As Above, So Below

"Brenna?" you hear a familiar voice but then you are stumbling backwards and your foot misses the floor. You fall backwards out into the empty vacuum of space.

You are screaming, falling backwards as limited artificial gravity jerks you out and down into the open space and swinging you in an arc adjacent to the outer wall of the station.

You flail, grasping at the metal surface, your gloved fingertips barely brushing it. You twist in space, and can see the opening where you fell - Jasper is shouting and Malix is still gushing red smoke.

DONK! A meteor strikes your helmet and you hear a hiss of escaping air. You tumble, falling head over heels, down the side of the station, bouncing here and there on the panels.

RIPP!! Another meteor punches a whole in the shoulder of your suit and you feel the cold start to seep in.

Thinking fast, you snatch your ReelNet and fire at the fast approaching strut sticking out into the vast unknown. The glowing yellow energy snaps into existence just ahead of you creating a stunning web bridging the strut to the station.

You slam into it, the paralyzing energy sizzles through your suit, frying some of the internal mechanisms but the web holds.

For a moment, all you can hear is the pounding of your heart in your chest and the tale-tell hiss of air escaping your suit.

Finally, you begin to move, slowly, muscles taut, as the paralytic effect of the net is someone neutralized by the suit. With much effort, you are able to get your right hand free and pull yourself down the strut towards the nearby hatch. It's slow going, the web entangling your legs, but you are desperate. You haul yourself, hand over hand, till you reach the gear mechanism, pumping the wheel until it pops up with an explosive rush of escaping air.

You flop inside, heaving on the hatch till it closes behind you and slump to the floor.

"Fucking hell." You gasp. You fumble with the latch and pop your helmet off, tasting the cold metallic air.

The mechanisms inside the suit flutter uselessly and finally shut off. You thumb your comm but it gives a sickly electronic warble before shutting off.

With a heavy sigh, you pick yourself up, groaning at your new bruises and look around your space.

It's a dimly lit room - residential quarters?

There's a bed, an oddly shaped triangle table that looks bolted to the ground, and a handful of cubby hole lockers up against the far wall. You make your way over to the double doors on the far side of the room. You give them a tug but they refuse to budge.

Rattle! One of the lockers starts to shutter and bang from the inside. You whip out your ReelNet expecting something to leap out, but there's nothing but silence.

Can you take a deep breath, and turn back to the door. Bang! The locker slams open and red smoke pours out in a flood.

"Yeeeeeeaaaghhhh!!" You shout, firing off a net into the mist. It passes through without a second thought.

The red mist coalesces in front of you forming itself into the shape of a man. Jerome Kerr.

"Brenna?" His voice sounds distorted and distant. "Are you there?"

"yes?" you answer, unsure if this is a trick or an illusion or some fever dream brought on by the radiation.

The red smoke figure turns to someone over his shoulder.

"I've made contact!" He says with some of his boyish enthusiasm.

"Where are you?" Jerome asks.

"Uh..." You fumble for an answer. "In space? Where are you? How are you doing this?"

Jerome furrows his brow. "Stay where you are." You look around lamely, you are literally locked inside a room.

Jerome's form shifts and reforms, getting wider and a little shorter, forming into the familiar shape of your husband.

"Hey cutie," Ryan says. "Long time, no see."

" Oh sweetheart." The tears rise unbidden in your eyes.

" Is everything OK?" You ask.

"That's my line." He says and even with the distortion and the strange ever shifting clouds of red smoke, you can feel his warm smile on your cheeks. He continues on,

"The kids are fine. Silas is actually doing his homework these days, and Rianna can't wait to go to preschool each morning, although I think that's because she gets to drive with dada."

"How..." your voice cracks, "how long has it been?"

"Only a couple of weeks. I've taken a leave of absence from work and it's okay. The kids miss you, hell, I miss you." His form shifts a bit in the red smoke, "Is Michael with you?"

"No, but I'm getting close. I know it." The ever-moving fog makes it hard to read his face but Ryan's words are clear.

"Bring him home safe, sweetheart. But most importantly, bring you home safe, okay?"

"I will, I promise. I love you." You reach out and he smokey fingers touch yours, cold and viscous, like sea foam.

"I love you too babe." and with that, the mirage collapses, the red smoke dissipating along the floor.

"Fuck." You mutter, taking off your glove and wiping away your hot tears with the back of your hand.

Your hand, you look at it. It feels itchy and strange, like something hot just under the skin. Theta radiation, you remember, suddenly quite conscious of your body. You do feel strange, off somehow.

CLANG! You hear a banging distantly through the station, coming closer.

"Hey! I'm in here!" You shout, banging on the sealed door. "Malix?! Jasper?! I'm stuck in here!"

The door bursts open, knocking you to the ground. Gray feet stomp into the room and scramble backwards, looking up in horror as Tombstone swaggers into the room. He's traded out his military style fatigues for a spacesuit vest that leaves all four of tree truck sized arms exposed. His gray bald head is fixed with a permanent scowl.

"YOU!" Tombstone bellows. He turns sideways, glaring at a man in a black coat behind him. "WHERE ARE MALIX AND JASPER?!"

The man, rakish fellow with ragged clothes and a short black hat, clutches a small device in his hand.

"Sorry, the radiation is making everything go haywire here." He thumps the device a few times against the wall before looking up at you.

"Chief, who's the hottie?" He leers at you, thumbing his ear and humming softly.

"Trouble, if you don't leave me the fuck alone!" You say with all the venom you can muster, brandishing your ReelNet.

"Is that... is that a fishing rod?" the man in the black hat asks, incredulous. Tombstone laughs, a big huffing noise that makes you scared and angry at the same time.

"THAT'S THEIR WHORE. PAY HER NO MIND. THE BOYS ARE ALL THAT MATTER." He says.

"I wouldn't mind paying her a little mind, if you catch my drift." The man says edging closer to you. You point the ReelNet at him.

"Stay the hell away..." before you can even finish your sentence, you feel a ringing blow to the side of your head as Tombstone extends one of his impossibly large hands and smacks you to the ground. Your ReelNet goes clattering away.

In a flash, the man draws his laser pistol, a little green dot flicks on and traces a lazy circle around your right nipple.

"Easy does it darlin'." The man says. "No need to get temperamental. I'm just looking for a little unpaid fun from your line of work, it's been a long flight out here."

Tombstone shrugs, giving a big huff. "DO WHAT YOU LIKE, THETUS, BUT BE QUICK ABOUT IT. ME AND LX84 WILL CONTINUE INWARD."

"Splendid." He gives a wide grin and advances towards you. "Now then, show me the goods."

You look around, mind racing but he's watching you like a hawk.

"Now now, none of that. Off with the top. Let's see what you've got. I'd hate to have to laser that sweet face of yours right off."

Reluctantly, you reach up, unlatching the top of the space suit and pulling apart the synthetic tabs revealing your thin blue shirt, a purchase from Twee Bon; the desert fabric providing little protection from the cool recycled station air.

"Take it off, all of it." Thetus orders, shrugging off his own black coat, but keeping the gun level with your body.

You grab the bottom of your shirt and haul it over your head, revealing your full chest. You hear him suck in his breath at the sight of you.

"Go on, give them a righteous tug." He says. You pull at your nipples, already hard in the cool air and feel a shudder of pleasure ripple through your body. Fuck. The adrenaline of the situation, the heat of his eyes, you feel yourself getting wet. You clamp your lips shut to suppress a moan but he sees. He knows.

"Keep going, the bottoms too." He indicates with the laser pistol, using his other hand to fish a surprisingly thick cock out of his breeches. It's full, engorged and jutting straight out. His fingers can barely wrap all the way around it as he strokes himself slowly, eyes locked on your body.

You push down the bottom half of the space suit and with it, the loose fitting leggings leaving you just in some narrow white panties - another holdover from Twee Bon. You slowly slide them down over your hips and let them fall to the floor.

His eyes drink you in and you see his cock swell, the tip leaking precum as his fingertips trace a gentle path to the tip and back to the base of the shaft.

"Get on your back and touch yourself, whore." He says. "I want to see you cum." His voice is thick with lust.

You awkwardly clamber onto the floor, keeping your clothes underneath you to provide some protection from the cold metal surface and self-consciously spread your legs. Looking down, you can see him between them, moving close, watching intently.

As you reach down, your fingers tracing their familiar patterns around your clit, your already excited sex beginning to swell and your breath coming in short, your mind races as you try to think of a way out. You needed to get that laser pistol away from him.

Fuck, this feels good. His eyes are blazing as he comes close, his intense features entirely focused on your sex. You moan, arching your back as the pressure builds inside you.

One one hand strumming your clit, you grab your own breast, twisting the nipple roughly and are rewarded by a moan above you.

"Fuck, you dirty girl." Thetus climbs down between your legs, his cock still in his hands. You try and clamp your legs shut but he sets his pistol down and prys them apart with his strong hands.

You reach for his gun but he is on you, pinning your shoulders with one arm and rubbing his cock against your wet slit with the other.

Your whole body shudders as you feel the warm, blunt head slide along your wet folds.

"Uhgnnnn," you moan, unable to control yourself. You are too stimulated, too far gone.

"That's right, take it inside you, slut." he mutters in your ear, his hips rocking against you, grinding the head against your clit with short little jabs before lifting his hips up and preparing to push it all the way inside.

You lock eyes with him, biting your lip. The foreplay is too much, the force of him pinning you to the ground, your hips roll traitorously up to meet him, eager to welcome his thick cock deep within their depths.

"Fuck, you are tight," he slowly pushes the cockhead inside your warm depths. "Just what I nee..." and he's gone.

You look up in shock as an enraged Jasper hurls Thetus across the room like a rag doll. He goes tumbling into the wall where he scrambles to pull up his boxers and leap for his pistol at the same time.

SZZZERAPP!! The pistol explodes into a twisted smoking heap of metal as Malix blasts it from the door.

Jasper is leaning over you, his eyes deep wells of concern.

"Brenna, are you okay?" He gently helps you sit up as you start to come to your senses. You nod, not trusting your voice right now.

"You fucking monster!" Jasper bellows, turning to Thetus, his balling his fists into bowling ball sized wrecking balls. He advances on the sniveling tracker, who is trying his best to crawl his way inside a locker. "I'm going to fucking murder you!"

"There's no time dude, we've got to go! This whole place is going tits up in 15 minutes!" Malix shouts. You've got the remains of your space suit on by now and retrieve your ReelNet from where it fell. Jasper remains unmoved, eyes still filled with violence and rage.

"Fifteen minutes, eh?" You say, finally finding the ability to speak.

BOWWOwowwowssss! You fire off a glowing yellow net pinning Thetus in place. "There." You say. "He's not going anywhere."

"Come on!" Malix shouts and finally Jasper moves towards the door, the three of you scrambling down the hallway.

"Okay, what's going on," you shout. The emergency lights are flickering and somewhere distantly, you hear the creaking, groaning of metal.

"Um... we've destabilized the gravity generator on the station and this whole wreck is going to rip itself apart in less than fifteen minutes." Malix explains in a rush. "And we may have unmoored Tombstone's ship from the station."

"Oh shit." You say.

"When you fell," Jasper explains. "I space walked after you and that's when we saw Tombstone's ship. From there we knew we needed to find you and get the fuck out as soon as possible."

"But what about your stash? The rainy day fund?" You ask as the three of you round the corner, clamoring up a series of ladders at breakneck speed.

"That's the great thing." Malix said. "Without Tombstone, no debt. No debt, no need for a stash!"

"I think it is time for us to seek out alternative financial partners." Jasper says, helping you off the ladder as you reach the airlock to Dragon Fucker 7. "Don't you agree?"

"Absolutely." You say.

The three of you race back inside your ship, sealing the airlock and piling into the cockpit. Malix fires the maneuvering thrusters and punches the engines, soaring away from the crumbling station. You watch out the porthole as the shredded wreck starts to break apart, swiftly getting buried and obscured by the surrounding asteroids.

But in a few more moments, you are racing out of sight at top speed. You heave a heavy sigh and then feel Jasper's large arms folding around you, a soothing presences calming your noisy mind.

"Are you okay?" He asks for the second time. You lean back, feeling his chest rise and fall with his breath.

"Not quite," you say. "Can you take me to bed?" He looks down at you with a smile.

"Of course Brenna."

And he did.

###

The space port at the edge of the Abhaile Cluster was a small thing, barely able to dock more than two ships at a time. Behind the station, the remains of the shattered super planet float in the primordial soup of atmosphere, plasma and ionized particles creating a dazzling array of planetoids and endless sunsets.

Both boys tried to keep it light as they saw you off at the space port, but especially after the tender night last night, a treasured memory where you spent the time nestled between their hard bodies, limbs entangled and kisses neverending, they seemed unwilling to let you go.

Finally, with another round of kisses and hugs, and a promise that they would stop by this space port again after they made their delivery in a few days, just in case, they retreated to their ship and departed.

You looked out on the shifting lights and colors of the Abhaile Cluster, and then down to the faintly pulsing ruby bracelet on your wrist. Michael was out there, you could feel it and for the first time, you felt like he was near. Like you could reach out and touch him.

It had been such a long trip, from the moment you stepped through that portal in the Hotel Murano to now but strangely, you aren't tired.

Something has shifted, grown, deep inside you. You aren't filled with fear, worry or anxiety as much anymore. You feel stronger in ways you didn't know were possible.

The trip to Twee Bon, the journey from there to here, it has fortified you. You feel... aligned with your purpose and now you are ready, with a clear heart and focused mind, to find Michael and bring him home where he belongs.

Squaring your shoulders, you take a deep breath and hike your travel bag onto your shoulder, making your way along the narrow promenade to inquire about a solar skiff.

The Story will continue in...

The Great Beyond