. “But it’s worth the work. The quality of the food we eat depends on properly taking care of them. If you do it right, you get the most healthy produce, and the body gets the most out of what it eats. And you’re not as dependent on purchasing food, grown or processed, at every other landing you make. It can even save you money, depending on what you eat.”
“Get outta here,” Mark said. “This is economical?”
In response, Angel started into the aeroponic racks, and motioned Mark to follow. “When’s the last time you bought a Terran strawberry? Or a raspberry?” He stopped at a rack and examined a few of the young plants growing there. “When… if you find good ones, they cost a fortune. And they’re rarely fresh… they’re generally stasis-transported, and you can always tell the difference. But properly grown strawberries are so delicious. Most people say it’s worth it.” He held up a strand, which already had a group of small red buds on them. “In another few weeks, we’ll have properly grown, fresh strawberries. Quality enough to sell ourselves, if we wanted to, or to trade for other produce, meats, or goods. Ah.”
Angel found a small but recognizable strawberry, and he plucked it from the stem. He handed it to Mark, who popped it into his mouth. Even young and small, the taste and texture was perfect. Mark’s eyes popped at the incredible sensation, and he nodded at Angel.
Angel smiled and said, “Tell me that’s not worth growing. Hell, the extra treat of fresh produce alone will make for a noticeably happier crew, even if they’re doing the nastiest of jobs. Seen it a hundred times.”
Mark hung around with Angel in the farm for quite a while, while he tended to his plants and they discussed the various methods he used to produce his crops. Mark was surprised to find out that Angel had managed to create no less than six ecosystems in the one room, suitable for growing any Terran prod
uce, most of them in their optimal native conditions. Even though his setup was only a few days old, Angel already had some produce to show off, as many of his plants were fast-growing strains of their native counterparts. Angel treated Mark to a taste of a few more budding fruits, and made him promises regarding some of the buds that were not ready to be picked or tasted. The mere thought of it had Mark’s mouth watering when he finally left Angel to his plants.
Once he left Angel, Mark descended the ladder from the upper bays to the cargo access platform, on his way back to the living deck. Glancing down into the main cargo bay, he saw Tirri and Sarander in animated discussion by a pallet of Coelian atronics crates. He waved to them as he passed, and they waved back amiably. Mark continued on down the main access corridor, swinging by his quarters to use the facilities before returning to the bridge.
When Mark did finally return to the helm, he was relaxed and in good spirits. He sat down, placed aside the monitoring tablet he had been carrying around, and did a routine check over the helm’s systems, then the external monitors, and finally the navigational sensors. A minute’s checking confirmed that everything was working as designed, that there were no unexpected navigational anomalies along their path, and of course absolutely nothing to see behind them.
Then he took his own personal tablet, which he had picked up at his quarters, out of his pocket. Selecting a novel that he had been reading for the past few days, he found the spot where he’d left off, leaned back in his chair, and settled in for a quiet day’s work.
The next four days were as uneventful as the previous four. One day Tirri called everyone to the cargo bay. Upon arriving, they discovered a regulation volleyball net strung across an empty section of the bay, and Tirri grinning and bouncing a ball off her foot. The crew played for hours, arranging and rearranging themselves into teams, sometimes playing one on one while the others rested, and in general having a great time together.
The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker Page 12
