by Meg Ripley
She bucked her hips against his slow, incredibly long strokes, aware that she was emitting a single low, continuous moan as Jax pushed his body against her. She wrapped her thighs around his muscular waist, gasping as his thick shaft pulsed inside the dripping walls of her pussy. His hips started to move faster, and his eyes closed as the pleasure moved through his body in waves. Ada started to grip her breasts again, drawing pinpricks of blood as ecstasy swept over her.
“Ada,” Jax panted, and pulled her hands from her body. “Ada, I’m going to come soon, you feel incredible!” His hips moved forward vigorously, slipping past the sensitive button inside her pussy that Tod used to have to try so hard to find with his fingers. Jax’s length meant he met it easily, and Ada’s body was so embroiled in bliss that for a moment she forgot to breathe. Then the Hyppo’s strokes started to increase in speed, and Ada cried out, desperately taking in air as her body was pounded into the soft soil. Jax was repeating her name as he thrusted inside her hot, wet pussy, frantically pumping toward his own apex of desire.
The sounds of his body slamming against hers mixed together with their lusty moans, filling the cave with a chaotic, carnal symphony. The light from his lamp made his body glisten, and the pureness of his beauty seized her heart and brought tears to Ada’s eyes. An odd sensation---like a key turning in a lock inside her---flooded her and filled her with boundless joy as his brown eyes met hers, and Ada screamed as the soaking wet walls of her pussy contracted around Jax’s heavy cock.
For a moment, their bodies seemed to meld into one, and she saw and understood everything he did: what she really was, what the Hyppo people had seen inside cypeople---what she’d really been all along. At the same moment, she saw a deep well of fondness for her from Jax, a well nearly as fresh as the bruise Ada sustained when she’d fallen backward; she saw that as he’d healed her, his energy had been mingling with hers, tasting her as she was now tasting him. She saw his kindness, his desire to help her unlock her innate ability to experience the full richness of life, and the overwhelming nature of the feeling he got when he gazed at her emerald eyes against the milk chocolate of her oval face---that gigantic, trembling sensation she knew so well: awe. She’d never seen herself look so terribly beautiful, and as she felt herself return to her body, she realized she was tearing up again.
The Hyppo threw his head back, letting out a long, passionate cry as his cock twitched and then grew still inside her. Ada felt another surge of heat as her body seemed to absorb his energy, even as he pulled away and collapsed on the ground next to her, panting. His beautiful features seemed too calm and blissful, especially since Ada’s own mind was reeling with the shock of the truth he’d shown her the moment before. Ada drew a shaky breath as she watched his body return to its brilliant golden honey tone.
“We all have empathy boards?” Ada whispered.
“Yes,” Jax answered immediately. He seemed to hear her heart hammering in fear, because the next moment he’d grabbed her hand and was pulsing a gentle energy into the skin of her palm. It cooled her terror, and she could breathe again. Ada asked the next question that sprang to her lips.
“Why don’t they tell us? Why don’t they let us all be Pathos?”
“Well, they claim it’s for your own good,” Jax answered, and his voice made it clear that he didn’t agree. His third eye blinked, irritated. “But our people think it’s because it made you something more human than they could be…or something simply more.”
Ada tried to wrap her mind around the pronouncement, finding it exceedingly difficult. “So what did it for me? The furry thing?” She tried to remember what he’d called it, and was surprised to find it zoom to the front of her mind: “A Bezoar?”
“Yes,” Jax said again. “Electrical activity stimulates the empathy board. A large enough shock will awaken it, and for Pathos, it’s usually done at birth. But for you, and cypeople like you…even the simple act of thinking, living, and learning generates enough electricity in the soft part of your brain that it can jostle the empathy board.”
Ada laughed darkly as bitterness washed over her for the first time, acidic and invigorating. “So, we don’t have undersized empathy centers?”
Jax laughed sadly. “No, just deactivated ones. It seems that cypeople like you are happening more and more, though---both naturally awakening very slowly, and through accidents like…” Jax stretched one of his golden arms toward the dead Bezoar.
“And the ones they kill?” she asked as anxiety gripped her heart again. “Are they just…waking up? Why won’t the ships recognize them?”
Jax hesitated. “The ships recognize them, but they really are corrupted. Because of the capacity for natural activation, there’s also the capacity for the board to be activated…inefficiently.”
An icy sheet of dread settled over Ada, and she whimpered involuntarily. Jax squeezed her hand again, and calm rolled through her muscles and slowly melted her fear. “So they are suffering,” she said through gritted teeth, “but it’s the humans’ fault?” Jax didn’t answer, but because she’d already tasted all of his knowledge, she could see the yes clearly in her mind.
Ada locked eyes with Jax as they both sat up on the soft floor of the cave. “What will they do now that I’m…like this? Will they kill me?” Her heartbeat sped up. “Will you report me?”
“They likely already know,” Jax said, and Ada saw in her mind that it was true. It was unsettling having access to someone else’s information---it was like having a giant library in her head. It would take some getting used to.
“But they’ll want to use you as a poster child, most likely, and claim they didn’t know it was possible to the public. They’ll try hard to do anything that would upset the population, and once the population finds out you’re more identical than they thought---” Jax shrugged, and Ada answered for him.
“They’ll want the engineers to answer for it. Maybe not now, but eventually.” She didn’t know if wars were started over things like this on Earth, but she didn’t want to find out. “Come on, we have to get back to the hub.” She sprinted to the mouth of the cave, and Jax followed.
Jax stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, surprise clear in all three of his eyes. “Why me? I mean, I would like to tag along,” he said bashfully. “But why do I have to accompany you?”
“You can back me up,” Ada said urgently as she dropped to her hands and knees and pushed through the hole. “Also…I kind of don’t want to be without you. Is that weird?”
“Not at all,” Jax said behind the sheet of aluminum.
There were no weighted boots to hold her down, so she hesitated as she stood outside the cave. Her alloy frame was far heavier than a human’s, but this planet’s gravity was also very different. Jax frowned at her when he slipped through.
“What’s wrong?”
Ada pointed to her ship. “I need to get over there quickly, but…” she pointed at her naked body. Jax laughed in understanding and grabbed her hand.
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
Ada turned to ask what he meant, but a wave of nausea knocked her focus askew. She doubled over, gasping from the strength of it; it took her a few seconds to catch her breath. She stood up---and nearly fell over again when she saw she was standing right beneath her ship. Jax was grinning at her foolishly. It suited his handsome face, somehow. She felt warmth squeeze her heart, and she let herself enjoy it this time. What is it? She shook her head roughly.
“I forgot you guys could teleport, but I didn’t realize you could bring passengers,” Ada admitted. She looked up. “Just a second.” She looked around in the dirt, and sure enough, she found the bubble she’d dropped earlier. She pressed it and waited for it to spring around her.
When it did, she dropped into a squat and jumped as high as she could; Jax let out a low whistle, and she felt her whole body blush as she rose gracefully into the air, floating harmlessly above the force field. Her palm pressed the ship’s access panel, and for the first
time in her life, she forgot to feel fear as she waited for it to open---and for the first time ever, it stayed closed. Ada had a moment to register what had happened before she went sailing back to the surface of Oro and into Jax’s arms.
She realized she was crying again just as he caught her. She wiped her tears away angrily as he held her in his strong arms, cradling her to his broad chest as she the bubble’s field dropped away and she finally broke down. Oddly, most of her tears weren’t sad; the first feeling she’d felt when the panel blinked red was the same boundless joy she’d felt when Jax’s energy locked with hers---the feeling of knowing, finally, who and what she was.
As the sea of emotions quieted inside her, she made a decision. She’d go back---and force them to activate the other cypeople. She didn’t know how, but he had more knowledge then they were counting on. She was determined and felt reinforced by the limitless energy of the new bond she’d formed. She took a breath and focused on Jax’s words.
“It’s okay,” he was saying. “I can teleport us; we’re not far from Earth’s hub. It’s okay… it’s okay.”
“Jax,” Ada cried. “Shut up and take me home.” His body rumbled as he laughed.
“Fine,” he said warmly, and kissed her forehead. “Hold on.”
His lips left an unbearable tingle behind, a gentle, velvety warmth that squeezed her heart and had nothing to do with their nakedness. It grew to a burning heat, and she was still trying to name it when he started to teleport them. She had the sensation of being pressed through a hole the size of a marble, but she felt so full of the feeling that it blocked out everything else; her last thought before her lungs started to pull in air was a single word, and her mind screamed it as sure as it new her own name:
Love.
Saved By Alien Love
It took forty-six Galaxy minutes to get from Caden’s hub to Xondux, and only ten of them had passed. This was the longest inter-system flight she’d ever taken. She kept looking out the ship’s windows expecting to see that they’d actually circled back to her hub, or gotten caught in the atmosphere of a planet. The cyborgs in her dorm were fond of pranks, and once they’d convinced her that her weekly mission had begun without her in her sleep. No matter how often she checked, all she could see was the inky blackness of space, dotted with pinpricks of light and occasionally interrupted by a gas giant or a belt of asteroids. She tried to remember her parental unit’s words--- Evan and Willow were all about logic: close to one hundred percent of cypeople make it through a flight vessel catastrophe. Their fatality rates in common accidents were far better than most other organisms, but this statistic never did anything to stop the ice rattle of anxiety from coiling around her heart.
Reflexively, she tapped her right index finger against the cuff of her left sleeve, activating the projection screen in her suit that allowed her to access the ships data as well her own. Caden brought up the map of their flight path, letting her cold gray eyes move over the bright blue trail for what must have been the tenth time. Thirty five more minutes, no stops. Thirty-seven if they allowed for possible interceptions of the Ridley Asteroid Belt around the gold sector. The belt was a nuisance, but it was more effective at keeping out pirates than any other method the Intergalactic Council had come up with thus far, so no one could object to its continued existence. Caden didn’t mind, because that meant fewer incidents and therefore fewer reasons to have her pulled from regular patrols---but her regular patrols seemed to be at an end now, anyway. She always felt more daring on pirate missions, and those were often the times she liked to pretend she was a caped crusader, or a masked vigilante.
“Nervous?”
Caden spun her chair around so forcefully that she did a full revolution and had to come back around again. She placed her heeled boots on the ground to stop herself, facing the Hyppo accompanying her while she wrangled her pulse under control. The tall alien was sitting about fifteen feet away in his straight-back chair, his slim face an expression of calm and understanding. She fought the urge to drop her gaze and cut off her projection screen with another sharp tap of her finger. “No,” she lied, crossing her legs at the ankle in an attempt to appear more relaxed. “I just want to see if we’re getting ahead of the asteroids.”
Umi nodded, flashing all of his brilliant white teeth at once. “Can you control that kind of thing?”
“Well…no,” Caden answered, straightening the zipper on her onyx suit as her anxiety flared to life again. “The ship’s path is automated. But I like to see how we’re doing, anyway.” She bit back the snide remark she actually wanted to make, reminded herself that she really was just nervous about this new assignment. It’s just a new mission, she kept telling herself. Would Catwoman flinch because she was in new territory?
Umi nodded again, blinking all of three of his calm blue-green eyes in unison. “Please don’t take offense at my asking; I only ask because of course I pick up the energy signatures of the creatures around me, and I have to be especially in tune with yours.” His fingers adjusted his short green kilt nervously, flashing the tops of his strong thighs as he pulled on the material. It was the closest thing to a tic he seemed to have; besides other cyborgs, Caden had never seen someone sit so still for so long.
“I understand,” Caden said quickly. She wanted this conversation to be over very badly, and she started to turn back toward the wide front window of the ship, but the Hyppo spoke again.
“Forgive me, but I don’t believe you do. I fear I’ve made you uncomfortable, and that is my very last intention.” Umi’s voice had been low and soothing from the moment she met him, but somehow his placid tone seemed condescending. She knew it was probably her nerves, but she bristled at his words.
“Pointing out my discomfort won’t help any,” she snapped, and the smile slipped from Umi’s face. He dropped his chin forward, and the dark green hair on his head tumbled across his forehead to conceal his third eye; for a moment, he looked like any number of beautiful humans from earth, albeit one with a constant subtle glow to his golden-brown skin at times. Caden felt a distant stab of remorse, and for once she was grateful that her empathy board hadn’t been activated naturally, like some of the other cyborgs---it would have made the exchange far more awkward.
Caden sighed, and the simple motion of drawing oxygen into her body made her feel more relaxed. She relaxed her shoulders and tried to smile. Just be an alter ego, she thought. Make him feel safe. Make it believable. “I apologize,” she said softly. She waited for Umi to straighten in his chair before continuing. “I am nervous… about this mission, and about the fact that you can read me so well.”
“I don’t mean to,” Umi said carefully, keeping his tone light. “Hyppo receive energy signatures from the environment constantly, so I can only block you out if I shut out all sensation completely.”
“I know!” Caden heard her voice rise, and took another breath to steady herself. She decided to focus on the nearly imperceptible movement of the ship and uncrossed her legs, trying to give her sinewy frame some sense of stability. “And I also know that you’re supposed to help keep me calm. I even know that you’re probably going to help me activate my empathy board later in the trip.”
Umi didn’t look surprised. “How did you find out?” he asked, his tone curious.
It was Caden’s turn to drop her gaze. “I overheard my dorm station manager talking about it before he sent out the rest of the Minders. They called me in first, to tell me the…good news.” Caden swallowed, remembering walking into Commander Dorne’s office only two days before.
He was already standing when she entered, so she had to lift her chin to meet the seven-and-a-half foot human’s gaze. The Commander had been her personal mentor for nearly her whole career up to that point, so being called into his office wasn’t the special event it was for most other cypeople. He was the only human she interacted with regularly, so she knew his facial expressions far better than most, but he still managed to blind side her. Caden remembered laughi
ng when he told her she was being deployed long term, and that she might not see the orbiting station she called home for months; it was something she’d never dreamed of hearing without first being told of the presence of an all out war. Then she saw the Commander wasn’t joking, and she stopped laughing.
She had expected to be told she was being discharged for Earth duties; Caden had been doing protection detail for other cyborgs on the Earth’s surface once a month for four out of her six years of service. Like the other cypeople in her dorm, Caden had been grown for guarding and combat duty. Since the age of sixteen, she’d spent ten hours each week working on marksmanship, ten hours per week working on strength, and twenty hours per week doing a variety of missions that all required her to protect other living bodies from wild animals, space pirates, and even debris.
Her first two years were filled with patrolling school shuttle routes between planets to keep the area clear of aggressive creatures, radioactive space slugs, and the occasional escaped criminal; after that, Caden’s incredible power and accuracy finally got her noticed by the higher Council---particularly due to her small stature. She was two inches over five feet, while most Minders tended to be at least five foot ten. It surprised most of the people who worked with her that it had even taken two years for her to be pulled aside for more dangerous missions: everyone on her team had quickly become familiar with what they affectionately referred to as Caden’s Blue Screen. Caden herself loathed the name, but the curious phenomenon allowed her to dispatch of obstacles with astounding speed and ferocity. Commander Dorne told her when he observed her in training that she was tapping into her warrior spirit and simply needed to learn to control it, and her parental units assured her it was a mix of talent and coding; Caden at first believed it was an ill omen and refused to even think about it until she learned the truth about her brain.
