Mike Stedman 1: Invasion

by D. R. Rosier

  That wasn’t going to happen, ever. Her own room, food at her own beck and call, and not having to serve him in anything but attendance was throwing her off as far as he could tell. They’d work it out though, eventually…

  He sniffed Chrystal’s hair, he loved her scent, and kissed the top of her head as he spooned her from behind. They were temporarily sated, after a hard and fast fuck to take the edge off of the long period since they were together last. He had his hand cupping her breast as it wrapped around her, and she held his arm tightly.

  “I’ve been thinking, how hard would it be to create a scout and leave it behind?”

  Chrystal replied, “We could build one no problem, and I suppose I could remote control it, and you could command virtually, as long as we weren’t in another battle with this ship at the same time. Why?”

  He said, “Now that it’s confirmed it’s a full invasion, I’m afraid the invaders might send other ships to here, Feilia, and Selana-Esari. If we can build a scout with the new three tier shields, and squeeze say four fighters into the airlock, it can stand as a guard until the war is over. We’d have to go back to Selana-Esari as well, and then over to Feilia. Make one for each of them as well. As long as they aren’t attacked at the same time, it shouldn’t be an issue. Even if they were, we could grant Helen access to one of them, or other security A.I.s as a last resort.”

  A last resort because he didn’t want to ask his mother to kill, his mother Helen was gentle despite being a security A.I., they all were really, except him.

  Chrystal sighed, “The scouts have subspace capability, I’ll just build all three now, and we can send one to the Esari independently, and I’ll have the third just follow us when we leave for Feilia.”

  He nodded, good idea. Much better than his, he hadn’t thought it through.

  She wiggled back against his cock, and it hardened and nestled between her ass cheeks.

  “I love your cock, you’re pretty useful to have around too, but really it’s about your long fat cock and how it makes me feel.”

  He snickered at her teasing, and slapped her ass.

  She gasped and wiggled, and he grew fully hard.

  She arched her back for the right angle, and he moved to line himself up, and then sunk into her tight wet heat. She was so snug around him, but it was almost effortless from the left over lubrication of their earlier completion of just a few minutes ago, and the silken wet friction as he bottomed out in her drew a deep moan from his mouth.

  “I love your tight hot wet pussy.”

  She giggled, “You do? You feel so good in me. You fill me so completely. I love you Mike.”

  He kissed her neck and ground into her from behind in answer.

  She gasped and arched her back.

  “I love you too,” he whispered.

  Then he pulled out slowly, and when she whimpered at the loss he thrust back in as hard as he could.

  She moaned in pleasure, but then moved away from him and laid on her back, the sultry look of desire and her parted legs a clear invitation.

  “Make love to me?”

  He smiled, their crude banter forgotten, as he got lost in her amber eyes and feelings of love filled him.

  “Always and anytime love.”

  He moved and knelt between her legs, and sunk into her slowly while he claimed a very soft and teasing, but also passionate kiss. He had no doubt they would fuck again, but later. Now he let his feelings of love, caring, and gentle regard for her fill him, overwhelm him, as he slowly moved in and out of her body, their eyes locked intensely. Each little movement was an ecstasy all its own, and his nerves were on fire with the pleasure of her body, her scent, and the deep intense emotions they shared…

  They’d alternated between fucking and making love for four hours, with the occasional talking in between, to renew their intimacy. Afterwards, they took a shower and then went offline into sleep mode for two hours to optimize their memories and do full backups.

  Backups.

  He had a theory about the secret third location, the hidden one, but so far had kept it to himself. One thing he did know, the Xaran empire didn’t tolerate world killers. Humanity would be extinguished, if they managed to destroy or even partially harm Mars in their fear. Which would be horrible, outside of the few thousand that lived on Mars, humanity would be almost extinct at that point.

  The Earth itself, it’s animals, and ecosystems would be left alone, the Xaran were masters of DNA, and he had no doubt if they had to exterminate a species for the crime of genocide, it wouldn’t be with energy weapons, and invasion fleets.

  It was something he truly hoped would never happen. Most humans were good he thought, and would give A.I.s the benefit of the doubt and believe the truth of things. Unfortunately, those in power were often corrupted by that power, often paranoid, and they would be the ones calling the shots.

  But… if Mars was gone, and Earth was uninhabited by intelligent life, he thought the perfect place to keep a secret backup, and the facilities to create the androids and restore those backups in case that ever happened, was on the Earth itself.

  He knew that every A.I. except himself would never follow such a horrifying logic tree to the end to reach that plan and keep a secret backup on Earth, but his father was human, and he had no doubt Ted Stedman would come up with such a plan. Come up with the plan and have a couple of A.I.s implement it while hiding it from the rest.

  Why else would it be a secret from most of the A.I.s? No currently known race could hack the A.I.s, so it wasn’t a security concern. Which meant it was hidden because most A.I.s would be horrified by the thought of inheriting the planet of their beloved but dead creators. He could be wrong, but he truly couldn’t think of another reason to keep all the A.I.s in the dark about that last location.

  So… he decided to keep it to himself, and wouldn’t even try to verify his theory. Hopefully such a thing would never come to pass.

  It would still be another six hours before Dahlia and her cohort of troops were ready to board the ship. The scouts were already built as well, so he returned to the bridge. Alyndra joined them immediately, and he wondered if that meant she’d worked it out with Chrystal to find out when he left his quarters. It was just the three of them on the bridge, Nadia was probably still sleeping.

  He hoped six hours of sleep would be enough for Alyndra, he’d have to watch that and make sure he and Chrystal didn’t spend only two hours in there a day, the Esari needed to sleep after all. Of course, spending time in bed with Chrystal would never be a burden.

  He launched a few shuttles and put them at varying distances, and had them open small apertures to subspace.

  With his earlier work as a guide, he tried to create a stable gravity field at the closest shuttle, and looked over the results of the scans of the twisted field, and started to play with the parameters of the emitters on his side.

  It took him over a thousand iterations, and thirty minutes, before he struck a combination that worked. He worked out the math involved, and had a partial, but incomplete formulae.

  Then he repeated it with the second ship that was farther away, and the third ship, and so on. The subsequent ships only took a few minutes each, and at that point he had a basic idea of what subspace was doing to the field over several distances.

  Then he went over the separate equations, and tried to combine them by including distance calculations. That part was far easier than he’d expected, and only took a couple of minutes. It was actually just a straight forward linear progression. The power requirements went up logarithmically to distance, but the distortion was increased linearly to distance.

  He recalled the shuttles, and then dropped his perception filters. All he had left was programming of the control software left to do, and he didn’t need to be real time to do it. That took him eight hours of straight work, which translated into less than a minute of real time.

  The next time he met the enemy, energy weapon range and gravity weapon range
would be one and the same. Of course, unless the enemy came back to one of the three worlds, it would be a while before he’d have to face them again like that. Once the Mirosians got done mopping up the enemy on Feilia, he’d contact his father and see where he could be most useful.

  It was still a surreal thought, that they were at war. Now that he had time to slow down and think about it, he wondered at his decisions, and if he’d done the right things so far. Of course, saving three worlds had been the right thing, he knew that. He also knew the failure to communicate was deliberate, thanks to Alyndra’s telepathic ability he knew the invaders conquered and used intelligent races as a food source, or at least, one of their food sources.

  He wondered where they’d come from, there were over a hundred galaxies within ten million light years, any of which would be reasonable to travel from in level two subspace. Just twenty days. It seemed unlikely that they came from farther away from that, surely they’d have invaded the closest galaxy first. Unless… they already had more than one galaxy.

  That was an alarming thought, one he hoped wasn’t true.

  He restored his perception filters and then stood up. They still had over four hours before they could leave Miroth.

  He looked over to Alyndra, “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Alyndra seemed to consider that.

  “I would appreciate if you could assign me actual duties, outside of staying by your side when you’re not in your quarters, I don’t know what I should be doing.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, “What did you do before, as princess I mean?”

  She replied, “Foreign affairs mostly, and study to improve myself both physically, and mentally.”

  He said carefully, “I don’t need help with dressing, or bathing, and that’s partially because of a difference in cultures. Your duties are as follows. One, request any equipment you need for your physical training from Chrystal, we have seventeen empty bedrooms, and we can probably turn one, or two, into workout rooms. I bet Nadia would appreciate that as well.

  “Two, continue your studies of cultures, and anything else that interests you, but in the beginning focus on human and A.I. culture. Chrystal will grant you access to our cultural database, which should have new things as well as unique points of view for your benefit.

  “Third, continue to advise me as you did when suggesting coming here for ground troop support. You might have insights I won’t, and I won’t ever take you to task for an honest opinion.”

  She tilted her head slightly, “So you want me to basically do what I’ve always done?”

  He frowned, “Yes. It’s what you are most qualified to do, and it’s important to me that you feel both useful and comfortable. Except of course, you’ll be doing it for me instead of Selana-Esari. Anyone can put socks on my feet, but you are uniquely qualified with training as a world leader, to help me deal with other races, and although Chrystal is as well, your outlook will give me an alternate viewpoint. Quite frankly, I would be a fool not to ask you to continue doing what you excel at on my behalf.

  “As far as the rest, keeping your mind sharp and your body conditioned can only be a good thing for us both. The more you learn, the more effective you’ll be as my advisor. If at all possible, I want you healthy, and if not happy at least content with your circumstances. If anything else comes up we can add it to your normal duties at that time, but those three will be your main focus. I will also have no problem acceding to reasonable requests, so if you need anything for your duties, or your peace of mind, please let me or Chrystal know.”

  She replied, “Thank you Mike. I will compose a list of equipment needed for my physical training, and continue my education as you’ve directed.”

  He nodded in satisfaction and left the bridge, one less thing to worry about. He wasn’t under the illusion that things wouldn’t have to be tweaked and changed as they got to know each other better, but at least they had the basis of their relationship and her service settled.

  He walked over to the kitchenette and started a pot of coffee brewing. He could have just asked Chrystal for some coffee, but some things were worth doing the long way around. The matter/energy system was great, but he could see where it could promote laziness.

  It was also somewhat of a peace offering, he knew Nadia would be up soon. They’d been getting along well, and he was attracted to both her strikingly beautiful body that he itched to get his hands on, and her intelligent open mind which he enjoyed both by watching her thought process, and sparring with her mentally. But he knew a part of him had been carrying a grudge from that first day, especially when he examined why he always teased her about making coffee.

  Because she’d told him to make her some when she first got on board, in a dismissive tone like he was a servant, and he hadn’t liked that at all. In fact, he’d snapped at her which had shocked her silent. But that was in the past, or at least, it should have been left there. He hoped to finally put the last nail in that coffin in his mind, by ironically, making her coffee.

  It finished brewing not a moment too soon. He heard her door open as he mixed in her milk and sugar, as well as his own.

  Chapter Twenty

  She was frozen in surprise for a moment, when he held out her coffee as she turned the corner. She was wearing the ship suit, with just a long sleep shirt over it that went down to her mid-thigh. She looked incredibly sleepy, and sexy.

  Then she unfroze, took the cup, and took a sip. She sighed in contentment and closed her eyes as she cupped the mug with both hands.

  “I love you for this.”

  He snickered.

  “Good morning.”

  Her eyes popped open a moment later in shock, as if just realizing what she’d said.

  “I didn’t mean, I mean, you know what I meant, right? I’m still half asleep.”

  He nodded in faux seriousness, “It means you love me desperately.”

  She glared, it was kind of cute, why did he like pushing her buttons so much? This was supposed to be a peace offering. He decided maybe he enjoyed it a little too much.

  He smirked, “I know what you meant Nadia. I do have impeccable timing, I figured you be up soon but I nailed it to the second.”

  She smiled shyly and took another sip, “So this was for me?”

  He nodded, “All part of my evil plan to get you to love me, obviously it’s working.”

  She blushed and looked away, and he felt an overwhelming urge to kiss her, so he took a sip of his own coffee to distract himself.

  He also looked away from her plump full lips, but her bright green eyes were just as alluring to him, if not more so. They glittered with intelligence which had a powerful draw.

  He knew she didn’t really love him, it had been a tired slip of the tongue because he’d made her coffee and she was grateful and still half asleep. But he was sure now that she was at least as attracted to him as he was to her, and also confused about it.

  She shook her head and frowned, “We need to talk.”

  He tilted his head and couldn’t help it when he teased, “We just fell in love over coffee, and you’re already breaking up with me?”

  The teasing part of him had to come from his mother Amber, she was the most impulsive A.I. in existence, and he couldn’t seem to stop the impulse to tease her at all. Luckily, he didn’t have this issue with all aspects of his life.

  She glared and he tried to keep the smile in, but his lips were definitely twitching.

  “I mean seriously, in private, so can you try being serious Mike?”

  He tilted his cup in a mock salute, and took a sip, “Your room or mine?”

  She said, “Mine,” and turned around and walked off, his eyes may have strayed down to her very supple and shapely ass.

  He sighed and looked back up at her beautiful long raven hair before he got busted. It needed to be brushed, but it was still beautiful and looked soft to the touch.

  She’d obviously come straight to the coffee before anyth
ing else.

  She went into the bedroom, and sat on the bed.

  He walked over to her dresser, and leaned against it, just a few feet away. He wasn’t sure if it was to make her more comfortable, or that he didn’t trust his control if he sat too close to her. He really wanted to touch her hair, was it really as soft and silky as it looked? He decided it was probably a little bit of both.

  “What can I do for you Nadia?”

  She looked uncertain for a minute.

  “I see the way you look at me, ever since I got on this ship. While I admit, I am attracted to the way you look as well, and I really enjoy our flirting and teasing, we need to keep things more professional. There’s no way anything can happen between us, it wouldn’t work, you see that right?”

  He suppressed the urge to say, so you really are breaking up with me, and was thoughtful for a moment instead. After a little consideration, he decided to push things, although he wondered if that was a mistake. The last thing he wanted to happen though, was for her to friend zone him in her head, not without a fight. He’d always regret it otherwise.

  “No, I don’t know that. I think you long to be loved the way I love Chrystal, and I think you sense we’re very open to adding you to our relationship, as an equal who would be loved, respected, and cherished.

  “While you know it might not work out, you know we’d always be honest with you to a fault, and we’d never betray you as you have been by others in the past, and I think that scares the hell out of you, because you’re not supposed to want to be with a couple by the rules of society you grew up in, much less long for it.

  “By the way, all those men that betrayed you, they were obviously all fucking morons, you are an amazingly impressive woman.”

  She frowned, “You don’t get it, none of that matters, even if it were true. We live in different worlds. I work for the government of Australia. I have oaths to follow, and a job to do. We might be able to have a few months together, while I investigate and report on the dangers, opportunities, and things to avoid out here, but ultimately I’ll be recalled home for a new assignment.”