A Butterscotch Sky Ch. 02

What followed was a barrage of thirty-minute briefings with a dozen analysts and advisers. I felt as if I was drinking from the proverbial firehose. The end of the day was called at 2100 hours with dinner to be served, but I declined the meal and returned to my room.

I'd almost fallen asleep when I heard the knock at my door. I rose to meet Aly as she wordlessly entered. She ferociously grasped my undershirt with one hand and the back of my neck with her other. She brought my lips to hers so fiercely our front teeth met. The intensity of her passion was unfettered, and I met it equally. Not one word was spoken between us in the throes of our physical congress.

I was in agony equal to my lust as we made love⁠—no. That's not accurate. We copulated in a rage . We fucked as if our lives depended on it because the drugs formulated to completely eliminate any physical desire had been delivered along with the items we'd ordered nine hours prior.

I lipped some parts and licked others. I suckled her and bucked against her. I allowed my tongue to explore hidden parts of her. I needed and craved the entirety of everything about my lover, and she was equally engaged with my body. I knew I'd always delight in her brilliant mind, but right then, I delighted in her beautifully feminine form with purpose, knowing I'd very soon not want to again. But not then. Oh, hell no, not then!

My cautious mind wondered if I was possibly assaulting the woman I loved until she broke the silence and hissed, grasping and grabbing at me, "Sean! Please say we belong to each other!"

"Yes! I love you, Aly!" I grunted as my orgasm approached.

The saltiness of my lover's sweat, the flavor of her cunt and its plentiful wetness … everything fit together like the piece that completes a complex jigsaw puzzle. Even the earthy scent of her underarms propelled me into a state of sensory euphoria.

I heard my own gasps and grunts as I ejaculated against my lover's cervix, then heard hers matching mine in pace if not in synchrony.

"I love you as well, Sean," Aly whispered, kissing my shoulders several peaceful moments later.

With me still inside her, she entwined her limbs with mine. Her warmth completely settled me.

Our skin began to become tacky and made funny sounds when we peeled ourselves apart. Aly took my softening dick into her mouth to cleanse it of our combined fluids which were thoroughly coating it. I used my undershirt to wipe from her crotch and butt the froth leaving her pussy.

I then rose from the bed to fetch two ice-cold sparkling waters from the chilling unit and handed Aly a bottle. She gulped from it greedily and an accidental belch soon followed. Not to be outdone by such a gorgeous little critter, I tried but failed to outdo her eructation. We both laughed like children at our antics. I then caught sight of myself in the mirror on the wall next to the drawers.

I chuckled seeing the scratches on my back and thighs, and the bite marks on my shoulders, chest, and butt. "It looks like I've been in a street fight."

She stepped beside me. "You are not alone," she said, grinning and pointing at her own evidence of our passionate and animalistic mating.

I knelt and kissed the cheeks of her gorgeous ass in a futile attempt to soothe the marks I knew would turn to bruises later.

She looked at the chrono and sighed. "It is time for our first medication."

"It can wait a few hours," I said, pulling from a drawer a heavy glass bottle of caramel-colored potion. Yes, it'd been on the approved requisition list.

She clasped her hands together. "You are a dangerous man."

"I think we should get tossed," I said in a British accent I hoped she'd find humorous.

She laughed, then took the bottle from my hand. She pulled the thread through the wax seal, removed the stopper, and drank two swigs of the whiskey. She groaned after she swallowed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, then handed me the bottle with a Cheshire grin.

We drank from the bottle of Kentucky's best over the course of an hour. We made love again, but it was slow, unrushed, and tender. It was the sort which sealed our souls to each other, nurturing and intimate. It was quieted coupling until Aly's third climax. Mine wasn't quiet either as she ended me in her mouth.

We nursed from the bottle between innings and became delightfully … sotted .

"Sean?" She sighed. "My dolzhny pozhenit'sya ."

"Okay," I replied, drawing her warm, naked body as close to mine as I could.

She chuckled. "You say yes?"

I laughed in my stupor. "I don't know those words"

"We should become husband and wife."

I remember her words so clearly now. They seem acid-etched in my brain, but … "We should take our first dose," I said in absolute stupidity.

I popped a tablet in my mouth and swallowed it with a shot.

"My love," she said in slurs. "If we are meant to, it will happen."

She swallowed her tablet.

We then had clumsy, drunken sex. I'm not even sure either of us climaxed. I simply don't remember.

December 20, 2064 – January 7, 2065

We all read page after page from manual after manual on the Hyper-D Imaging System and its cameras, then practiced our skills in simulations. Once we'd achieved mastery, the time came to put the skills to use in orbit.

The night before our scheduled launch, General Gantry called us into a meeting.

"The stories are starting to come together," he said, activating the large display which showed headlines from a popular news aggregation service.

I stepped to the screen and tapped the second headline.

"We are as baffled and mystified by recent events as the rest of the world," said Central Mission Administrator, General James Gantry. "I was stunned and sickened when this agency was notified of the death of the incredibly gifted Alyonka Sabratova. Our great nation grieves with hers."

When asked about the involvement of the mission's Commander, Sean D. Emerson, Gen. Gantry referred the media to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Information has not been provided in requests given to the FBI.

Multiple paragraphs followed citing similarly vague responses from other federal agencies.

"It'll only get more chaotic by the time you depart for Mars," Gantry said as I finished reading the article.

Others stood beside me and, one by one, opened articles from the media outlets they were familiar with at home.

When Ayani-san had read several Kanji articles, I caught sight of her eyes as she turned to leave the room. There were tears in them. Shizuka⁠—'Quiet' departed wordlessly.

We launched on a moonless night. The ship was absent its first stage since we weren't going far. It'd been years since I'd experienced the sensation of launch. Simulations in centrifuges are no substitute for reality. There was no need for DoC since we'd only be in orbit for three days, so we were all awake for the bone-rattling departure.

Since it's difficult to hide a spacecraft's launch, the media was told the launch was a simple scientific instrument calibration sortie in preparation for the final commissioning of a new gravitational wave-detecting satellite constellation, and the use of that particular craft was simply a matter of convenience. It wasn't a lie, because we'd do the calibration while we were in orbit, too.

Hell. In our experience, the mission was relatively instantaneous. It was quick, painless, and completely successful.

We were given a day of rest after our return while the engineers and analysts reviewed the data.

The cameras performed beautifully. If it weren't for the distortions caused by the thick and humid atmosphere of Virginia, I'd have been able to read the title of the book Dione had absentmindedly left outside on her balcony. The calibration targets in the arid Sonoran Desert in Arizona, however, resolved beautifully in seven of the eight cameras, leaving one to be slightly tweaked electronically.

General Gantry's prediction of additional world-wide "breaking news" did, in fact, transpire during our absence. The one solitary headline the General showed us read, Pyongyang Remains Mute as Evidence Mounts of N/Korean Plot

Two days later, we observed the long-standing tradition as the six of us dined together on a gourmet dinner the night before our launch. We were each allowed a single glass of an incredibly good wine. Or so said Irenka. I'd never been able to tell much difference between a $100 box versus a $1000 bottle. An oenophile I am not.

Before dessert was served, the Central Mission chaplain came in and we sat silently as he offered a prayer and a confessional to those that chose such things.

We left for our rooms at the end of the evening.

I watched Alyonka walking down the corridor following the rest of our crew. I studied her gait, watching her form as she walked. The utilitarian uniform aside, her butt was just a butt and no longer appealed. It was just … another butt.

"Goodnight, Commander," I said, passing her door.

"Sean, stop," she whispered. "I enjoyed the whiskey night with you, and I mean what I say then."

"I know."

"Yes? You do?"

"Yes, Aly, I do. Just … give me some⁠—"

"Time?" she interrupted. "Okay, Commander. I give you plenty time."

She'd lost her fluency again, and I noticed it. She closed her door in my face. She was pissed.

Women .

January 8, 2065

Unlike the departure from Mars, our departure from Earth was managed by dozens of medical specialists who were far less concerned with comfort than Aly had been with my crew as they shoved tubes into every bit and piece and scraped hair off various parts of my back, chest, and limbs for electrodes.

Also, unlike the previous departures from Earth, there was barely any illumination at the launchpad. Three of us at a time stepped into the gantry elevator where we were met by technicians who strapped us into our seats. I was the last to board. Once I was settled, the temporary catwalk was withdrawn through the hatch, and the big door was closed. Sixteen icons on an auxiliary screen changed from red to green, indicating every latch had fully engaged its mating hasp. Nitrogen was then pumped into the chamber to test for leaks and to displace all the oxygen. We were fully dependent on the life support units to oxygenate our suits.

The cover story for the launch was that it was an unmanned mission to deploy a second satellite in orbit of Venus.

Commander Sabratova was lead for the departure and checked in with Central Mission Launch Control.

"Discontinuation of consciousness begins now. Launch window is clean and assured. God speed, Orion One."

"Acknowledged," Commander Sabratova replied.

I felt the tingle, and knew we'd be unconscious for one hundred thirty-two days, if not forever.

Sol 3, Mission Time: 07:17

Alright, I have to admit I fibbed earlier.

I mentioned how arrival in orbit of or in the weak gravity of Mars meant we'd be ready to go on Sol 1, but no. That wasn't entirely accurate. It was only to mean we wouldn't be so weakened that we couldn't function or walk or whatnot. The drugs which keep us unaware of the boring and psychosis-inducing span of time don't stop all biological processes such as hair growth and the sloughing of the epidermis.

Men always awaken with months' worth of facial hair and count it as a mark of masculinity. Though certainly not as pronounced, women awaken with excess hair as well, and none I'd worked with found that particular aspect to be at all agreeable, present company included. Of course, everyone, both male and female, awakens with hairy legs and armpits. It was frighteningly disorienting the first time I went to sleep with a clean-shaven face, a crew cut, and manicured nails to awaken what felt like mere moments later with hair almost eight centimeters long and facial hair long enough that much of it was in my mouth. My fingernails were almost an inch long.

Even more disgusting is that every human body sheds. It sheds hair, skin, and dried sebaceous material over months. It's trapped in the suit. And it … well, the aroma isn't adequately dealt with by the air recirculation system when we take them off. Gags were only avoided by professionalism as Commander Sabratova assisted each of us in awakening. To put it succinctly, the human body is simply revolting when it hasn't bathed in months.

It was my and Simi's third mission to Mars, so we were a little more inured to it, but it was only the second for the four others. Commander Sabratova's professional objectiveness in tending to each of us in sequence awed me, especially how she dealt with what was classified as a minor malfunction.

We have to be strapped securely into our seats before launch to prevent maneuvers from causing injury, but no one is conscious to release the significant tension once it's no longer necessary. Approximately six hours after launch, armatures in the harness anchors are supposed to relax so we could essentially float unrestricted in the inflated space within our suits. The reason for that is so what are best described as bedsores don't set in.

Simi's left ankle restraint didn't fully relax, and he had painful wounds as a result. Just another thing for Alyonka to deal with, and she did so with aplomb.

It took a full two sols to shake off the aftereffects of DoC. Cedric estimated we jettisoned a pound of material which was removed from our suits during decontamination. Added to that was what we removed from our bodies by shaving and trimming our overgrown hair. It was all compressed into a capsule the size of a loaf of bread which was fired pneumatically from the vessel into a decaying orbit. It would burn up in the thin Martian atmosphere later.

I've never met a soul that doesn't enjoy a nice hot shower. No one enjoys them more than a recently awakened astronaut. Of course, not having gravity makes for an interesting experience. The "shower" aboard the ship provides less than a liter per minute of warm water, and warm laminar "downward"-flowing air propels the droplets to the "drain" where it is then osmotically filtered, sterilized, and recirculated. But damn does it still feel fantastic!

Once everyone was fully fit, we began the tasks assigned. Central tasked and commanded our craft to intercept the orbiters to determine their condition. The first would pass close underneath us in six Earth hours.

It didn't. Nor did the second or third. In all of their orbits, we encountered only debris.

Then came the fourth, which was the one which captured unusual images. It was still mostly intact, but it was missing several panels. The Hyper-D system wasn't designed for closeups, so we shot numerous photographs using a near-field camera.

"Commander," Aly spoke, "how should we report this?"

"Demolished? Sabotaged?" I replied. "I will send a report with the images."

"Very well."

An hour later, we received Central's reply. "Orion One, Central. Receiving data now. Get some rest. We will realign your orbit for surveillance tracks in approximately two hours, mark time on your receipt. Secure for maneuvering."

"Central, Orion One. Understood."

There was no need to relay the message to the crew. The interior of our craft, though not uncomfortably cramped, was small enough that everyone could hear the exchange.

"Okay, everyone, you heard the boss," I said. "Ayani-san, are you feeling better?"

"Hai , Commander. Thank you," she answered with a sheepish smile.

Though all six of us awakened reasonably healthy, this mission was the only time Shizuka had awakened in zero gravity for a significant duration. She became severely nauseated. With approval from CM Medical Division, Alyonka gave her an injection of promethazine which quickly had her squared away. We spent the hour latching everything down before the maneuvering thrusters would begin firing to change our orbital dynamics so an errant object wouldn't inadvertently become a dangerous projectile.

About a half hour after we'd strapped ourselves in, we were bumped and jostled around for a solid ninety seconds.

Once telemetry confirmed it was stable, we were advised by CM that our nearly polar orbit would canvas the planet in two sols, ensuring over ninety-five percent of the surface would be imaged in daylight hours.

We had little to do other than monitor the operation of the HDIS.

Though the data link back to Earth was fast, it'd take almost seven sols to transmit the imagery, so the planners instead commanded the computer to send several key frames, then they could command it to send whichever sequences would be most useful.

We passed the time by reviewing contingency plans and drilling various scenarios. I could tell Ayani-san was, indeed, feeling much better because she was in the groove. We also spent time eating. And eating. Mercy. I wished an option had been apple pie.

Sol 6, Mission Time: 21:31

The lights inside our spacecraft illuminated, and a repetitive alert sounded from the communications station. I watched as Aly unzipped her sling and extricated herself from it. She nudged a bulkhead with her toes to propel her to the console.

She read the display. She pivoted to return, but, observing my eyes were open, she gestured to me to join her, and I did.

"Eto ne khoroshiye novosti ," she whispered.

"Chto ne tak ?" I quietly asked.

"I heard that!" Simi said.

I heard four more zippers being rapidly disengaged as everyone drew near.

I read the message, and quickly realized we had a situation for which we had not developed contingencies.

"Oh, fuck no," Cedric moaned after reading the message on the screen. "What the hell are we going to do now, Commanders?"