Breach of Conduct

Unfortunately, that left Taga somewhere in the way and he wasn't willing to risk that. So, no option one.

Option two was to negotiate using the ship as a bargaining chip. He had already disposed of the crewman aboard upon entry. One single round to the head from behind while he was at the coffee machine in the mess. Enn had waited over half an hour to get that one without damaging any necessary equipment or alerting the offboard crew members. Despite having control of the ship, it didn't offer him much of an advantage.

No matter which was he looked at it, if he reneged on the agreement, they'd shoot Taga and try to blast their way out.

Option three was a long shot, but it offered him the best chance at complete success or failure. He'd achieve complete surprise if he was able to get roof access and the reserve filter opened up for use. The sensor would read all clear despite there being a hole in the filter. A giant hole in the middle big enough for me to crawl through.

He let a wide grin come to his face. Whatever spark in the Void that made perfect ideas come to the undeserving, it had smacked him in the head like a shooting star. He could slip right into the station without tripping any security systems. Even if he tore the thing apart, it would just tell the crew 'no assassins here' and keep on with its faulty reporting.

He reached the ladder and started to climb, hauling his suit up around him like a lead sack strapped to his neck. Even with his muscles working far beyond optimal capacity, he was still having trouble. Normally, he would actually have some assistance with movement from his suit as it took information from the black skinsuit fitted to his body. Right now, both weighed about eighty kilos and wanted to keep him grounded in the most literal sense.

His head crested the top of the roof and he warily took in his surroundings. A mounted turret stood at each corner, tracking side to side in rigid, factory setting arcs. He studied them for a while, hooking am arm in the ladder rungs to hold him in place with less effort.

They hadn't noticed him yet, it appeared. He checked his suit's functions again. He'd purged even emergency power, leaving him with dead weight. It was a much as he could do without unjuicing the solar cell batteries. Even without any activated electronics, the batteries still held a charge. He was unsure if the magnetic charge in the air due to the ferric dust particles was enough to hide him.

With no other options, he hefted himself onto the roof and committed to a low crouch, drawing both pistols. If something decided he was a suitable target, he'd shoot first and hope not to get shot. Seconds ticked by. Two. Then five. Then ten.

Nothing.

Enn released a breath he didn't know he was holding and stood up. The turrets remained silent, marking their patrol arcs with rigid, mechanical sweeps. As the soldier strode across the roof with as light of footfalls as he could manage.

The suit was making him ache. He could feel his breathing starting to hasten with declining oxygen levels. With the filtration systems inside the suit deactivated, he had nothing but the trickle of air he'd set up from the compression tank to work with. Now that was starting to wane as CO2 from his efforts started to collect in the confined space.

At the bay doors, Enn was able to make out the engraved '5' on the center of one. Beside it, he sat down and tried to calculate how long he had until his fresh air supply was gone.

He hoped it was long enough for Taga to figure out how to get the bay doors open.

Every plan has a linchpin, he reminded himself. And yours is a three-meter alien that sweats as much as she eats. Shouldn't take long.

Enn had resorted to meditation by the time the bay doors opened.

He felt the powered mechanisms crank to life, driving out innumerate granules of sand from the last time they were put to use. The sudden vibration snapped Enn out of his stupor, sending him through a number of panicked reflexes that ultimately resulted in a sidearm finding his palm.

He brought his breathing back under control. Likely, he had only minutes to go before he was slowly losing consciousness. There had to be a clean entry. None of the standard 'drop in and roll' stuff. He had to maintain the element of surprise. Clunking around upstairs was not the method of entry that would achieve this.

Enn stood, examining the hole he was to fit through with some skepticism. It looked big enough for him, sure, but it was almost dead center. The only way to get to it without damaging the rest of the structure and potentially tripping the faulty sensor, was to go straight through it.

That required him to jump.

His weak legs told him that wasn't an option in this suit. Even if he could make it flawlessly through, there was the issue of coming down harder than a meteor trying to land a longer designation. That would get him noticed for sure.

He was running out of time. In a few minutes the inside of the station would be filled with fine dust and they'd shut the bay doors. He had to act. He-

Enn set both pistols down and started to remove his suit. This was the only way. He could make the jump and have a quiet landing. It was only a meter into the hole. Everything after that was easy. A meter and a half straight down, land on both feet, drop to four limbs. Easy.

Easy.

By the time he managed to get his boots off, he felt naked. Venting all his air supply into his helmet at once did wonders for his lungs, but it was only going to last for about thirty seconds. Everything felt visceral. He could actually feel the sand beating against his skinsuit. His heart beat in his throat. His hands tingled, a pistol gripped in each of them. The makeshift belt holding his stun grenades tugged at his waist as the grenades caught the wind.

Now or never. Just go.

Enn jumped.

His entry was less than desirable. Despite going through the hole in the center of the filter, its electrified magnetic filaments grabbed at his belt and pulled him to one side hard enough to throw him off course. Instead of going straight in, he lurched to the right, made it through, and then came down on a foot, knee, and hand.

Rolling, he felt both legs give out and a strain go through him that rivaled the time he pulled a muscle in his groin. He held a breath to make sure there was nothing broken. His leg hurt, but it appeared to be working nominally. The rest of him was alright.

Dragging himself to his feet, the soldier pressed on as quietly as possible across the airflow deck to the repair rack. Closing the door behind him, he finally took his helmet off and took in a long breath of tepid, dusty air.

Void, he could almost taste the oxygen. He sat down in the darkest corner he could find and decided it was finally time to rest. He was inside. That's what mattered the most. Anything could happen from here, but at least he was going to survive long enough to actually die fighting. He took in another long, slow breath and felt the shakes coming on.

This was it. He could wait long enough to be sure they hadn't heard him or take the fight downstairs. The sooner things came to a head, the better. He wasn't going to be in fighting shape for much longer.

He felt an ebbing adrenaline dump resurge, probably for the last time. He made it this far on successive surges of adrenaline, fear, and a combat stimulant on the Carthago Novum. All of those were effectively propping him up, with waning effects. He needed to get this done. He had to.

His feet moved in almost perfect silence. Before he could think, before any thought could dissuade him from a course of action, he moved. Six years of campaigning across the Eastern Fringe allowed his body to decide before his mind could accept it was being taken along for the ride. Fear set aside, he moved.

Down the ladder, listening to the air filtration system close itself off at the command of the intruders downstairs. Enn stepped to the floor and crouched, listening for movement.

"...this fucking sand everywhere! How in the-"

"Be quiet."

"Hey, rilo. Where's a cleaning bot? A sucker robo."

"Go to the thing there. Toggle the cleaning function," Taga said. "Just let 'em do their thing."

"That's the last time we listen to this fucking taka-nour. Void, it's in my uniform."

"Fuck this, I'm going back to the ship."

"Stay where you are. The other combatant can only make his move if we allow him to. Stay here and wait."

"We haven't heard a fucking thing! The ship even made a remote scan of the area! No electronics outside. Not even a significant body of mass for over a kilometer in any direction! He's holed up in the fucking shelter or whatever it was where he dusted our crew!"

"Stay here."

"Fuck you!"

Enn moved to the end of the hallway, passing the bunkrooms on his left. He took two of the stun grenades off and set their fuses for two seconds. He focused everything he had into seeing the throw through. He saw it once. Twice.

The third time, his hand scooped up both grenades and tossed them, depressing the arming keys as he did. Ducking back, he heard a duo of surprised grunts and then the pressure gradient increased by a factor of ten. His ears rang.

Enn ducked around the corner with both pistols drawn, coming onto a scene concerningly composed. Across the room, a man was on his feet with a chair pushed over next to him, gun in hand. At the chambered door, three others looked mildly dazed, but otherwise in good order.

Enn fired at the man across the room, clipping him in the shoulder before he dropped to one knee and rolled, firing at Enn. A blur of motion saw him enveloped in a tangle of orange limbs.

The soldier turned his second gun on the trio by the door, but they too were already in motion. One of them raised a rifle in response, snapping off a shot at Enn's face. It caught him behind the ear. Enn barely felt it. Time felt as if it was slowing down.

The other two men abandoned the scene, ducking through the chambered door as it opened at the command of a fist slammed into its emergency release button. Enn managed to hit the rifleman, feeling something pass across his forearm like a surgeon's blade.

The rifeman fell, pushing himself back through the open door behind him, assisted by his comrades. They closed the door in a hurry, foregoing all environmental gear in their haste. Enn shifted his attention to the remaining threat, but found he was too late to continue.

Taga held the man's jaw and bloody strips of attached flesh in one hand, growling deep in the back of her throat. Under her, what had once been a human being was now a pile of mush and broken bones, sputtering spasmodically in the throes of traumatic injury shock. She stomped on his neck once, grinding her bare foot into his ruined flesh.

Enn drew up less than a meter away from her, watching the rilo's handiwork with mild interest. The exhilaration and energy of the firefight was bleeding out of him faster than the blood from his forearm. Everything had only lasted a handful of seconds: a surprise, a few short exchanges, and then Taga ripping half a man's face off. That was it. And now here they were, without serious injury. Alive.

He looked up at her and she snarled at him ferociously, only centimeters away from his face, breath hot and heavy across his cheeks.

Enn didn't know who initiated their kiss. He didn't know what drove him to continue it either. But in the coming seconds, the human felt his back against the floor and limbs wrap around him in a tight embrace. His own hands made themselves comfortable on Taga's neck and shoulder, gripping her as hard as humanly possible.

He had never been so ready for anything in his life. Despite the last harrowing five hours, the stabbings, the makeshift drill-gun, commandeering a ship, nearly suffocating, an actual unarmored gunfight, everything: it felt right. All the tension bled out of him as Taga's hands pulled his skinsuit apart, snapping the membrane around the zipper and yanking the teeth apart with unyielding strength. She had it off faster than he thought possible.

The alien's own meager clothing followed suit in two swift motions. Soon, they were shifting awkwardly against each other, scrabbling around for whatever purchase they could find on the other's skin. Enn's vision blurred and he blinked hard, fighting the dark spots fading in and out of the corner of his vision.

"I think I'm gonna black out," he said breathlessly, pushing Taga's tongue back into her own mouth with a groan. Something slick and warm greeted his erection momentarily and the rilo let out a deep and guttural noise that sent a chill down the human's throat and then back up through his spine.

"Hold on," she breathed, wrapping him up in her arms. She stood him up and he almost collapsed against the wall, leaning on it for support. He watched Taga disappear into the cold box and then return with a small container. She picked out a syringe, gave Enn a decidedly arousing look, and then stabbed him in the ass with it.

In seconds, his entire body felt like it was going to explode. He trembled with something more than energy and excitement. It was like he'd never lived up to this moment, like life was just a mirror's reflection of itself against what actually waited for him. Here. This was real.

Enn pushed Taga back and over the couch with strength that he shouldn't have possessed. He landed on top of her, pinning one of her arms to the back of the couch with his own while its partner held him up. Her own free hand guided their sexes together and the second he felt them connect he lost himself in it.

Covered in sand and blood, exhausted, riding the wave of military-grade stimulants, Enn gave Taga everything he had in his being. He could feel his body protest, but only just. He wanted this. He wanted more of this than he could ever have. Eighty-two days in this hotbox of alien hormones and back and forth teasing. This was the end of it.

Taga was the first to break. In a series of strange, throaty rasps, she begged him to keep going, balling a fist against his back so tight that she broke skin. It only fueled him to return the favor, biting down on her neck hard enough to make her voice break.

A few more seconds saw him holding her just as tight as something hit him between the eyes and spread back through his skull. Like a meltwash of ecstasy, he let it drain all the way down from his head to the ends of his toes, gasping in ragged breaths as Taga moaned weakly. The strength ebbed out of him as fast as it had come. The frantic minutes had taken him as far as his body would allow, even juiced up on the finest stimulant cocktail bar could buy.

The rilo craned her neck to look at him as he released his jaw, tasting something unfamiliar. They shared something unspoken and he raised his mouth to hers. Her grip on him slackened. He was still hard.

------------

"So you write poetry in your free time?" she asked, tracing the underside of his erection with one finger. The texture of her fingertips still took some getting used to, but it did the job.

Enn shrugged. "Sometimes. I like riddles too. I try to write them down because for whatever reason it gets locked in better than way."

"For a soldier, you're not as uninspired as I thought you'd be."

Enn smiled. "Well, for a rilo, you're not nearly as unfriendly as I thought you'd be."

Taga snorted, letting her finger circle his glans a few times teasingly. "Unfriendly. Yeah, that pretty well describes most of us. We keep to our own."

"Glad you didn't though."

"Me too. What a shame to miss out on this. I didn't think humans could keep up the way you have."

Enn beamed. "Like I could resist. You know how fucking horny I've been since I got here? I've been having sex dreams about you for over forty days."

"Have you really?" Taga asked in a tone that suggested she was more curious than surprised. "Was it me you've been thinking about when you give yourself a good time at night, when you think I'm asleep?"

"Yeah..." Somehow, despite having his dick in her hand, it felt like he was admitting to something wrong. Telling someone you'd used them as masturbatory material wasn't the most socially-acceptable conversation piece.

"Every time you knocked one out, I wanted to come in there and ride you like the storm out there. That smell," she dipped her finger against his glans and drew away and sticky strand of fluid from the tip. "This smell; it drives me wild. Rilo have a really strong sex drive, even compared to you. You know how hard it was to be satisfied with fingers for eighty-three days when you were waving this thing in my face from day one?"

"How about I wave it somewhere else?" he asked huskily.

Enn leaned into her chest and inhaled deeply. Whatever scent she was putting off, he was definitely getting to like it. More than he probably should. He felt his heart start beating harder as the prospect of another round with Taga resurfaced.

This time, in her bunk, it'd be a little less...impromptu. The first three times before he passed out had been something wild and otherworldly. He could use something a little slower now. A hand went down to meet her arousal and found what it was looking for. He pushed three fingers into her body and she clamped her jaw shut, pulling her scalp back with a look of tight control in her features.

"You want to try this again already?"

"If I didn't keep almost passing out I would already be on top of you. I want to sleep so bad, but I can't stop myself."

"We've got tranquilizers, you know," Taga replied, gesturing to the box of medical supplies at their feet. "I can knock you out for a while if you want."

"One more time." Enn rolled the rilo onto her back and she flattened out against the sheets, letting him to as he pleased. He replaced his hand with his arousal and they both gasped as he buried himself inside her. She grabbed the edges of the bunk and rolled herself against him in waves, matching his gentle pace.

This time, his pace was smooth, letting him feel everything with distinct pleasure. Taga bent her head to his and breathed down the side of his neck sensually.

"This is new for me, Enn. Rilo don't do this."

The human cradled his head against her shoulder, giving her a series of kisses ending at the base of her throat. "Humans don't push a rilo to the sheets either. Took a lot to get me this far into unknown space."

They rocked together in a circular rhythm until Enn came, hoarsely panting as he emptied himself into her wordlessly. She held him, sighing quietly as he relaxed against her firm, cool body. He felt two distinct heartbeats inside her, one with his cock and one with his face. Or maybe one of those was his? Did rilo have two hearts?

------------

"Do it. Just- I don't wanna stop yet," Enn negotiated. "I can do it."

Taga pursed her orange lips. "Look at you; that can't be okay."

She cast a hand toward his throbbing cock, drawing attention to the large purple smear that was a network of bruises across his pelvis. Not only had he managed to hump his way into an injury, it was beginning to become a set of compounding ones. His leg still hurt from falling through the air filter three days ago, but he ignored it. The stimulants and metabolic injections kept him in good order.

"It'll be fine. Nothing's broken." He grabbed the back of Taga's neck and brought her face down to the point of objection. "Take a closer look and tell me if you think I can't do this."

Taga hesitated.

That was all Enn needed. She was going to cave if he kept pushing. All he had to do was keep up the pressure. Try something new and adventurous. He saw the syringe in her hand, still ready to go.