In The Darkest Of Nights 01

"Will do, Choi. Bren is on her way up, shall I stop her?"

"No, she deserves to know the situation; we're all in this big mess together."

"What happened?" she demanded to know as she exited the lift shaft.

"One of your cruisers shot at us," I said as I spun my chair to face her. "We're dead in space in the Crab Claw nebulae."

"Dead?" she queried.

"Yes, they've crippled our warp drive. A million to one shot destroyed a feed and there's nowt I can do about it."

We had years of drifting through the void in front of us. The ship would outlast even our children but with no warp drive we were light years from civilisation and doing point nine three light speed in the wrong direction. With no sub space radio it would be at least thirty years to make our Mayday heard the other way.

"Choi," Beth interrupted. "There's a star system half a light year away. If we make a twelve degree turn we can intercept in about two weeks."

"Two weeks!" exploded Bren, alarm growing on her face.

Two weeks was a good deal to me, a straw to be grasped and a chance to replenish our lithium was the one hand clapping. It was something to give us hope in an erstwhile hopeless situation.

"Make it so," I ordered, quoting from a nineteen seventies sci fi series.

Bren was looking franticly around the view screens, each void of discernible objects in the blackness of the dust.

"No, we should stay here where they'll look for us," she cried.

"No one's going to come looking," I corrected her. "They won't even know we're alive. We'll be just another ship that's lost to the void. Getting back is entirely our problem. We need to find the lithium to re-enable the drive."

She stormed off. How long she stayed in denial was a moot point.

"What have we got on the star, Beth?"

"Our star is a runaway, travelling at a ten degree vector. It's travelling at nearly half lightspeed," she informed me. "I have corrected our course; our intercept is now twenty three days."

There was less chance of a runaway having its system intact. Whatever had thrown it out would have needed a close encounter to have given it this much umph. Likely as not all the planets would have their obits disturbed.

The news was a blow, lessening the odds of us getting the early bath.

"Okay," I said, acknowledging the information. "As soon as you get a glimmering on the planetary system, tell me."

The small rise of hope was squeezed back down. The slim chance was getting slimmer by the hour. If I could find lithium in any form I could recrystallize it here. 'Still, only time would tell on the long shot,' I told myself. 'It was the only shot we have'.

Beth was trying to build a radio picture of the distant star. She estimated at least several days more of observations before any planets became discernible, more like four or five before enough detail to determine if it had the asteroidal ring I was hoping for.

I spent time on the bridge, looking at the data from the planetary system as the dust stream thinned in its wake. We were playing catch-up with nearly a halfc to spill if we weren't to coast through, though if it proved barren it'd be better to keep our speed to target another star, a decision I could put off for a few days yet.

Brendigan was sitting in the rec room when I came up for coffee, sitting sulking over hers. I grabbed a coffee and joined her in the easy chairs with the library screen. I gave her a glance as I settled into mine, coffee balanced on the arm.

"Aren't you afraid you'll spill it balanced there like that?" she questioned me.

"Hasn't happened yet," I replied, trying to make light of the situation. "Touch wood."

"It's a little scary being alone like this, in the middle of space where no one can hear us," she confessed.

The knowledge was another thing that had me cursing. Our subspace radio was linked through the warp drive and caught the spike, fried well beyond ship repairs. We had electromagnetic but at light speed it would take half a lifetime to summon rescue.

Bren interrupted my thoughts.

"Choi, we're really, really stuck out here?" she asked quietly as she came to my side.

"Yes, and the thought depresses me as much as it does you. My family back home will cry for me and erect a cairn for me, another son lost to space." I took her hands. "Your family will grieve, too, and we'll be here, still drifting in the interstellar seeds looking for a miracle."

She was starting to cry, tears rolling down as I pulled her to my shoulder, giving what comfort I could. Acceptance of the absolutes of our current predicament, and the slim chance of changing them, was something I had already come to terms with.

As the tears subsided along with the sobs she looked up at me.

"I feel so helpless. Things are going so out of control. Three weeks was an eternity but this...."

She gave another sniff.

"I'm lost. This ship hasn't even got a serving bot and I haven't got people to do things for me, I can't talk to my friends, I can't drink or get drugs. I can't see a future, just sitting doing nothing day after day."

Then out of the blue she asked. "Will you make love to me?"

The question sent shockwaves through me, the growing bulge in my shorts paying testament to my body's willingness and need. My thoughts, however, where schooled by my years of service.

"No, it wouldn't be right. Protocol says that you're technically my prisoner and the rules forbid fraternisation," I said regretfully.

"And I'm a princess but the rules don't count out here. I don't want to spend lonely nights by myself, I want the comfort of your arms," she countered. "And we've got no option but each other. Making love is part of friendship. We could pass away the boring hours screwing each other. You must like sex; every other man I know does."

Logically she was right. Rules were for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. Wisdom was on her side. The time for any platonic relationship was past.

"Okay," I said. "We can if you want."

"I knew you would. You men are all the same. What happened to your protocol?" she asked me, looking up.

"It's presumed dead like me," I answered. "Sometime in the future I would succumb and make love to you, so why not start now."

She laughed, the first genuine laugh I'd heard from her, and tilted her head to kiss me.

I bent and lifted her in my arms, pulling her legs round me. My cock was already getting hard, her pussy a few layers of cloth away bringing it rigid.

I backed her into the tube and up to my cabin. I set her down and my hands went to her waist to peel up her top. As I did her hands found the Velcro strip sealing my ship's suit. I let her continue undressing me, pushing my suit down from my shoulders and taking the briefs I wore under it down to my ankles as she leant over the edge of the bed.

I held her shoulders as I lifted each leg to free my feet. She had a hand to my cock as she freed the last foot, taking it straight into her mouth as she pulled me to her. I let her suck it for a moment before drawing her upright. I loosened her shorts and pushed them down, revealing her orange landing strip and the already engorged lips dangling from her slit.

We lay back on the bed and I crawled between her legs. As she lifted the second leg, I pulled her knee over my shoulder and bent my head in to inhale her aroma, and then run my tongue along those silky lips. I felt her body tense as my nose pushed at the base of her clit and heard her sigh as I withdrew to stand and pulled her to the edge of the bed.

I pulled off my medical vest and together we entered the shower, the spray coming on as our presence was detected. I beat her to the soap and made her turn for me to do her back first. As I did her sides I teased her, brushing the sides of her breasts before I turned my attention to her ass.

I built up the lather doing circles as I edged nearer to her valley, letting my thumbs caress down it and over her rosebud before drawing back up again. She leant hands against the wall and widened her legs as my hand made the first pass over her pussy, groaning softly as my finger brushed over her clit.

After a few more strokes I continued on down her legs and each dainty foot. She turned as I stood and I brought my hands straight to her breasts, running my hands across them and trapping the nipples between my fingers. As I rolled them I felt her fingers encircle my cock.

She dipped down again, cramming my cock into her mouth and deep throating the whole seven and a half inches of me. The thrill that ran the length of it made me shiver. She looked up into my eyes, her face reflecting happiness, like a baby with a pacifier.

As she brought me close I backed her off. There was a lot of sex to come before my cum came.

Drawing her up again I handed her the soap. She made me turn around while she did my back. As I felt her hands slide under my ass I widened my legs for her. She didn't disappoint, her hand gently squeezing and stroking my sac before caressing my cock, sliding along it several times before withdrawing.

She pulled my hip to turn me and she caught and kissed my cock before soaping my pubes and groin. Then she two handedly slowly stroked my cock, her hands running the skin over the knotted veins as she squeezed.

She rubbed her hands up to my nipples as she stood, lingering to pinch them as she stepped back. She stood in the spray, rinsing the soap away then pulling me under and washing it off me with particular attention paid to the groin.

The warm air blasted down over us. I held my arms out as the water evaporated from us. Stood naked before me, her coffee coloured skin glistening, nipples that could poke you in the eye on firm mounds, a slim waist and hips running into long legs, crowned by a ginger mop, two green eyes and a full lipped mouth.

Despite her party life she must work out to keep her body in that shape, something a trainer would be proud of, too. She bent forward, her short hair flopping onto her forehead as she opened her legs to let the air circulate there, craning her head back to watch me as I parted my legs as well.

I slipped my vest back on, picking my crumpled clothes and carrying them in front of me, heading for the washing bin.